326: How bending a spoon taught to surrender
Welcome to the Joyful Mom Podcast!
This may sound like a very weird podcast title. And it might be a weird or interesting episode. I’m going to share an experience I’ve had with spoon bending, and how it created my word for the year of surrender.
I don’t know if you do a word of the year, but I love doing this word of the year, and each January I pick a word that’s my focus for the year. Last year my word was focus, this year my word is surrender.
So- spoon bending, what is it, and why am I even talking about it!
I went to a business conference where we did a spoon bending exercise. The first time I did it- I learned so much about myself during the process. I want to share my experience with both of these spoon bending times because I learned something new from each of them.
But first the spoon bending is weird, and it’s quite crazy, but it’s all about taking a metal spoon that you cannot bend, and then doing a meditation and feeling the energy in the spoon so that it gets more flexible and so you can bend it whichever way you want to. I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve seen so many bent spoons bent into twisted up pieces and such, that it actually happens.
The first time I did it, I found that through meditation when it came time to bend my spoon, I could feel the spoon soften in my hands so I knew if I could bend it, my heart would start to pound. And then I couldn’t bend the spoon because I was so fearful. And I was afraid my spoon would actually bend. I went back and forth to this surrendering place, and then tried to bend the spoon and my heart would pound. I ended up bending the spoon twice back and forth, and what was so funny about it to me, was that I didn’t trust that I actually did it.
So I was bringing my spoon home to Justin, to ask him, did I actually bend this, or is the spoon just really bendable?
Here’s why this spoon bending exercise is so incredible. Because it’s a business workshop- we focused on what's going on in our minds that is preventing us from taking action or doing the things we need to do in our business, or what’s holding us back.
It was so interesting hearing other peoples experiences with this as well, because there were people who wanted so badly to bend the spoon, and then because they wanted to so badly, they couldn’t bend the spoon. And people who were almost angry because they wanted to bend the spoon.
And what I realized in this, I actually didn’t have this like I am going to bend the spoon, I want to bend the spoon, I found that my heart was pounding afraid I would actually bend the spoon. And how this correlates to the business conference and the work I was doing was that I was terrified of success. If you were to logically say that, it wouldn’t make sense, like of course everyone would want success, especially if they are putting their time, energy and heart into a business. But I found that I was actually afraid of success. And I found that to be true as I noticed that when my business did really well, I would start to get afraid. I talk all the time about the subconscious mind and how we don’t always know what’s in our subconscious mind, and how it can not be aligned with our conscious mind. Like I can consciously say yes I want to be successful, but my subconscious mind is terrified of success, so everytime my business is doing well, I subconsciously make changes, do something different, to shift it because of that fear.
And then- I would also question anything that happened. If I had a good month, I would question how that happened, or if that really happened, or if that could happen again. In the same way with the spoon I questioned whether I actually bent it. I was wanting to ask Justin for him to prove to me that yes in fact I did bend the spoon- oh I didn’t say earlier, that I lost the spoon in my travels on my way home, so I never got to prove it to myself.
So clearing this fear was super helpful for me last year.
And then- this year at the conference with the spoon bending exercise, I knew I could bend the spoon. I've done it before, but last year because I only bent it twice and they were simple bends, I questioned it. I just forced it rather than bent the spoon. Like anyone could have just done that.
So this year, one thing that stood out to me was when the facilitator was doing the meditation, she talked about holding a baby bird in your hand. How you can’t clutch the bird, because you would hurt it, but you also can’t be too loose otherwise it will hop out. And how when you are holding a baby bird, you’re doing it gently but firmly.
And this vision of this made it so crystal clear to me of surrender. What does it mean to surrender? There’s been times in our lives when I have been in this complete surrender phase, and it feels so good.
Like when we were traveling in our school bus and we were planning on moving to mn in the fall, and we had no idea where we were going to live in mn, if we were going to rent or buy, if anything would be available for us. Nothing. And people would ask us, you don’t know where you’re going to live? You don’t know if you’re going to buy it? Like we were crazy. I guess I knew if there were no other option I could just stay in the bus and go south for the winter. But I just had this place of trust and surrender. That everything would work out. That God is in control of our lives, and whatever is meant to happen will. We were obviously taking steps towards whatever options, but when I would be grounded in this feeling of surrender, or maybe you can call it trust, I just knew that whatever happened was supposed to happen for us, and it was all going to work out exactly as it was supposed to. And it ended up working out well, we got a house, went and looked at houses for 1 day and bought a house and have been in it for over a year now.
But- going back to this spoon bending. This feeling of surrender- like I don't really care if I bend the spoon or not. Either way, it’s going to be fine, but I’m also going to try and see what happens. And I spun and twisted my spoon many times over and over again, so there’s no way I can question if I bent the spoon. There’s no way I could have just forced bending the spoon like that even if I wanted to.
So- I came to my word for the year, surrender. Because of how good it feels in my body to surrender. To give it to God. That he’s in control of my life, my business, my family, everything. We can make plans, I definitely have goals and dreams, and I work really hard towards things, but with this feeling of holding a little bird in my hand, not clutching to anything, not attached to how I think it should go or how it’s supposed to go, but it’s going to go exactly as it’s supposed to.
It’s a beautiful feeling for me…to take action as I can, but also let it be how it is.
The spoon bending may sound weird, but it definitely brings to the surface the stuff that’s going on inside of your mind that’s holding you back or helps you realize different things that can be really useful.
As the facilitator said many times, it’s not even about bending the spoon, but what the process does for you.
I’m not sure why I shared this with you, except that I wanted to share, and maybe it’s interesting to you, maybe not. Maybe the takeaway is number one how powerful our subconscious mind is, and also, where can you surrender in your life? Where have you been clutching so hard on to something, where you are hurting the bird? Where can you let go, or release some attachment or resistance to something.
There’s a huge difference between desiring something with a surrendered feeling, vs. desiring something with a clutching feeling.
And it feels so much better to be in a feeling of surrender.
What do you think?
If you want to learn more about how you can clear anxiety more automatically by rewiring how the mind is working and processing things, go to my website www.meganhillukka.com where you can click on a link to register for my free training, where I will show you what you need in order to do this.
