Learning surrender feels a little like setting up an atheist church or running an anarchist government.
I’m pretty sure we’re all born into a state of surrender, pushed out into the cold, bright, loud world whether we like it or not. In our innocence, we easily exist in a state of complete surrender.
Then, the world happens.
For nearly half a century now, constant vigilance has taken the place of surrender for me, and now I really don’t know how to let go. How do I relax without wondering if I’m doing it right?
How do I exhale completely without pushing or controlling it?
How do I let go, when I don’t trust that the world won’t just let me fall?
Enter in my new mantra: there’s nothing wrong with me.
Don’t see the connection. Don’t worry. I didn’t really see it at first either. To be honest, if I think about it too much, the connection gets hazy. This stuff, it isn’t about thinking. It’s about feeling.
My mind is never going to think that I should surrender. It will always come up with many reasons why this is unwise and unsafe.
My mind is also going to deny until the end of time that there is nothing wrong with me.
In my heart (soul? body? spleen?) I can feel that acknowledging that there’s nothing wrong with me is surrender.
It’s not saying that I’m perfect, or suddenly healthy and strong, it’s saying that there’s nothing wrong with me being the way that I am.
I am me, right here, right now, exactly as I’m meant to be. There is nothing wrong with me.
My mind disagrees, loudly, insistently. My mind loves to analyze, research and study each and every problem. My mind can find the cloud for every silver lining. It excels and itemizing and trying to fix each and every thing it tells me is wrong with me.
But surrender…
Surrender is not finding problems or solutions. Surrender is not holding on to ideals or judgements. Surrender is not struggling or fighting or working.
There’s nothing wrong with me in surrender.
There’s nothing but this single perfect moment.
It’s just a matter of taking a deep breath, opening and expanding and then letting it all go.
