Active Surrender
I recently canceled my trip to visit my kids and granddaughter for Thanksgiving!
I hated that conversation- it welled up many emotions in me, and I felt I had disappointed my children and granddaughter. I have not lived in the same state as my kids for 4.5 years, and I committed that I would see them every month, which I have until COVID hit. I missed a few in those first few months, and then finally, I got in my car and drove the 18 hours to be closer to them.
It feels like a very stern parent telling us we cannot visit our friends and family, which feels very uncomfortable. I don’t know about you, but I don’t take authority too well. Just look at my record for traffic tickets, but that is another story.
Some of us may be feeling a global response to an “Authoritative Parent” inside this pandemic and the holidays. It may feel like a big “FUCK YOU,” and one of the first healing levels is admitting the “FUCK YOU.” We can then get to acceptance, but we have to get through the denial that this is really happening.
In some ways, it feels more manageable now that most of the states are back in lockdown, and the need to surrender seemed imminent.
I had a friend once tell me that Jesus chased me like NO OTHER, and I should just surrender. I am still not one that yields quickly. As a matter of fact, I would say it’s not my forte’; rules are for breaking has been my motto. I am a student of SURRENDER.
If you’re like me, you may have grown up in a dysfunctional or even alcoholic household. It may have felt like walking on eggshells full of fear. It may have seemed like if I could control THEM or THE THING, it would all be okay.
Coping mechanisms were created to CONTROL or at least some form of control. Perhaps you had thoughts like this:
If he/she changed, everything would be all right.
I can’t control this pain, these people, and what is happening.
It’s all my fault.
I feel so empty and lost.
Who am I anyway?
What is wrong with me?
We stick around longer than we should, compromising ourselves and our values to avoid being rejected. We take on other’s feelings and worries and neglect our own. These were ways I tried to feel in control to make myself feel better, thinking it would make others feel better. Sadly, it didn’t – it actually made me feel worse.
Our frustrations can be a form of denial when we cannot accept what is happening around us. IT IS NORMAL. Controlling our circumstances can be a cry out for a more profound fear of being abandoned, neglected, and not seen. We may have learned that denial keeps us safe and obedient to a system of beliefs and behaviors that are actually the cause of our confusion and emotional pain.
The act of surrendering has ebbed and flowed in my life – it has been available to me, and it has also been unavailable to me. Frequently it looked like “controlled surrender.” They say the unknown is the field of possibilities, and I would agree, AND that was after I did a lot of personal work on myself. I could not always see that; it was more like I would wrangle with the unknown until whatever thing I wanted to be submitted or I gave up.
This last year though, it has felt different this year for me. I have a closer connection with God, and it came through like a wave of trust. I can’t tell you the exact minute, hour, or day, but God and I began communicating differently this year. I began to see God in all of my interactions, as the squirrel scurried away, as the feather fell from the heavens, as the leaves started to fall – I allowed God in all of it.
Since we are all stepping into the unknown- more isolation, holidays, and possibly with or without families- I wonder if ACTIVE SURRENDER may be possible.
I began to notice how God was nudging me. I allowed myself to wade into the ebb and flow, feeling my breath become deeper. I wasn’t giving in, and I wasn’t giving up - wondering, wandering rather than controlling and pushing, and struggling. My toes could touch the ocean sand, and I could play in the current of life. I felt better in my body, in my mind, and I felt better in my relationship with the unknown. I allowed our time in isolation to be more of the ebb and flow, less of the controlling.
Taking care of ourselves is NOT SELFISH but an act of LOVE. Self-love is a revolutionary act - it is an act of surrender to old beliefs and a system that did not teach you HOW. Without taking care of yourself, you cannot possibly take care of another.
Ways to Actively Surrender:
Play: Nature, games, music, and draw.
Be Curious: Curiosity is an engine of life. Ask yourself, “Where does this engine want to go?” ask yourself questions? What are the moments when you feel alive? Curiosity is an anecdote to despair.
Write: Free flow and write. You do not have to have a reason; just write thoughts.
Move: Move your body, walk, jump, swim, flail your arms. Your body needs to move the “stuckness” of tissues holding the muscles; inside those tissues are cells carrying emotions. We must move.
Create Space: Clean up space, so you have more room to breathe. Make it pretty, buy a plant, dust a shelf, put your favorite books on it. OWN your space.
Listen: Listen to yourself. Talk out loud. Listen to another without interjecting a thought or a comment. Just listen.
Pay Attention: Pay Close Attention to your anger; when something within you gets filled with rage, sadness, emotion- it means there is something in there, you are supposed to do about it.
Suffering disrupts our plan, and inside of our suffering, something is lurking. Something that wants to be exposed. It is something below the surface. Allow it to come up. Allow all of it.
Embrace acceptance: Begin to be honest with the feelings, the denying, and TRY acceptance. Acceptance looks like many different things to different people, but part of it is knowing that you are not alone, that we are globally feeling the separation, the pain, the FUCK YOU. We begin to recognize this is a journey, and we are all SWASHING through.
Ask: We ask for HELP. We ask for support. We ask for a connection.
Ask yourself, what does this want to teach me? What NEW thing wants to come from this?
What kind of world would you like to live in, generosity, lack? Condemnation? Make a choice and begin to move from there… SLOWLY.. know that you are okay, exactly where you are…