Surrendering to the Slow Down
Reflections on two years in San Diego. Two years of letting go. Two years of letting life do it's thing.
I recently celebrated my two year anniversary of my move to San Diego.
Some days it feels like two weeks, some it feels like ten years.
Moving out here was one of the best life decisions to date. It’s also been one of the scariest.
It’s been a powerful practice in surrender every step of the way.
Relocating to San Diego came with a crystal clear vision. Like miners chasing gold in the 1850's, I was chasing balance & healing.
My conviction was STRONG. Breathwork & mind body spirit recovery, queer community, an ocean adjacent apartment and opportunities to hold space for breathwork were the nuggets on the horizon.
Anxiety and fear? They were just as strong, if not stronger. When they got loud, I acknowledged them and kept going. My therapist, bless her heart, helped keep me out of the spirals too.
“Shannon, remember our last in person session in March 2020? Before cancer? Before COVID? You sat in my office talking about wanting to leave NYC. This isn’t new.”
Right, yes. Not being impulsive. Following a dream. Not blowing up my life on a whim. Doing it slowly and intentionally. It’s not crazy, it’s just different.
“Shannon, your friends and family showed up for you during cancer because they love you. They want you to live your life fully and wholly. Do you really think they want you to stay here if you aren’t happy?”
Right, yes. I mean, no. They wouldn’t want that. Of course I feel guilty, I care about them. I’ll miss them. It’s not wrong, it’s just scary.
The week before I left, all systems were NOT go. My east coast goodbye tour ran my body to the ground. My car broke down on the way to urgent care. My PTSD induced chest x-ray came back clear. My car did not.
My thoughts pin-balled between “Are these signs I shouldn’t go?” and “Is this a test to stay committed to my path?”
In my body, I knew the latter to be true. In my mind, I didn’t have a fucking clue.
Full send, full surrender. I just kept going.
When I got here, vulnerability was the fuel that empowered me to sprint towards the vision.
My most intimate relationship was with my fear. It told me I was growing. It reminded me I was building the life I fought so hard to live. The vision was the light at the end of the tunnel making it all worth it.
That first year was defined by hustle culture healing. Gold star growth. It felt familiar. It kept me fired up. It kept me going.
Call it manifestation, call it work ethic, call it delusion, call it blind faith, call it intuition, call it privilege, call it coincidence, call me a dog-with-a-bone**.
Whatever you call it, the vision came to life… right around the time I celebrated my two year cancerversary***. My chance of recurrence dropped to next to nothing and the fear of recurrence I so intimately befriended went down with it.
My mind was ready to keep going, to keep building. To get clarity on the next vision.
My body and my spirit though? They were beat. They needed to slow the fuck down.
With much kicking and screaming in my mind & my psyche, my body & spirit won. They knew it was time to settle, to ground, to let go.
I settled into ease over of adrenaline. I grounded in this new and unfamiliar existence. It isn’t wrong. It’s just scary. I let go of the need to “get back to” a version of myself that no longer fits.
I settled into the support of those meeting this version of me with curiosity and compassion. I grounded in self respect while lovingly letting go of attachments that no longer fit.
I settled into work as purpose, not performance. I grounded in a foundation of service and integrity. It’s not crazy, it’s just different. I stay letting go of urgency culture and painful perfectionism and a laundry list of internalized capitalistic tendencies that no longer fit.
My second year was defined by slow and steady healing. Grueling inner growth. It felt uncomfortable. It kept me humble. It kept me going… barely.
After a particularly heavy Therapy Tuesday a few weeks ago, tension in my neck and heaviness in my chest were the messengers of my emotional exhaustion.
In an off brand turn of events, I was tired of processing, tired of my thoughts, tired of talking about my feelings.
Leaving my phone at home, I parked my ass on the beach and buried myself in a mindless Colleen Hoover novel with full meditative attention. With time, my shoulders dropped, my jaw relaxed, my chest softened. A deep knowing settled into my body. Words followed.
“You came here to heal.”
This cue didn’t come from my therapist. The call was coming from inside the house. It brought me back to the root of my move. What brought me here two years ago. What got buried under the tension in my mind and body. What was true for my spirit.
It was the nudge I needed to keep going.
Manifesting my “vision” and hitting 2 years cancer free were powerful milestones. But they didn’t mean the work was over. Quite the opposite. They were the ribbon cutting ceremony for the life I was meant to live.
The life that I gave voice to on my therapist's couch in Chelsea in March 2020. The life I was fully surrendered to in an East Village ER at Mount Sinai in September 2020.
The life that’s made its way into my consciousness with every act of surrender, big and small, since. The life that brings me home to myself by coming back to healing.
Healing isn’t getting rid of the uncomfortable feelings. It isn’t becoming someone who feels grateful all the time, bypassing emotional tangles of frustration or rage. It isn’t sprinting towards a vision with such a tight grip that you can’t make space for change. It isn’t an outcome for you to reach or a problem for you to solve. You are not a problem to solve. There’s no solution for the intensity of the human experience.
Healing is expanding your capacity to feel. It’s embracing the wholeness of your humanness. It’s getting curious with the emotions you spent years pushing down. It’s bringing compassion to your mind. It’s coming back to your body and your soul, believing they know best. It’s choosing your well-being over your conditioning, your truth over your comfort. It’s finding peace amidst the chaos and surrendering to the pain, trusting it’s the path to peace.
Healing isn’t a destination. As cliche as it all sounds, it’s a journey. It’s not linear. The gold is in the process, not the outcome. It’s messy. It’s scary. It’s freeing. It’s raw. It’s real.
These days, the vision I hold for my life stretches and contracts on the daily. Clarity and confusion come and go, ebb and flow. Despite how unnerving it can feel, that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.
The last four years have brought such insane growth beyond what 2020 Shannon could’ve ever imagined. Moments of contraction are reminders I don’t need to sprint anymore. It’s not 2020 anymore.
Surrendering to the slow down is hard enough. Life? Hard. The expectations we put on ourselves don’t need to make it harder. It’s both okay and encouraged to take it easy. The freedom is in making it easy.
Doing the work of unpacking the unprocessed liberates the dreams that got pushed down with the pain. Holding desire in one hand and detachment in the other is a delicate dance. It’s a practice in patience, in grace, in love, in letting go.
Letting them breathe is a terrifying act of self-love. It’s freeing. It’s raw. It’s real.
It’s the healing I’m here to do.
**do not call me a dog! thank you so much!
*** Data on the internet varies (naturally) but I was today years old when I learned 40-50% of people with mediastinal b-cell lymphoma relapse in their first two years. Damn. Grateful AF.