Surrender

 Surrender is one of those words that seems to have a visceral feel to it. It invokes emotions in people that may vary but usually hover around the feeling of despair. When we use surrender in the terms of a battle, we are affirming the fact that one side is giving up or has their hands held up in defeat. It signifies failure and loss which then engenders the feelings of shame and guilt.  Before my spiritual awakening (and to be truthful even at times after it), I did not like the word at all. Surrender meant to me being weak and out of control. So you can imagine my confusion when all of my spiritual teachers started pushing me toward accepting surrender as not only a worthwhile process but one that is essential if one is to grow as a spiritual person. 

I have been single for most of my adult life and spent most of it living alone. From the time I moved out at age 22 (which my mother used to refer to as the time I ran away from home), until now 30 years later I have been in charge of all of my own decisions. This has built up a stubborn side of me that doesn't like to be told how my days are going to unfold. Granted, I am a fairly easygoing person so my stubborn side may not be evident if you deal with me day to day but it is there nonetheless. During these decades I have made good decisions and bad decisions and have always tried to take responsibility for either outcome. The thought of giving up that control even if it meant bringing good things into my life was a very harsh pill for me to swallow. 

If I had allowed myself to think about it though, there were many times that I did give things to God HOPING He would make things better. One of the first times I remember doing this was when I gathered the courage to ask my dad to allow me to study in England. I didn't think I had a chance in hell of him saying yes, yet he did so quite quickly and easily (see my post on coincidences). Another time I surrendered my future to the Universe without really realizing I was doing it was when I applied to the district where I eventually would get a position. I remember filling out 40 other applications (this was way back in the time before applying online) and NOT filling one out for this district. A few people told me that it was "political" pull that got you a position in this district, not your application. Since my family was as far from the Kennedys or the Cuomos as you could get, I assumed I was out of luck. I finally did apply when I heard nothing from the other districts and was flabbergasted when I heard back from them. This job turned out to be a place where I met some of my closest friends and where I taught so many great kids for the next 9 years. Would I have freely chosen to work in an inner city district at age 24? Probably not. But it turned out to be the making of me as a teacher. The perfect position fell into my lap and helped shape my early years as a teacher.

While giving up control in my work life was fairly easy to do, giving up on control in my personal life was not. Many of the men I dated were addicts in one way or another which fed into my own codependent nature. Growing up with addiction in my family made me very good at "feeling" the mood of a room and accommodating the addict in order to ensure everything ran smoothly. This takes a great amount of finesse and control of which I had plenty of practice right through my 20s. The idea of listening to that tiny voice inside of me telling me that this was no way to live felt foolhardy and selfish. When Spirit realized I wasn't listening to this guidance, I was gifted with friends who saw things clearly and were quite honestly disgusted with the way I allowed men to treat me. But even having a best friend who was forever telling me that the guy I was dating was nowhere near good enough for me didn't persuade me to let go of the relationship (although her selection of "Even the Losers Get Lucky Sometimes" as the theme songs of all my exes always got me to smile.) I could not accept the fact that I couldn't change these relationships into the peaceful, supportive, and harmonious one I had always envisioned myself having. 

No, it took losing my father to make me start to  understand that surrendering to the Universe was really the only way to live. During his illness I bargained with God, kept positive thoughts about his diagnosis, and even denied the severity of his condition in order to help keep his eventual demise as far from my mind as possible. All this did was drive me into panic attacks and heightened anxiety. It wasn't until I realized that the timing of his demise was in God's hands and completely out of mine that I truly was able to come to peace with his eventual death. Once I surrendered his care to the Divine plan for his life, I stopped being consumed by the worry and grief of my beloved father's passing. During his last few days in the hospital we were able to have short conversations (since neither of us were big on expressing our feelings) that made me feel assured of both his and my future. 

So what does surrender mean to me in a spiritual sense? It means to trust that things will work out for my best. It means to stop struggling against what is in my life and accept that even the painful events are there to teach me something. I don't believe we were created to live lives in pain but I do believe our souls chose to return to this world in order to learn specific lessons. I know the only way to begin to learn these lessons is to let go of how we think things should be and just accept how things are. 

To be honest, I'm still learning a lot about surrender, and many days I still hate it. I struggle against it especially when it involves giving up on a person or a dream held in my heart. But my most peaceful days are the ones in which I let things happen according to God's plan and not according to my wishes. And on a few precious days those two end up to be the same things.