In late 2022, I decided I needed to take a MASSIVE LEAP into the unknown and be nomadic for 3 months.
At the time, I didn’t really know what I was doing- on the outside it looked like I’d lost my mind. I was going to pack up my entire apartment and leave everything I was familiar with (including my partner) to go on some ‘eat pray love’ experiment? Yeah, nuts.
I’d never travelled solo for this long, I had zero plans, minimal income and knew nobody in the countries I was visiting.
Although I had no clue where this would take me,
I just knew I had to do it.
After building what looked like a successful business on the outside, moving into the apartment on my vision board and buying a brand new car… I soon realised that my definition of “success” did not look like this. Or at least only part of it did.
By western society’s standards, I was supposed to be fulfilled- to a degree I had “made it”. Female solopreneur, boss girl, making moves.
Yet deep down, I felt unfulfilled. As the yearning inside me to travel, wander and be nomadic (as the younger me used to dream)- the dissatisfaction grew. The longer I delayed giving myself the permission to “try out” a nomadic lifestyle, the more I felt the ache of my soul.
I felt myself longing to be uprooted from this rigid, urban life. I craved deeper connections, I wanted to tap into my intuition, I wanted to express myself in ways that my current environment just could not allow for.
You see, everybody around me was so fixated on “settling down” meanwhile I just wanted to go out and explore the world and have experiences.
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So despite all the resistance my mind and logic offered me, I knew I had to do it. One small step at a time- browsing for flights, daydreaming about the lifestyle, watching YouTube vlogs and tiktok videos of others who’d done it too… I finally decided to take the leap.
I booked my flight and stepped into my next era of Surrender.
As I explain in this video, this was NOT just a 3 month holiday. This was a DECLARATION. It was an intentional decision to be transformed.
Prior to this point I was the routine girly, fixated on her checklists, timelines and deadlines. Money rules my life and my business ranked the most important thing to me. I was so out of alignment to the things I said I valued: freedom, slowness & wonder.
I needed to shake things up. In fact, I needed to be completely uprooted and plucked out of everything I knew…
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Because if there’s one thing I know for sure- it’s that we humans, are creatures of habit. We become our environment and we adapt to what is familiar and safe as a way to survive… and unless we disrupt the familiarity, we will continue to cycle through the same patterns, realities and problems.
Seeing my life and this “success” I had created yet feeling deeply misaligned to it. I recognised that the only way to access the other parts of me that I’d buried (the creative, adventurous, curious, spiritual, feminine and expressive), I needed to get uncomfortable again.
I needed space to reconnect to myself
I needed the challenge of the unknown to reconnect to what I truly valued most.
I needed to retreat in order to get direction for an aligned future.
Although some of my loved ones convinced themselves this was “just a phase” I knew what I was really stepping into was a lifestyle of surrender and giving myself permission to follow my heart.
Booking that plane ticket changed the course of my life in so many ways.
My entire business, social life, relationship with money, spirituality, family life, personal growth, romantic relationship (basically everything) was affected.
My entire identity shifted.
From once being constantly stressed about money, anxious about the future, obsessed with controlling outcomes and unable to rest without feeling guilt, I learnt how to truly live and embody my values. My life did a full 180 turn.
All because I said “yes” to surrender.
So in summary, what is the
Surrender Experiment?
It’s relinquishing control and willingly being released into the unknown. It’s trusting the intelligence that goes beyond your human comprehension and finding yourself in the grace of the mysterious and marvellous divine.
It’s the stripping away of all labels and letting go of all identities you’ve been clinging on to. It’s allowing yourself the permission to rediscover your true nature and in essence, to come back home to your own self.
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For the western woman, particularly those who are ambitious, high functioning & passionate- this is the common story. And because of the insurmountable pressure we place on ourselves to be perfect, proper & always moving the needle forward.. responding to the call to surrender seems irrational, crazy & unhinged,
Yet it’s exactly what we need.
It’s what our souls crave.
Yet we wait until we’ve hit the wall and are flat out exhausted to give it to ourselves.
“I just want a break”
“I need to get away from here and just be with myself”
“I don't even know who I am anymore”
“What do I even want anyway?”
“This is not the life I wanted for myself”
I just want to be free”
… are just some of the things you’re telling yourself
All of which are found in the surrender.
What does the Surrender experiment look like?
It may start as a big leap to an unknown place, following the call of your intuition (which we all have by the way)… And maybe it evolves as something bigger.
Maybe it’s a trip you take once a year or once every half year. A trip with no plans, a time to unplug from all obligations and responsibilities and a time to just take care of yourself. From there, it eventually becomes a way of life.
For me it started as one trip… and has evolved into a state of being.
Surrender is an identity I embody, as much as possible as often as possible.
A disposition of allowance, detachment, not taking anything too seriously and having a deep reverence for life and all it has to teach and show me.
It’s a surrender in the sense that there are always ‘clues’ pointing us toward our path and intuitive calls we can respond to. It’s knowing that “no matter what, I am exactly where I need to be” and leaning back into the wonder of every moment.
Since returning home, I live life a little less tightly round, less fixated on timelines, rules or problems. I can dance with the ebbs and flows of life and not lose myself when chaos strikes. Surrender is not just something you do, it’s something you can embody.
And that my friend, is how surrender changed my life.
