We all experience “survival only” times of our lives; a pandemic is for sure one for them, especially when you add whatever hard thing you were already walking through.

You know you are in such a season when your heart hurts, your brain is melting, and you want to crawl under the covers for a while or move dimensions.

‘This too shall pass,’ and when it does, you can ramp up again and live your best life according to that circumstance.

For now, it’s essential to give yourself a break as much as you can.  Perhaps you have already let some things go – good for you!

I hope that you have also released the guilt of not keeping up with your regular life.

 Letting go of some of the things that seemed important before will create the space you need to heal your emotions – but only if you fully embrace having no guilt at all about doing so.

You get to choose how you survive this period.

Your core values, when boiled down, most likely don’t include many “to-dos” to execute. They are typically ways of being (loving, kindness, etc.).

So be kind to yourself and cross some more things off that to-do list, have fun doing it!

 You are divinely supported and loved. You are worthy regardless of how you handle this challenging time, so what do you want and need this next week to look like?

There are no rules here, and this is a truly personal thing. Here are some examples, though:

For the next week, I will:

• Accept less work effort from my kids. They are struggling/adapting too.
• Close doors on rooms, I release myself from cleaning during this time.
• Request help from someone.
• Reach out to support others, seek connection.
• Hide the vacuum
• Only cook and do dishes.
• Stick your hair together with dry shampoo and put it up.
• Declare kitchen as ‘self-serve’; help yourselves!

 Within each of us, we have many rules in our heads about how we would ideally prefer to live and what daily success means. Our partner has another version of those rules. Our parents had theirs, and society has many “shoulds” sprinkled on top just for fun.

 Here’s the thing, though, my love, this is your life. You can do whatever you want –for real.

 Discern what taking it down a level might look like for you in an area of your life, evaluate if it adds or decreases stress to you in making that change.

 If maintaining a higher standard is coming from pleasing others, notice that and evaluate accordingly. (Loving reminder: YOU matter).

Since you have not added the typical layer of guilt or “I am failing/I am a mess” self-talk that would be making you feel worse, you will have created the needed space for healing.

Here are some ideas to process your emotions and heal:

• Pray/meditate
• Journal out your thoughts freely about all the things.
• Take walks in nature to gain perspective and ask for spiritual support.
• Do one thing that makes you happy every day, even if it makes no sense.

And finally, please love yourself so fiercely that once you have a vision of what this could look like, speak up for it and say, “and so it is.”

You deserve to make whatever that is, happen for yourself.

 I am sending so much love to you during this time!

Joanna Peters, Coach & Author: Guiding soul weary women to heal from their painful pasts, shed shame and finally live with the peace and self-love they deserve. 

I don’t know about you but I’m kinda stubborn. Surrendering anything is super hard for me. Control in parenting, choice of paint color, anything.

The curse of the recovering perfectionist.

In addition to that personality trait, my childhood experience had me toughen up and take responsibility for things I shouldn’t have at an early age, which can be a hard habit to shake.

That type of experience also tends to have us put up some protection walls somewhere, that makes words like “vulnerability” or “surrender” be less desirable than ‘strong’ and ‘powerful”.

It feels strong and powerful to resist ‘what is’ and put up a fight.

But then we feel exhausted and overwhelmed. What if there is another way…?

It’s a little funny how I came to the ‘surrender realization’ I am talking about.

 I was not raised to be particularly spiritual. I was invited to a church in my 20s by a friend, and when I went, I felt alone and sad.

 There were people there with joy in their eyes, with peace and genuinely hugging each other hello. I knew I didn’t have what they had and I didn’t know how to get it.

 During the worship that day, my mind was wandering. I was so bored, they were singing the same verse of a song over and over again.

I was not entertained, so my mind was wandering on how I can get to the level of peace and joy that I had witnessed.

 What was I missing? What did I need to do?

The boring song was repeating that same verse over and over again..(I had such an attitude) “I sur-render. All to you. All to you”

“ I I I sur-render. All to you. All to you”…. “

As soon as it connected in my brain that I was being given my answer in the song, I had opened a teeny-weeny gap in my armor and spirit flooded into my body.

Physically feeling spirit pour into my veins, head spinning and my heart pumped with loving energy and support instantly.

