Surrender and Then Surrender Some More
We have this saying in my plant medicine community that went, “Surrender into the experience, and once you’ve surrendered, surrender more, and once you surrender more, surrender again.”
It’s funny the things that we choose to integrate after our psychedelic experiences. Typically, it’s the large-scale messages, the fantastic visions of past lives, the geometrical patterns and shapes, the twinkling fun, or on the flip — super traumatic healing.
At this moment, I’m being reminded of the simple yet profound lesson of surrender. Whenever I think I have the lesson on lock, there is more to surrender.,
As I’ve stated before, my word this year is Joy. I had no clue what would be in store for me, but this level of surrendering was NOT what I was expecting.
There is an essence in this level of surrender I’m learning this year that is stretching me beyond my old limitations. In some way, to genuinely live in a space of happiness and joy, I have to let go of expectations, desires, people, places, and things.
I’m learning to surrender into the movement of my life and witness where past desires and expectations have brought me up until today.
And so this year has felt like one of the most incredible long-term psychedelic experiences I’ve ever been in because it has all the elements of a psychedelic experience.
There’s the inexpressible elated joy, a deep sorrow, and the menagerie of lessons unfolding as time weaves between each moment.
Along the way, the central theme in the joy process has been surrendering over that which no longer brings me joy that I thought was necessary to live a life of peace.
There is a reckoning with my old paradigms, old lessons, and the old ways that have kept me safe, secure, and happy up until this point, and in reality, the surrendering of those crutches is bringing a continuous bombardment of failures.
I am learning in this weaving the difficulty that comes with experiencing joy as a person who has experienced so much trauma, so much hurt, so much pain and suffering.
It can be easier to wallow in sorrow and self-pity and not change and go through the suffering of the change to experience true joy because I’ve trained myself to find happiness in the mediocrity of my life.
I still don’t have answers because, as we know, life is the ceremony, and how you live it is the ritual.
I’m here for this lifetime of ceremony walking this earth, and I’m sure once I have surrendered again, I’ll be asked to surrender some more.
Journal Prompts:
What herbs or allies do you have in times of struggle?
How are you navigating the intensities of the current times?