
Surrender….God what a scary concept that can be.
To many people, it means give up. Just give up. What good would that do? How can you even consider it, when something is weighing on you and seems so vital. How can you let go of wanting to direct and control the outcome to be what you want it to be?
I had this moment during my divorce, when my son was traveling with my ex to a hockey tournament. I didn’t know where they were, I couldn’t call them because neither of them would give me the cell phone number of the new phones my ex had bought them. My son was playing for a new team, I didn’t know any of the parents to contact them. I knew my ex was an alcoholic, and would think nothing of driving drunk. I was in a panic attack, the only real one I’ve ever had, terrified for my son.
They were supposed to be back on a Sunday morning, and I was going to go over to my old house and just see my son for 5 minutes, to reassure myself he was ok. But I needed to pull myself together somehow, because I didn’t want him to know how freaked out I’d become. So I x’d out of my email, shut the computer down, and I went in the shower, and hoped that would straighten me out.
I ended up on my knees in there, naked, alone, letting the water (oh it’s always the water) just cleanse me. “God, I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t. I’m giving it to you, to do with what you will. I’ll go along with whatever you do.”
Surrender. I had never thought of it, never considered it even as a concept. I was just doing it, because I had no where to go. I could not deal with it one more minute, so I gave the burden over to the universe.
When I got out of the shower, I felt better, but not great. I dressed, I headed out of the small condo I was renting. But as I headed for the door, a voice was in my head, “check your email.”
WTF? I had just checked it an hour before. I am not obsessive. But it felt like a command, so I sat down with my coat on, opened my laptop, and checked my mail again.
There, was the only email my son had ever sent me, written while I was on my knees in the shower.
“Hi Mom. The tournament was good, I broke my stick and had to get a new one. Are you coming to my game today?”
Immediately. I didn’t wait for an answer, it was there the moment I surrendered.
Surrender isn’t giving up. It’s giving it over to the unconditional love of the universe to deal with, and because that energy is love, nothing but love, I got what I needed.
From that moment on in my life, I have always known that everything will be ok. Every time anything, anything happens that I can’t deal with, I know it will all be ok.
It is one of the most freeing acts you can do as a human. I remember a year or two later, reading the chapter in The Power of Now about surrender. I laid the book down, just sobbing, knowing that that’s what I’d done (that’s when I got a name for it). And realizing the power it had.
Surrender. Don’t give up. Give up the idea that you have any power over the outcome, and trust in the loving energy of the universe to work it out for you. You are, no matter what you think, an integral part of that loving energy, and it will work in your behalf, if you just let it.
Peace….






Putting up Christmas decorations today. All but the tree. I’ll get to that maybe tonight, the lights at least. The rest of it tomorrow.

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