Tears were coming to my eyes, although like the warrior I was, I was trying to swallow them down so no one saw or knew I was crying.

In that moment I knew it was true. There is a loving force, I am not alone. I skipped home smiling randomly at strangers because I loved them all.

I feel that powerful loving energy when any faith is praying, my Jewish and Muslim friends access the same energy. We are so loved.

I know this to the core of my being, yet there are days I feel overwhelmed and throw a tantrum. Why?

Because I am human and this surrendering thing is super hard!

We have to do it daily and our ego hates it.

If we want to BE in control (which ego does, because we feel it is in our best interests and protects us), we wind up FEELING in control and responsible – that is – to have the weight of the universe on our shoulders.

I like to call that process ‘promoting myself to managing director of the universe’. I feel responsible for the outcome of all the things around me, and get overwhelmed.

Then my thoughts escalate to things like “how am I going to get this done? Will it be good enough? Will I fail?

I continue to add more thoughts to this ever growing overwhelm, increasing my anxiety, until I remember – finally – that I am not actually the managing director of the universe. (phew!)

My job is to:

• Take my little action step, then surrender and trust.
• Trust that He (God/the Universe) is better at this than me.
• Trust that since He created the entire universe, He can probably handle my situation.
• Trust that his way will work out even better than the version I am trying to ‘strong arm’ into existence.
• Trust in His timing (my personal worst struggle, I’m so impatient).
• Breathe and trust. That’s how this whole thing works best for everyone. Especially when things on earth here are super hard, we need to do our part, then let go.

So when I remember, here is what I know to be true, and it’s the opposite to the way my brain is naturally wired –

The hardest thing possible for a human to do is to trust something, or someone enough to surrender our ego’s will.

Faith therefore takes tremendous continuous strength, not weakness.

The challenge, daily, is to quit the self-appointed position of being the managing director of the universe, in exchange for being divinely loved and supported instead.

Doesn’t seem so bad a trade when I remember.

If any of this resonated with you, I invite you to take the quiz below to determine which inner traits are currently blocking you from living in flow and connection with yourself and the universe.

Sending so much love,

Joanna Peters, Coach & Author: Guiding soul weary women to heal from their painful pasts, shed shame and finally live with the peace and self-love they deserve. 

I received this vision a while ago while I was venting to a friend in complete frustration. I knew I wanted to connect to spirit and receive more, yet “in actuality,” I vented, “I zig and zag to complete exhaustion!” – ah-ha. That felt big to understand.

When we are putting others first, it’s super common to find ourselves running from task to obligation, hoping to schedule some time to ourselves at some point “later” to recharge.

The longer we put off the connection by doing more tasks or obligations first, the worse we feel, and the larger our need becomes to rest. We then start to believe we don’t have the time to dedicate to our mental, spiritual and emotional wellness because we imagine it will take an afternoon to feel better, which we don’t have.

The misconception is that we need a large chunk of time to reconnect.

The vision I received was the zig and zag in this visual below. We are to develop the habit of weaving moments into our day to receive spiritual connection and support, thus clearing fear regularly, receiving love and support from the Divine, and promoting overall wellness.

We are not designed to do this alone!

 During these pit-stops, remind yourself to Breathe mindfully, Connect (to your body and then Spirit) and Receive (spiritual love and support).

From a reconnected state with a higher vibration, you can choose a new mindset for your next task.

The new mindset will likely feel lighter in your body and create more desirable results in your life.

Ways to open portals to connect and receive the ‘one-minute positive energy boosts’ include:

• Simply say ‘help, please reconnect me to your love and support’.
• Send up a prayer/request for support
• Listen to your favorite worship music
• Listen to any music that lights you up
• Imagine yourself being visually cleansed with white light being poured down.
• Essential oils
• Hold crystals and set intention for what you need them to do
• Put your hand on your heart and recite your favorite mindset affirmations
• Step into nature of any kind, and BE with it.  
• Cuddle a pet

Don’t leave it until you are exhausted and about to “lose it”, before you use some of these tools to support you. Or in other words:

 The Zig-Zag Method – Use it or or “lose it!” 

Sending so much love,

Joanna Peters, Coach & Author: Guiding soul weary women to heal from their painful pasts, shed shame and finally live with the peace and self-love they deserve.