Surrender means letting go of the resistance to life.

Earlier this week I noticed that I was unconsciously turning something over and over in the mind to find resolution. I was lost in a familiar pattern of dissociation from the present moment. Once I realized that I was doing this, I made the conscious decision to surrender. To let go of the rumination, let go of the attempt to control my experience. Surrender doesn’t mean letting go of life, it means letting go of the resistance to life.

When I did this thing I’m calling surrender, I dropped directly into the center of the feelings I had been avoiding by trying to solve the “problem.” No more story, no more thoughts, just the feelings, the raw sensations in the body. I allowed myself to stay and feel and stay and feel. At some point, a knowing came from that deep place inside that at the center of the feelings themselves was a little me suffering alone. Sitting in the dark, waiting for the light of my own conscious awareness to reveal her.

Ah, and guess what? She had all the information I needed to know. She shared the truth that I hadn’t been ready to see until that very moment. But now I could see it. Now I would never unknow it. What an incredible feeling to reclaim this aspect of my lived experience that had been trapped in the dark. To own my own feelings. What a miraculous moment to see how life had orchestrated itself perfectly for this celebration of healing. What a relief to realize that simply through surrender, I can know the truth of myself more and more.