The blessing and power of surrender
I must admit that I’m still unsure how to share this lesson with you all. I believe it’s connected to everything I’ve been sharing since losing my phone. You can read all the previous writings on Substack.
All of us are living within both cyclical timing and choosing to be a part of this world that runs on mechanistic time; therefore, there are moments of profound dissonance. Where everything we attempt, all our hard work and everything we want to happen seems to be in vain.
I had this moment last week on the first quarter moon after I sent out the cyclical timing newsletter as if nature decided to test me. I’m not sure if I passed this test, but I did throw up my hands and give way to the immense ache in my heart, soul, and body. I let go and gave up on life.
After attempting to “do work,” I stood there, collapsed to the floor in exhaustion, and screamed out to the world.
How am I supposed to move forward anymore?
A wave crashed over me of immense sorrow for all that won’t be as I’ve expected. I had to succumb to the cyclical pattern I was in, a period that requires rest. There was no point in pretending I could do more than curl up and read a book.
Now, let’s reverse in time for a quick moment. This isn’t the giving up on life I did in my late teens/early 20s, where I gave into my desire to end my life and drank myself to death, quite literally a few times, lived out some suicidal tendencies, and let the world destroy me breath by breath.
This time, I am sober and have been sober for over four years– a story I keep wanting to share with you all, but another time. My giving up at this time in my life is more of another layer of surrender. One who isn’t giving into the sorrow but is GIVING IN to the surrender sorrow is causing.
The difference is significant. I’m resting in a space of power, where all the work I’ve done since my early 20s to now is paying off. There was a moment in the surrender where I had to open to the gratitude of creating a life where I have the luxury to throw in the towel, go to the library to get the Mists of Avalon, curl up in my bed, and read for three days – A hard-earned luxury that I teach people who work with me and my students how to pursue.
It took me some hours to remember that this was my dream at one point: to wake up every day with the choice of living. Integration doesn’t look like immediate understanding; I am only coming into a total integrative moment where I’m witnessing what a life of living my choice requires.
I want to write more on this topic and plan to share it with you all while I continue living out a new level of surrendered life. I do not know all the answers and lessons; I’m a leave blowing in the change of summer winds into autumn. The subtle shifts of temperature change require me to move on to new wind currents.
The lessons and questions heavy on my mind right now are:
Does living a life of joy require surrender?
The more I release attachment to how life must be, the more I live in the gift of my efforts in life.
What is the line between being wreckless about surrender and responsibility to the world exist?
What does it look like if I’m not in control while trusting that my life training has prepared me for the surrender?
With two of my favorite herbs, I’ve been leaning on Bee Balm (Monarda fistulosa) and Damiana (Turnera diffusa) to surrender in bliss rather than sorrow, honor the grief and shifting tides of time, and relax deeply into my body and trust in my tools. Knowing that surrendering and giving up is leading me closer to my purpose.
More on this next time – how the moments of surrender in my life have led to my dream life, the way our tools hold us in moments of profound doubt, and going to the next level of what we desire requires such surrender because how can we live a life we want if we never lived it before? Things must fall away, sorrow to be had for those that come along for the journey, and joy for the expanse of what is to come.
In quotes of my Bigmommy and many others, “The Best Has Yet to Come.”
Journal Prompts:
Where in your life do you want to give up?
What would happen if you tightened your grip on the outcome of this situation?
Are you leaning on tools of surrender that support you or bring you down?