DD#47; Surrender

For me, surrender always meant giving up, submitting. It was a negative word carrying with it all of the negative feelings of failure and I'd had plenty of failures in my life, so I never wanted to add more. Since I've been in recovery in a 12 step program, I've come to understand surrender in very different terms. It represents a feeling of peace and serenity now. 

I was trapped in my mind for so many years - my mind was my master - pushed by ego into constant rumination and circular thinking. Sometimes self-talk worked to break the cycle, but not always. I tried meditation, and hypnosis, among other forms of relaxation therapy, but was rarely able to quiet my  mind. It was always busy, busy, busy exhausting me with sleepless nights and unproductive days, caught in the web of my own thinking, struggling like a spider's victim trying to escape but getting pulled in deeper and deeper. 

Have you ever had one of those Chinese finger cuffs you get at the fair or a carnival booth? They're woven bamboo and you put an index finger in each end. It's deceptively simple and so much fun until you try to pull your fingers out and realize they're stuck. The harder you pull, the tighter the weave on the bamboo and the stronger their  hold on your fingers. The only way you can remove your fingers is to gently push them in a little deeper, which opens the weave enough to free you from the grip. I spent my life pulling harder and harder as the cuff tightened around me, never knowing that gently pushing a little deeper into my stuff to free myself was a form of surrender. 

Someone wise said that surrendering is an act of faith from an untrusting person who knows that it will make a difference. Like learning how to release the finger cuffs, I've learned to trust that I can ask the Universe to help me surrender beyond my own mind. I can surrender those obsessive thoughts, I can surrender my fear or panic, I can surrender my anxiety, I can surrender my anger because I've been willing to risk it and it has worked! Yes! I'm here to tell you that it works for me and it can work for you, too. Surrender all of it to the Universe God/Goddess, whatever you consider to be the Divine Light in your life - you will be amazed at how much freedom you can have when you jump off the merry-go-round and make a stand - stop the spinning and surrender - feel it - isn't it fantastic?