Surrender & Receiving

In a lot of circles, Surrender is known for its superpower properties of healing, transformation and energizing after a fallow period.

Another way of thinking about surrender is no more protecting, defending, resisting or hiding, and instead — allowing.

Allowing, without judgement, whatever is flowing through your conscious awareness. Aware of the pain, exhaustion, judgments (of self or others) and not defending for or against any of it.

Not taking any of it in or on, not assigning value or meaning, and instead simply noticing and allowing it all to flow on like a river, maybe a river in a rain storm. Tumultious and merky or calm and untaxing — Allowing is just watching the river flow. Allow. Allow. Allow.

Allowing without assigning judgement, worth, value, meaning is the ultimate Ahhhhh, and way to be present in the moment. The moment of most power — right here, right now. The point from which anything IS possible.

And this allowance state of being is how you can perceive and receive all the wonders of the universe; the sustaining energy, the kindness, the soft yet fierce ease and power of Life itself, as you connect to the All the IS within and surrounding you.

However, in the competitive world that’s been the dominant value system for some long time, surrender is a bad word, a show of weakness, or character flaw. As sports, popular TV, movies and books portray it, surrender is a wicked weakness and abject failing.

This is total bullshit.

For anyone living in a body, beyond the surface of a resume, interview or magazine cover, surrender is the moment when you stop believing the bullshit, and just full stop.

Stop trying, stop pretending, stop wanting, yearning, running away and resisting being in your own skin.

Surrender is giving up, giving in, giving way, which competition-values says is bad, broken, weakness or pathetic, but in human terms, it is relief, reprieve, release, and pliant enough to Receive.

Competition is all either/or, black/white, right/wrong, good/bad = all judgement, all the time.

Competition is some-one/thing is better than some-one/thing other. Different, varied, spectrum doesn’t come into it, isn’t allowed, doesn’t get seen, is value-less. Another lie.

Competition is a grid of binary choices, judgements, evaluations, the lattice of this modern, voyeuristic culture, always watching others (competition, comparison) to rate/grade them and you, for who is better and who is worse.

The implication that only good/bad/right/wrong/align and agree or resist and rebel or defend for or against are possible. The implication is that these are the only choices, and the only points of view possible, valid, valuable or real is the foundational lie, and the bars of ones own prison.

By aligning and agreeing, or resisting and rebelling, you spend all your energy defending for or against, hence reinforcing the steel of the prison. And tons of social reinforcement further solidifies the steel.

This is very time consuming, keeps you off kilter, tired, sleepy, drained, exhausted, and in self-doubt in every area of your life. It is intentionally crazy-making, which is why they sell it as the way to improve yourself, but really it just keeps you in the fun-house mirror rooms and out of the real game — living and thriving for fun and oh by the way, the good of the many, including the plants, animals, trees, weather and everything.

Humans are part of the animal kingdom. Our bodies are designed exquisitely and with phenomenal capacities to navigate the physical world and co-operate with the energetic, non-physical or spirit aspect of ourselves and every molecule in the physical universe.

Our bodies are designed to be at rest, the opposite of not on alert, which does not mean lying around sleeping all the time, but thriving with a spring in one’s step, in joy — enjoying being in a sumptuous, vivacious, powerful, capable body, creating and doing all day long.

We are meant to be “at rest” — think Vegus nerve and the opposite of fight/flight/freeze.

Life means for us to only occasionally require the fight/flight/freeze and to have available as needed the adrenaline, heightened awareness and power rush — when required. Occasionally. As needed. Not all the time.

Modern society with technology, multitasking to the beat of someone else’s expectations, chronic and constant messaging that you are not okay, there’s not enough time or money or kindness or anything else and in no area of your life and living care you enough, capable, or safe. This is literally crazy-making.

However, none of this non-enough, hyperdrive nuttiness is what Life and Living require of us.

Life requires that you rest, barriers down, listen to the beat of your own heart, be curious and listen to the beat of the seasons all around you. To be curious, to wonder as well as wander. To fully notice and engage with what your senses are picking up and telling you.

To fully be present, in your body, in the moment, as the sky changes due to weather, or the changes of the time of day. To fully engage in the actual, physical world within and around you is where your true potency resides — your awareness.

Aware of all the energies around you, without taking any of them personally, without making any of them mean anything about you, or even the other person or the world. Aware and allowing it all to float by and around; then do what you know to be most generative, as in creating more of the thriving every fiber of your being knows is true and available in every moment.

This is the point where some people bring up examples of atrocities and concepts they’ve never lived, to demonstrate this thriving, generative energy is not as valuable and real as the pain and suffering in the world.

What if it does not make sense? What if both are equally true? What if your experience of life is by the point of view you choose to stand in, and defend?

I very simply invite you to do the experiment. To try a different approach and see for yourself what happens.

What if there are possibilities that you’ve never even imagined? If that’s the case, would you want to see all the possibilities that are always surrounding you, even when you think and can’t see them? Are you willing to let go of conclusions, decisions, assumptions, projections and definitions so you can perceive the millions of possibilities in every moment?

Spoiler alert — if you are not willing to entertain the idea of infinite possibilities dancing all around you in every moment, you will never see them.

The opposite is true as well. When you are open and willing to perceive More, you surely will.