Episode21: Surrender

Hello and welcome to the Love Your life Podcast - This is episode 21 - Surrender

In our last episode, we talked about resistance—the mental struggle we create when we argue with reality. We learned that what we resist, persists. Today, I will help you see what happens when we stop resisting? What happens when, instead of pushing against life, we choose to surrender?

The law of non resistance teaches us to be like a mountain stream that peacefully goes around the rocks, boulders, and debris in its path without making a fuss. It always makes it to the bottom of the hill and creates so much beauty for those of us that get to sit by its side.  The opposite is when we resist or  we argue with the obstacles in our path. Which would be like a stream yelling at every rock or branch on its way down the mountain and stopping the flow to their destination until the rock or branch either moves or apologizes for being there in the first place. 

I know it sounds kind of ludicrous to think of a flowing stream of water stopping and arguing with rocks and trees along it’s way - but that is figuratively what so many of us do with the circumstances of our lives. Humans have this unique tendency to lean towards the dramatic when life presents an obstacle in between where we think we want to be and where we are? 

The concept of  surrender— does not mean, just giving up, It is a powerful tool for freeing ourselves from unnecessary struggle and drama.

What Is Surrender?

According to the Britannica Dictionary, surrender means:
"To agree to stop fighting, hiding, or resisting—because you know that you will not win or succeed."

I think the thing to pay attention to in this definition is to notice that surrender means to stop resisting or fighting. This tells us that if you need to learn how to surrender then you are already engaged in a struggle - So learning to surrender is your second line of defence if you didn’t quite manage to practice non resistance with things in your path - it means you are river that has stopped flowing while you argue with a rock in your path. Just like a river refusing to flow - the pressure will keep building the longer you stand there and argue - so the sooner you get to understanding that arguing with a rock - or reality - however you want to name it - is futile. You are not going to win - and it’s time to surrender and move on.

Some of us who have been arguing with reality for longer or louder than others- don’t even like the name surrender.  They think it sounds like defeat. I want you to hear from the get go that surrender isn’t weakness - it is wisdom.  It isn’t even a passive pose - it takes work. Neither is it actually giving up - it is more like using your wisdom and clarity - to fuel your ability to refile something into the category of God’s to control or theirs to control - and then making the decision to pry your fingers off the strangle hold you have on whatever you are resisting.

Michael Singer is the  author of The Untethered Soul, which is a book I HIGHLY recommend if you are someone who struggles with surrender and resistance.  And He says that in …
"The moment you stop resisting, the moment you accept things exactly as they are, the weight lifts."

And that’s exactly what I”m hoping to help you do after you spend your time with me today. I want to help you lift the weight of unnecessary struggle.

Why Do We even resist in the first place?  We resist because we have a thought error.

That thought error is simply that we think we can control something that we cannot control. 

I want you to keep remembering  that last week I introduced sorting circumstances into three categories- Mine to control, theirs to control or God’s to control. If the circumstance you struggle with does not reside in your category to control - you will have to make some kind of strategy to stop resisting - or if you are already resisting - you are going to have to figure out how to surrender to it.

There are frequently pretty little words along the path to resistance, like I should or I shouldn’t.  Or they should or they shouldn’t - or I just want …. Them to be safe, or happy, or healthy…. Fill in the blank with something that seems nice on the surface.  And because it is so pretty you will get distracted and start trying to make your child be happy by manicuring every single pebble on the path they will walk - instead of helping your child learn how to have the emotional resilience tools to walk on any kind of boulder strewn path - If you have done this for any amount of time - you will understand that eventually trying to control things that are not yours - even when you have had such lovely reasons to do so, will bite you in the butt.  Your resistance will wear you out - and surrender will sound like a good idea.

There will also be false pieces of evidence that lead us to believe we CAN control things outside of us. This is always a fun one to uncover - because if you have had success in life, or had things go the way you preferred - and you believed that it happened because you had been perfect and controlled yourself in contorted or exaggerated ways - then you will keep trying to be perfect and turn yourself into bigger and bigger pretzel knots - so that you can control something that was never really yours to control in the first place, but seemed to line up with your actions.  

You will most likely have examples from just this week of living here on earth where you tried to or were tempted to try and control something that wasn’t in a category you can control. Things like other people’s feelings is a big one to learn how to stop resisting. Many people believe it is their job to make those around them feel better- but it is actually impossible to control the feelings of others. We never get to control what others think - so it is impossible to control how they feel - oh they might tell you that they are happy when you do x,y, and z, and they are unhappy when you do A,B,C - but that doesn’t mean you are controlling their feelings when you choose to do or not do things - that is a thought error fueled by past experiences that appeared like you were in control - but give a toddler exactly what they want and then watch them lose their mind anyway a time or two- and you will begin to see that it isn’t about how perfectly we do things people say they want - it is more accurate to say that it is about what they think about the things we do and say or don’t do or don’t say.

Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor and author of Man’s Search for Meaning, which if you haven’t ordered and read after my first few episodes- you might want to consider doing that now….  Anyway, he offers this wisdom:

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."

Surrender isn’t about accepting defeat. It’s about shifting our focus from what we cannot change to what we can.

