Surrender is such a difficult concept for me. It sounds like giving up, doesn’t it? Like a loss. Like a failure.
However, I am starting to understand it’s quite the opposite.
Surrender really means true acceptance. To stop fighting the way things are. To be completely ok with where you are, right now, in this very moment.
So much of our energy and time is wasted fighting the place we currently find ourselves. We don’t want to be here. We spend most of our lives getting lost in our memories of the past or our worries for the future. Or, we find any passing distraction that we can latch onto to take us out of the present moment. Addictions are good for this.
My challenge is to keep returning, over and over, to exactly where I am. It’s so easy to forget, to get lost again. That was my default for so many years. I also have been attached to the stories I told myself for so long. The stories, though not true, and quite unhelpful, were still comforting. They were my explanations for why I couldn’t do what I really wanted to do. Giving up the stories means giving up excuses. It means facing the truth.
So, yes, surrender. Be willing to be here, wherever that is. Be willing, or even happy, to handle the moment you are given. It is important. And it can feel hard. Even though, really, it’s the easiest thing there is. Maybe that’s why I have struggled with it for so long. Easy doesn’t feel right. Life should be hard, a struggle.
But should it? Really? Is that really what we came to this world to do? Suffer? Or is there another way?
design + surrender 