The gift of surrender. 

“to abandon oneself to.” 

I once heard it said that there are two things about surrender.

1. It works every time

2. I always forget it works

Why is surrender so potent? How does it happen? At what point do we move past resistance and into surrender? The answers aren’t as simple as the questions, and it looks different on every person, every experience.

Surrender means letting go of control of everything… yes, everything. A task that may sound daunting and impossible, but as with most things in life, it’s a practice. It’s giving up the idea that you have any say in the way things turn out. Giving it up to the Divine, Spirit, Universe, God. It’s an offering of sort, with simultaneous trust in the unknown. There comes a freedom with letting go, a freedom unlike any other. Surrender opens doors to new pathways and relieves us of the pressure to figure it all out on our own. 

Surrendering is like not having to breathe manually all day, every day. To surrender is like letting your body breathe naturally on its own.

Imagine resisting your breath, only to find out that when we let each breath happen exactly the way it is supposed to, not trying to control it, the breath authentically happens. Now, imagine if we had that mindset about all things in life. 

In the last six months, I’ve surrendered more than I have in my entire life. For the last three or four years, I’ve been in limbo, waking up each day, going to a job, working for my family, desperately wanting to leave. I was caught in resistance, fear of financial insecurity, fear of the unknown- I tried so hard to “figure it out” (whatever that means), and 6 months ago, I finally put my hands in the air and gave it all up. I surrendered deeply to what I didn’t know, and in doing so, my entire world changed. It started with small action steps, first quit the job… after that, everything in my life began to fall into place. I could clearly see what I had been missing those few years prior. I had been grasping on for dear life for so long, clinging onto what I thought I knew about my life and my path, and as the days when on, the grasp loosened bit by bit… I finally released the resistance and stepped into surrender, and just like that, my life really began. Here I am, living a life I couldn’t have even dreamed. And there I was again, remembering that surrender works every time.. all I have to do is get out of my own damn way. 

As I said before, surrender is a gift, and while it is, there is a real sense of discomfort and pain that comes along with it. When I try to tackle things on my own and fix everything to my ideas of what’s “right” for me, things start to get shaky. I forget my purpose, which ultimately is to serve and help my community and the people around me. As a result of forgetting, I begin to act selfishly, avoidant, uninspired. When I let things be as they are and really sink into the flow of life, I am serving my purpose. I don’t need the answers to all of my questions. I don’t have to have it all figured out. I don’t let those fears and insecurities run my life and make decisions for me. That’s not to say fear and insecurity aren’t still there. They just don’t control my life. When I begin to sense myself feeling out of control, I know that I need to find some surrender in some aspect of my life. And the process begins again.

Let go. I promise it’s worth it.