What Surrender Means to Me
Trigger Warning: It’s important to acknowledge that some people have experienced trauma related to religion and/or spirituality. Please note this post references my spiritual practice, my ideas of a higher power, and prayer. If these ideas or concepts are triggering for you, please skip reading this post and/or take the steps to care for yourself. Sending love to you all.
Holy crap, WHAT A TENSE COUPLE OF WEEKS.
The anxiety has been at an all time high. (yes, THE anxiety, not MY anxiety).
I felt completely unsettled in my body.
I felt like I was always 4 steps behind.
And that my brain was everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.
My to-do list is filled with a million small “quick wins” but as they circle around my mind in a fury, I can’t seem to get any of them done.
At one point last week I found myself clenching my jaw so tightly. I was glad I took the moment to pause to even notice it but -oh my gosh- it was such an awakening to realize just how tense I’ve been.
Since last year I have been working on SURRENDERING. Sometimes I am good at it, but other times not so much. These couple weeks are a prime example of how, as much as I desire to BE a certain way, sometimes the tough human stuff just takes over.
It’s funny when I think of my desire to surrender, and what reactions I’ve gotten trying to explain this idea to some folks. I guess the word for some people equates to just giving up. But for me in my spiritual practice, it’s about letting go of control, loosening my grip, and TRUSTING.
Trusting that I am Divinely guided and protected. Trusting that Source, my Angels and Guides have my back and have a plan that is for the greater good. Trusting that everything is going to be okay, even if it might not feel like it. Trusting that there is a reason I’m walking through the mud right now.
The other day my new therapist (what a gift she is!) asked me what resources I have to lean on when life gets hard. Funny how the last one I thought of is definitely the MOST helpful: prayer. I actually feel like my days are smoother and more peaceful when I pray than when I don’t. And yet do I remember to do it daily? Nope.
But when I do, it goes something like this:
“Dear Spirit, Angels, Ancestors and Guides: Thank you for protecting me and surrounding me in Light today. Please show me where to go, what to do, what to say and to whom. Allow my thoughts, words and action be of the Light and for the greater good of all. Allow me to be an instrument of your peace, and may you work through me to spread your Light and love today. May our world continue to wake up to remember our Oneness, and may all those suffering find peace in your Love. And so it is.”
Note: My daily prayer is adapted from ideas and words I have heard from the amazing Gabby Bernstein and from prayers I learned during my Catholic upbringing. Who would have thought?!?
So I have to keep remembering to Let. GOOOOO. Big freaking exhale. There is a Divine plan. I am a Spiritual being who has been given an opportunity to witness these Human experiences without getting sucked into them and without getting attached to the big feelings or the outcomes. What a gift. Does it make the hard things go away? Def not. But the release and surrender makes the experience just a little more tolerable.
