Navigating surrender is one of those things we don’t understand until we do. It was that way for me at least. It took me years of frustration, efforting, and trying for control, perfection, and outcomes I essentially had very little control over.
I distinctly remember sitting in my former mentor’s living room pissed off because I just didn’t get it. What the eff did surrender mean and if she told me to do it one more time I was going to scream. I didn’t like her very much just then.
That’s the thing about surrender, it’s not something one can really teach another, it’s something one has to experience for themselves. It is powerful to realize the profound yet subtle difference between the sweet release of surrender and the emotional roller coaster of giving up.
Surrender is filled the subtle influence of grace.
I’ve observed in myself and in many of my clients, that when someone struggles with perfectionism and control, the concept of surrender is foreign at best, downright infuriating at worst. The struggle is real.
How do I let go of controlling something if all we have is a string of experiences of being the person holding all the balls in the air? If I don’t have control over it then who does?
Surrender is like a giant trust exercise with The Universe. Not an easy pill to swallow for those who’ve suffered from trauma and fear of failure.
Surrender isn’t quitting and not is it 100% related to giving up either.
Surrender is holding an intention of something you want or need and letting go of the “how.”
The “how” is what trips most people up. The how is where our fears of the unknown are birthed. “If the how is unknown, then based on past experiences then what I want or need won’t come to pass and I’ll be disappointed all over again, or worse.”
How do we navigate the unknown while being in the spaciousness of surrender? Perhaps more accurately, how do we navigate the monkey mind gymnastics of our internal struggle between optimism/trust and fear/worry?
Essentially we need to take a really honest account of what actually IS in our control and letting go of needing to micromanage all the other details. Being in the flow of our intention involves taking inspired action (the antithesis of motivation), when and where we have control and allowing the other details to fall into place naturally.
Intentions are everything and knowing what our actual role is in bringing the intention to fruition is vital.
Setting an intention is committing to the thing we want in it’s most simple form. For example*, I want a long-term lover who has x, y, and z traits, shared values, beliefs, and characteristics. This is my intention.
What my role is in this intention for a lover is working through blocks within my beliefs and in my past to keep this relationship from forming, continuing to grow myself, and cleaning up any resistance in my way of having my intention and releasing my attachment to the outcome.
- Being excited and committed to your self-development so you can be the person to have what you want.
- Lovingly improving on oneself is an opportunity for expansion into realities we dream of. Maturing in a relationship, growing into a successful business owner, becoming the parent our inner child always wanted, enjoying adventures and joyful experiences we couldn’t do when we were too anxious, broke, or depressed.
- Clearing the blocks that prevent you from being open to having and maintaining what it is you want.
- Fears, worries, and distrust projecting from the past onto our goals is a surefire want to delay or impact our
- Taking inspired actionable steps towards what you want.
- Openly dating, knowing who you want to date, loving yourself and taking care of your health, wealth, happiness so you would be the version of yourself someone you want would want to fall for.
- Getting out of force, efforting, trying, and self-pity to the best of your ability – these are all full of resistance.
- Going on dates you don’t connect with or want to go on, not dating at all, pushing against the process, getting into dead-end relationships, etc.
- Letting go of the who, when, where, how and holding the only intention you can – the what.
- Letting go of the outcome is essential. You’re not giving up on the outcome, or quitting on it, you are letting go of your attachment to the story of how you want it to show up, the when, where, and who. What are your intention and your inspired actionable steps are the only thing you can do to move towards this intention.
- Loving yourself through the process, even when you fall out of the wagon on step 4 and recommitting to the rest of the steps until the thing you want shows up.
- You’re human. Humanity gets messy, it’s ok. Take a deep breath, you’ve got this.
Releasing the outcome as we commit to all steps above – this is surrender. Letting go of the who, when, where, and how so we can focus on aligning with what it is we want in every way and allowing for all the pieces to come together.
*This example is based on the intention of bringing in a lover, however, it is available for any intention desired.
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