I’m not really one for religion. I wasn’t raised in a church, and I’ve always leaned more toward energy than dogma. toward sunsets and serendipity more than sermons. But in the last few months, I’ve found myself believing in something bigger than me. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say… I’ve started belonging to something bigger than me. Something in the universe. A rhythm I can’t explain, but one I’ve finally started (line) dancing to instead of resisting.
When I first came to California, I was completely lost. Empty tank. No map. I felt so low I couldn’t imagine what “better” even looked like. But somehow, despite it all, something here called to me. Not a voice exactly, but a pull. Something said: stay.
I remember being given a simple suggestion:
No matter what you believe in, write down what you need help with. Call it a prayer. Call it manifestation. Call it sending smoke signals into the sky. Just write it.
So I did.
In early April, I scribbled down something that went like this:
Please help me calm my mind. Let the best path for me present itself. Help me find a way to stay in this city, afford this life in just the ways I need in order to grow. I give this to you. I surrender. Show me the way forward. Please.
And last night, I read those words again. I mean really read them.
Isn’t that exactly what happened?
Not all at once, not in the ways I thought it would. But somehow, the help arrived. The path showed itself, piece by piece. Not grand and dramatic. But quietly, clearly, and just in time. I didn’t get everything I wanted… but I got everything I needed.
It made me think about the big questions I’m wrestling with now. The decisions looming over me, the forks in the road. My instinct is to muscle through it all. Grip tighter. Power forward. But rereading that sort of prayer reminded me that there’s clarity in surrender. There’s peace in not having all the answers.
Because when I try to control every outcome, I don’t feel powerful. I feel terrified. Like I’m clinging to the last few pieces of the life I thought I had. The one I thought I deserved. But the truth is, the more I death-grip what’s falling apart, the more I hold everything, including myself and others, in limbo.
So right now, I’m practicing letting go.
Letting go of ego.
Letting go of pride.
Letting go of the need to direct the whole damn movie of my life.
I’m still showing up. Still doing the work. But I’m not the director anymore. I don’t want to be. Not this time.
Because when I finally let the universe take the reins, something beautiful happens.
Not perfect. Not painless.
But beautiful.
And maybe that’s faith, not in a god, necessarily, but in the idea that I don’t have to do this alone. That I never really was.