I noted before that many people think of surrender as weakness - but I am offering it as a strength - Fighting against the realities in our life is what makes us tired - and tiredness makes us weak - Surrender means we stop the fight against things we cannot control and use our energy while it is stronger to focus on the things that we can control but still require our attention and effort.  

It is always beautiful to me when I am coaching someone to watch them surrender to their reality - and truly stop the struggle with something that is gutting them - and then invite them to tell me what they are going to do now that they have decided to stop using all of their energy to yell at the giant boulder that they have been focused on. Once they surrender and flow around the boulder - an entire new path is clear before them, and they can almost always tell me what they will do next - and the weight that they let go of in front of my eyes - is palpable=- their next focus is done with so much more ease.

This reminds me of the Zen proverb that says,"Let go or be dragged." When we resist it feels like being dragged through life- when we surrender we go with lightness - lightness meaning  they go with less heaviness  - and also meaning they go with more light as in their path is brighter.  

It is also important to note that we not only struggle and resist our own realities - we actually use our great brains to make up things to resist - like expectations about what we think should happen - and fears about what we think could happen - This is very very common to be so gripped by the belief that what we are afraid of will happen and spend all of our energy resisting that prediction.  This kind of resistance is next level because we are literally doing the whole thing in our own heads - but we are robbing ourselves of real life connections and experiences because we are so dug into the activity of stopping the entire river from going down the canyon while we fight with a rock.

So take a second here and ask yourself: How often you hold onto expectations, frustrations, and fears—dragging them with us when we could simply release them?

Eckhart Tolle says - The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender”

I am going to be bold here and tell you that fighting what is - is actually the thing we do because we are weak - or emotionally immature - when we are mature and strong we are able to surrender better and faster - 

And this is good news - because all of us start out in life in a childlike and immature state - and the goal is for all of us to grow into a more mature adult. So no matter how old you are, wherever you are on the spectrum of arguing with reality vs surrendering to it - there is room for growth - you are on a spectrum - and just by becoming aware that there is an alternative to being mad and dramatic about what is - you are giving yourself the opportunity to step out of that habit and grow.

I think it is perfect timing today to repeat the serenity prayer together - 

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference."

This is what surrender looks like: Accepting what’s out of our hands while taking responsibility for what we can influence.

🔹 We don’t control the world, but we control how we show up in it.
🔹 We don’t control others, but we control our own thoughts and actions about them and around them.
🔹 We don’t control the past, but we control how we move forward.

We don’t control nature- but we can control how we respect it.

IF surrender feels unnatural to you - that’s okay - it does take practice to increase your surrender capacity.  

I like to invite my people to write down the top five things in their life that feel the most prickly, annoying, agitating, or angry about - and then write out what you can and cannot control about these things- Whatever lives in the cannot control side of things means that you have found the perfect place to practice surrender - 

Practicing surrender looks like - awareness - when you catch yourself being attracted to the annoyance or drama of it all - use the image of the river floating around the rock and then down the river out of sight.

Surrender looks like - repeating to yourself on purpose and as long as it takes- this is not mine to control. This is not mine to control - and then we follow this up with a predetermined mantra that we do believe and can control.  It could be as simple as - I am ok. I am ok. All is well.

Surrender can look like the practice of feeling your feelings - You can go learn exactly how to do this in episode 7.  I love this practice - and it is a beautiful way to allow your own feelings about any situation - with out fear or resistance.

Surrender also means you stop fighting against your expectations and fears- my favorite way to do this is to remind myself that of course this should be happening to me, right now. Life is 50/50 and this is part of the 50 that isn’t my favorite - this is ok - nothing has gone wrong here.

However, wherever, and whenever you choose to practice letting go of the things you are fighting against in your life this week- I can guarantee you one thing - It will make you feel better. And when you feel better - you do better - and when you are doing better - you like being you and you like being in your life a lot more than you did when you were arguing with reality.

I will share with you that one of the biggest fights I have ever had with reality lasted years. I honestly believed that there were people in my life that needed to change because they were behaving  poorly - and creating problems for me. While I believed this, I became an altered version of myself. I literally set up camp in the river stream and held back the equivalent flow of the great Mississippi while I argued with this giant rock in my path. The preoccupation with this effort took me away from being the person I wanted to be.  It robbed me of peace, connection, and experiences, It also stalled my personal growth. Not until I truly understood and believed that It doesn’t matter what other people do or say or don’t do or don’t say - did I break free and figure out how to control what I can control. Once I figured out how to focus on controlling me - I was able to find lots of tools to help me manage myself. They came to me almost effortlessly once I had ears to hear and eyes to see.

They say that when the student is ready - the teacher will appear. My teachers were patiently waiting in line for me to listen to them. This podcast is my homage to them. If you are a student looking for your teacher, I hope this podcast can be one of your resources. If you know someone who is also looking, send them a link today.

I am doing my best to make this information available to anyone who is ready to stop resisting, quiet their struggles, and start controlling more of themselves than they did yesterday. If you are interested in more focused help to get you through a struggle with more directness and less time floundering -then go to my website - Rondaloveridge.com and sign up for a free discovery call . I can help you see a new way through or around. 

For Today - remember that when you argue with the rocks in your path - you will waste your energy - let go of the war with things you cannot control - and waive the white flag of surrender. Your body, your mind, and your people will all thank you for it. 

Talk to you soon!