Surrender
I have been sitting with the idea of surrender for years.
Surrender is not an easy word for me.
I like control. I like having a plan, pursuing the plan, believing that if I think carefully enough, prepare enough, and work hard enough, I can somehow create the path ahead of me.
But I have also noticed a pattern in myself. There are moments when I hold so tightly to what I think should happen, or how I believe things should unfold, that I become exhausted and I realize the mystery has gone out of my life. Nothing is going the way I planned and eventually, complete surrender seems to be the only option left.
For many of us, surrender can carry the feeling of defeat. Of giving up. Of acknowledging that something is beyond our ability to change.
For some, it may also carry religious memories where surrender meant setting aside our questions, our doubts, or our own inner knowing in order to accept someone else's understanding of what was true.
And yet, perhaps there is another way of understanding surrender.
The Latin root of the word suggests not giving up, but rather a “restoring” “a handing over” giving back.
Imagine surrender then as the idea of being restored .
Or surrender as a giving back of our illusion of control.
Or surrender as a handing over of our need for certainty.
Surrendering our clinging, our clenching that we will make sure life unfolds according to our plans.
When you think about surrender…what comes to mind? How is this idea sitting with you today?
Many wisdom traditions, in their own way, invite us into this relationship with the mystery of surrender. The Buddhist teachings remind us of the suffering that comes when we cling too tightly to how we believe things should be. The Taoist tradition speaks of moving with the flow of life rather than forcing our way against it. Contemplative traditions invite us into trust, releasing our need to know everything and becoming open to what is unfolding.
Different languages, different pathways and yet perhaps the same invitation:
To loosen our grip. What are we clinging to? To become available. What are we not seeing? To listen. What is our body, our spirit, our intuition trying to tell us? This is where I see the difference between passive surrender and active surrender.
Passive surrender says, "There is nothing I can do."
Active surrender says, "I will release what I cannot control so that I can fully show up for what is asking for my attention"
A wonderful friend of mine, poet and teacher, Sushmita Mukherjee writes this:
“I used to ask: what is mine to do?
As if the doing were the point,
as if I had to find the task
before the task could find me.
Now I ask instead: what is already here, asking for my attention?
Who is standing in the doorway
of this ordinary Thursday,
and how do I meet them”
Active surrender is not standing still. It is about being aware of what is right in front of us, asking for our attention and believing that everything else can be handed over to our higher power, to the sacred, to our breath, to our own divine intuition and to our trust in the energy of surrender and the restoration it will bring.
And besides, Isn’t there more magic and mystery in watching the path reveal itself then trying to pave it out in front of us? Trusting that we do not need to see the entire road ahead in order to take the next step but be fully present to what is asking for our attention in the moment.
"What is already here, asking for my attention?"
May we have the courage… and I mean courage…. to surrender, to restore ourselves, to give back, to hand over, what was never ours to control.
May we have the wisdom to pay attention to what is already unfolding right in front of us.
And may we trust that each step, taken with awareness and openness, will reveal the next part of the path.
May it be so.