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“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” -Rumi
The last day of the year felt like the right time to go. I stood in my backyard with twenty-five years’ worth of journals – thick notebooks filled with prayers, confessions, and late-night spirals – ready to release them into the flames.
I wasn’t being dramatic. I was doing it intentionally. I stopped daily journaling several years ago.
For years, I have used these journals as a kind of internal courtroom, constantly building a case against myself or others. There was evidence of failures on every page, evidence of my highly advanced ability to gaslight myself. Whatever was requested, I could shorten or adapt it for another person’s comfort.
Little flowery booklets documenting all the ways I couldn’t get “it” right.
I thought I was processing. I was actually prosecuting.
But when I turned them over for the last time, something strange happened. The first journal began with the fervent prayers of a fifteen-year-old devout Christian girl, begging God to show her the way. The final part ended with a forty-year-old woman asking for directions from her spiritual guides. Different words. Different temporal addresses. The same desperate energy.
I was always asking someone else – something else – to save me.
Through decades, births, moves, career changes, and multiple spiritual identities, one theme remained constant: I wrote as if I was trapped in a universe over which I had no control. My words portrayed me as a traveler in my own life, watching myself make choices I didn’t understand, helpless before forces I couldn’t name.
Please help me stop doing this.
Why does this keep happening to me?
I don’t know why I can’t change.
When will the best thing I really need be provided to me?
Each entry reinforced the same story: Something inside me was pulling at the strings. Whether I have called it God, the Universe, my higher self, energy, or my soul guide, I am connected to it in the same way – like a powerless child begging its parents for control over its existence.
I didn’t even realize I was doing this. This is the insidious thing about spiritual neglect masquerading as devotion. It feels sacred. It sounds polite. This feels like dedication.
But there is a difference between dedication and sacrifice.
When spirituality becomes powerlessness
Last year, I enrolled in a shamanic training program. Out of all the training I’ve ever done, this was by far my favorite. My mentor noticed something in our very first session that I had not been paying attention to for decades. She listened to me describe my spiritual practice – my daily prayers, my studies, checking for omens – and said simply: “You relate to the spiritual realm as if you have no agency.”
I got furious. Was this not the case? Shouldn’t I have requested the sky? This is a very central theme in the vast spectrum of ways I relate to a power beyond myself.
“Prayer does not equate to powerlessness,” he said. “You are allowed to ask for what you want. You are allowed to make choices. You are called to be a leader and director in your own life, even if you believe in something bigger than yourself.”
Over the following months, I returned to this topic again and again. Whenever I slipped into that familiar language of victimhood, I would stop-if it’s meant to be it will be; I’m just waiting for confirmation; The universe will show me when it’s time to go or stay.
“You are living your life,” Chris reminded me. “Not the universe. Not your guides. You.”
Looking at those journals with fresh eyes, I could see how this basic disempowerment had shaped everything. Every relationship I’ve stayed in for too long was because “Maybe this is my lesson.” I missed every opportunity because I was “waiting for God’s timing.” Every dream I put off because I couldn’t find an easy and clear way to start.
I had outsourced my decision-making to the universe. And the universe, in its infinite wisdom, had apparently decided that I should remain stuck for years in patterns that weren’t serving me, asking the same questions, making the same mistakes, waiting for permission to live differently.
The truth is simple and scary: I was waiting for permission from myself.
When you stop asking and start choosing
This change did not happen overnight. It started with small, inconvenient acts of agency.
Instead of asking my cards if I should apply for a new opportunity, I asked myself what I really wanted. Instead of praying for clarity about a difficult relationship, I got honest about what I already knew about my needs. Instead of waiting for the sign that it was time for a change, I changed.
First of all, all my old stuff came out. Who was I to decide? Who was I to want specific things? Who was I to act without worldly approval?
But gradually, I started to understand: I don’t have to be small to have spirituality. Faith does not mean giving up your will. Believing in something bigger than myself doesn’t mean I have to believe I’m not important.
I can respect the mystery and still make choices. I can trust in divine timing and still take action. I can relinquish control over outcomes while claiming full responsibility for my decisions.
So I burned the magazines.
I didn’t read every page. I didn’t need to relive every crisis or panic at every desperate plea. I already knew what he said. I’ve been saying this for decades: save me fix me tell me what to do. Bring me what I want.
As I flipped through the pages, I thought about what I wanted to write about in my real life during the coming year. No prayer to external forces. No request for rescue. No evidence for the prosecution.
just truth. my truth. Messy, imperfect, often overwrought but still the powerful truth of a woman who finally understands she is allowed to choose her own life – while still respecting forces beyond her understanding.
I am still spiritual. I still believe in magic, mystery, things beyond my understanding. But I no longer relate to the sacred from a place of powerlessness. I pray differently now—not as a beggar, but as a partner. I ask for support, not salvation. I look for signs, but I don’t wait for them to give me permission to live.
Because this is what I’ve learned: The universe doesn’t want my obedience. It wants my participation.
And I’m finally ready to come out.
About Christina Lane
Christina Lane is a writer and physical trainer. You can take his new Archetypes Quiz, which will guide you through your primary and non-primary archetypes and their best matches, here: www.christinalanecoaching.com/email. We can learn a lot more about how our personality best matches the personalities of others through lenses like Ideal Work!
