June: The Willingness to Change

...believe me, you're not just lying around if you offer yourself to the Divine. It's a shift from indulging the small self to serving the Great One. ~ Tosha Silver

I went with my sister to a reading by Tosha Silver from her new book, Change Me Prayers. She was completely delightful, tiny and warm and full of gratitude for the welcoming reception. Her first book, Outrageous Openness, was self-published in 2011 and grew through word of mouth into a much-loved success. (It’s one of my favorites.) Change Me Prayers takes her philosophy of surrender to the Divine a few steps further.

It was perfect timing for me. We’re having to sell our beautiful cabin and property on an island in Washington State, after almost twenty years of loving it. There’s the wisteria vine over the garden gate that’s as thick as a tree. The velvety carpet of moss I’ve weeded and tended for many years. The corner of the bedroom where my daughter’s crib stood. Are you getting the sense that I’m not surrendering easily to this change?

Tosha's book is full of prayers that begin, “Change me, Divine Beloved, into one who can…” and I fill in the blank: Accept this change gracefully. Easily let go of painful thoughts. Forgive. Trust that this is for the best. Release.

As opposed to the grocery-list mentality of trying to manifest what you want, which is basically ego-driven, she advocates letting go and opening yourself up to what God might want. Or, as Martha Beck puts it, seeing what “wants to happen” and working with that, not against it. And since that’s not easy to do (it’s like asking the ego to lay down its arms voluntarily), there are the Change Me prayers to help.

I walk around our property now with a constant, silent litany running through my head: “I release the pond. I release the hummingbirds. I release the trees. I release the cabin. I release the timing of this sale. I release my fear over finding a new place to live.” And it’s working. Slowly I’m coming to feel some peace and even a tiny bit of relief that I won’t have this huge place (the property, not the cabin) to care for anymore; that it might even pass on to someone who will love it as much as I have. And I'm changing into one who can surrender a little bit more to what wants to happen, whether or not my ego agrees.