Gosh it’s been a busy, running start to the year and for the last couple of weeks, life has been teaching me about surrender.
I’m not going to go into the whole story. It’s not important. But here is the guts of it:
- I made a mistake.
- I didn’t know I had made a mistake because my mistake was received with a complete communication shutdown.
- I misinterpreted that shutdown and fought against an illusory villain, essentially becoming the villain myself.
It was a big learning experience and a lesson I will carry with me for a lifetime. But here is what I did not do: I did NOT surrender.
I didn’t let it go, I didn’t move on, I didn’t actually take any of the shitty advice I was given. At least not in the moment.
Because when an experience sticks its finger in an old wound, surrender can feel a lot like repression. Like boycotting our feelings.
And feelings, I’ve found, are a bit like toothpaste, thick and sticky. Once you’ve squeezed the tube, there is no pushing them back in through the spout they came. Trying to do so will just end up making an even bigger mess.
Instead, I felt them ALL.
All the sadness dressed up as anger.
All the old scars telling stories of abandon.
All the betrayals of trust.
And all the ways in which I, with or without realizing it, contributed to those betrayals.
Only then did the flow of feelings slow enough to recalibrate. Only then could I even begin to rub elbows with acceptance.
And that’s when I realized, that maybe, just maybe, when we find ourselves saying things like “let it go,” what we really mean is, “let it flow”.
Maybe THAT is the great surrender. Allowing the raging rapids to carry us into calmer waters without resistance.
Heart in my hand in yours,
