Life is happening so fast right now and we are often being sort of forced to surrender in many ways. Sometimes you just feel like you have no choice but to take it slowly, be in the moment, think that it is what it is to a certain extent, and just let go a lot.
It can just be hard because we are so used to thinking that we are in control of so many things, and when it comes down to it, we really are not. The truth hurts.
Surrender isn't giving up but it kind of feels like it is at times. It's really about making peace with the situation but not give up. It's an interesting balance. You don't want to give up, yet you are fighting so hard to go against the flow. You want to lean in.
Author Mark Nepo describes surrender as a fish finding the current and just going with it. So, if you can just find your flow, find what you are supposed to be doing, even with the inevitable setbacks--and do it. Find the answer to the question, "Now what?"
Now what is like being in the reality and accepting what is. You can still hope for a better outcome eventually, but for right now, this is the way it is. This helps you make room for something different and/or better to come along.
Surrender is kind of like giving up in that you might need to grieve your loss in order to come into more of an acceptance. You might need to be laying on the floor shattered for a little while. Eventually you will get up off the floor. You will find a new way.
Honor whatever feelings that come up. No one wants to feel the pain, the anger, the disappointment, but give yourself space and grace to feel it all.
As Mark Nepo mentions, we're so attached to our narrative and our dreams and that this is like a cocoon and once we come out of it, we don't need it anymore. It doesn't mean it wasn't true or important, but the cocoon got us to where we are today and is helping us get to the next place.
The "bad" things happen for our own good, really. Just make peace with it.
Also, the cocoon is part of the transformation into the butterfly. And surrendering into the pain helps you not suffer anymore. If you avoid the pain of the "bad" situation you are facing, then you are going to suffer more. So, you might want to sit in that cocoon, feel that pain, and then you will transform into the butterfly. You completely transform and are then at a higher level of spiritual evolution.
We get attached to relationships and the old beliefs and we don't really want to let go of them even if they are no longer serving us. When it's time to move on from those, that's when we have that conflict. Appreciate and learn by leaning into the pain.
It's easier said than done, obviously. And you can't really make any changes until you are aware that it isn't want you want or is serving you.
The feelings stay, fester and grow the more you push them down and away.
As Kristen often says, "The universe hits us over the head with a frying pan" when we don't get the lesson the first time and don't get what's happening. It will force us to grow no matter how much it hurts. It feels very bad but it is always meant for you to grow from. You become wiser as a result.
Going forward, when you see red flags, start paying attention to what feels off or not ok so that you can let it go earlier and not have to be in so much pain in trying to let it go later.
Psychology Today says that when trying to surrender you are going to try to resist it, reject it, fight to not go there.
True surrender is when you realize that you really don't know what to do. You can't think your way out of it or barter your way out of it or plead or beg your way out of it. Surrender is when you realize that you can't do anything. You can't control any of it. It is what it is.
This is out of your hands and the only thing you can control is yourself--how you're thinking, how you're showing up.
The "I don't know" space is a big part...
