For the past year, I have been trying to understand “surrender”. What am I surrendering to? What am I surrendering? What does it mean? What does it feel like?

Before turning to Google, I explored my own mind and memories. What does the word surrender mean to me? The first thing that came to mind was war. Fighting. Hand-to-hand combat. Soldiers in armor with swords. Mud, blood, and sweat. These soldiers are tired and hurting. Waves of enemies crash over them. They fight even harder, but the enemy won’t stop. Finally, the enemy overpowers them. They drop their swords. On their knees, they bow their heads. They have failed. All is lost. Surrender. 

Is that what I’m supposed to do? To what? Life? I’m supposed to let life take everything out of me? I’m supposed to feel completely defeated? I’m supposed to feel like I’m not good enough? Like I failed? Like I failed myself, my loved ones and my people? Surrender? That doesn’t sound right. What else does surrender mean?

The second thing that comes to mind is sports. Mixed martial arts. Again, there’s hand-to-hand combat, but no war. Just two people fighting for glory. They have trained all their lives and they are masters of their bodies. Grappling, kicking, punching. They feel the adrenaline coursing through them. As time goes on, they begin to tire. One opponent gets the upper hand. They overpower the other. The other feels he is losing. He tries his best, but it’s not enough. His opponent is too strong. He accepts his defeat and respects his opponent’s skill. Surrender. Maybe surrender is letting go of your ego and accepting the power of a stronger opponent.

The dictionary says surrender means to “cease resistance to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority”. This definition is similar to my personal definition, which helps me understand my struggle with this word. 

Putting it all together, I can analyze surrender. Both my definition and the dictionary say you have to stop resisting an enemy or opponent. I have a problem with this. While it makes sense on a battlefield or in the gym. Who is the enemy or opponent in life? Is it life? Is it God or the Universe? If so, why would my life be my opponent (much less my enemy)? How can God be my opponent? That doesn’t make sense to me, which tells me I’m not there yet. I need to dig deeper. 

The final part of the definition is to submit to their authority. This part is the hardest for me because this sounds like slavery. It sounds like giving up control. On a battlefield, I would probably rather die than surrender. In the gym? Well, I’m not the best loser. It would be hard to surrender even in a gym, but there wouldn’t be the option of death, just humiliation.

Giving up control to a higher authority makes me afraid. Why? Because deep down I believe only I can take care of myself. Only I have my best interests at heart. Why would I let anyone else take care of me? I don’t think it’s fair to make others responsible for me. This whole “submit to another’s authority” is annoying. Also, I absolutely hate feeling forced to do something because someone said so. Giving up control feels like giving up freedom, which feels scary. Plus, if you add the whole “stop resisting an enemy that’s better than you” part, it feels humiliating.  

Overall, this perspective of surrender feels exhausting, humiliating, and demoralizing. It means you did your absolute best and it wasn’t good enough. It means you give someone control over you because they’re better than you. It means that you acknowledge they’re better than you. This is why it’s so annoying to hear people telling me to surrender. Do you think I failed? Do you think I should give up? I certainly don’t feel that way. Why should I surrender? To whom?

All in all, I think the spiritual community is doing the world a huge disservice by constantly telling them to surrender. Many people, like me, see it as a failure. And when we’re told that the only way out to get our heart’s deepest desires is to become slaves to some higher power, that just doesn’t seem right.

This is how I use the idea of MOO SHOO flow. This idea tells me there are positive and negative sides to everything. Everything, including surrender. Right now, I only see the negative side: losing, humiliation, defeat. There has to be a positive side. What can it be? 

First, stop resisting.

Resisting can mean fighting someone, like in a war. This form of resistance is an action. You are physically doing something. This is electric masculine energy. Resisting can also mean refusing to accept something or be changed by something. This is magnetic feminine energy. Unlike fighting, resisting in this way is being closed off. It’s a passive form of resistance where you don’t allow things to come in. Imagine someone offers you an apple and you are hungry, but you don’t want to take things from people so you refuse. Resistance.

I see this in my life when I refuse help from others. Do I say no to blessings and gifts? Gifts are a big one. I used to tell people not to get me gifts for my birthday. I had many reasons, but the truth was I didn’t know how to accept. Now I accept gifts anyone with gratitude. I stopped resisting. Now I allow people to support me. I allow people to compliment me. All these things have made me feel grateful and humble. Most importantly, it has made me feel connected. 

Second, submit to an enemy or opponent.

I think the positive aspect of the enemy/opponent is someone (something) that is teaching you. The word enemy has always meant someone directly opposed to you who is harming you at every step. The root of the word means “not friend”. What is a friend? Someone who uplifts you and supports you with love. So an enemy is really someone or something that makes you grow through pain, fear, etc. All stories have a hero and a villain. Without the villain, the hero wouldn’t grow. The hero must conquer their enemies to get their happily ever after. So why would you submit to that person or thing? Isn’t that dangerous? If I went back to Ceasar’s time and told him, “Hey, you want to be happy? Submit to your enemy.” Worst advice ever. Doesn’t make sense. So why is that the thing to do nowadays? Well, clearly the meaning of the enemy is deeper than humans have understood. Enemies and villains are necessary. 

Enemies/opponents don’t have to be people. In my life, my enemies have included alcohol, potato chips, and fear (just to name a few). Ok, so how do you “submit to their authority”? Is that just slavery? If Alexander the Great submitted to Persia his name would have been lost to history. His country would have been destroyed. Right?

I used to be obsessed with potato chips. I could eat a family-sized bag in 1 sitting (and I did eat that on many occasions). I used to crave chips so much that I wouldn’t let myself eat them. Or I would only buy them for a special occasion and I would only get a small bag. But some days when I felt stressed or upset I would lose complete control and binge on potato chips. Then I felt guilty and did not eat them for weeks. This went on for a while. I felt a lot of shame and guilt for my potato chip obsession. During that time, I was learning how to love myself and practicing letting go of judgment. Soon I noticed the judgment I had about chips. It was ridiculous that I judged myself so much for eating potato chips. I could feel how much energy went into my own self-judgment and then the shame. Why was I wasting my time and energy with this? I decided to try to stop judging myself.

I gave myself permission to buy and eat as many chips as I wanted without judgment. If I wanted to eat 5 bags of chips a day, I would support myself. No more criticism. The next time the chips craving hit, I got the biggest bag I could find. I sat there watching TV with my sour cream and onion chips. I crunched and munched and crunched happily. Not feeling ashamed. Not feeling scared that tomorrow I would hate myself. I ate until I felt satisfied and when I looked down, the bag was still half full. Huh. That’s weird. Normally, I would eat the whole bag before feeling done.

I kept at it. I allowed myself to eat as much as I wanted. I made special runs to the store if I got the craving. Not long passed before I didn’t care for chips anymore. Yes, I still love potato chips, but I don’t feel the need to gorge. I feel satisfied with a handful of chips. I can stop anytime. I can share. Things I wasn’t able to do before. So, my enemy in that situation was me.

I was the only one hurting myself. I surrendered to my cravings with love for myself. This allowed me to let go of shame, guilt, and fear. All these emotions were created by me against me. When I surrendered to them I felt satisfied. I felt grateful. I felt my own love for the first time in a while. 

I wish surrender was that easy in every situation. My struggle with alcohol was much harder and I didn’t use the same approach. But that’s a story for another post. 

Surrendering to fear means accepting it. Understanding it. 

So, how do you surrender? Well, it’s different for each person in each situation. I have learned how to do it in certain situations and I’m still learning. For me, it’s hard because I don’t always feel safe. I know that surrender done in a positive way should feel like relief, fun, joy, and gratitude. Surrender means letting go of your resistance to love. Accepting blessings and allowing abundance. Maybe even letting go of parts of yourself that want pain. Most importantly, when done right, surrender feels like safety. You finally trust that nothing and no one can ever hurt you. You trust that only the most amazing things are coming into your life. Trust comes with feeling safe, which is something I’m still learning to do.

Be present in the moment.

For me, it helps to be as present as possible. What does this mean? It means to look up right now. Take your eyes off the screen and look around. What blessings do you see? If you don’t see any, you’re not really looking. When I look up I see my two feet. I am so grateful for my healthy body and my working feet, that take me everywhere I want to go. I see a city out my window. I see clear skies. No war. No bombs. I am grateful I live in a safe city. I see my cat sleeping. I am grateful I have a beautiful, healthy kitty who brings me joy and love. That’s living in the present. Look around. What do you appreciate? Do this all the time. Hug yourself. Thank your body for housing you, thank the Earth for your body. Thank the Universe for your life. You’re living in the moment. 

Sit with discomfort.

The final way I have been practicing surrender is by being fully present in situations where I’m unhappy. Being present in the moment is different. Being present in uncomfortable situations feels more like surrendering on a battlefield. For example, I feel burnt out at my job. I am looking for a new job, but in the meantime I’m stuck. I feel trapped in a place I don’t want to be. I would like to be grateful for the opportunity to show me how powerful I am, but I’m not there yet. I’m too close to the problem to feel that. 

How do I surrender to this situation? The first thing I did was to identify what tasks I hate doing the most and figure out how to make them easier. I cut out all the things I was doing that I didn’t need to do. I’m lucky that I have some freedom in my work so that I can choose my tasks. I stopped doing things in ways that made me unhappy. It turns out, I was saying YES to things that were way out of my job description. Why? I don’t even know. So, I started saying NO more. I added more boundaries. I stopped taking calls in the evenings. I brought in that MOO SHOO energy and it made things flow.

My job has gotten much easier and much better. I am still searching for a new job. Even with the improvements, I want something new. This isn’t me anymore. So, I surrendered to the situation. I asked myself what would make it better and I did those things. I learned to appreciate the good things about my job because it’s not all bad. All this has made me appreciate the job and the lessons I learned from it. It also made me connect with my clients and my coworkers. I feel like I have surrendered, but I’m still here. So I’m learning how to detach and surrender to divine timing, but it’s annoying. I feel impatient. Still, things are much better. So I am both impatient for the next step and grateful for the progress at the same time.

Calling it “surrender” is not the right word. Surrender implies war, slavery, and humiliation. I think it’s more like waking up. Wake up and realize you were having a nightmare. Open your heart and see: your life is amazing and you are perfect.