A year of surrender

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2018 was a funny year. I turned 40. I made some big decisions about what I wanted for my life. I had some honest conversations. I let go of some stuff. The last four years, though, have been even funnier… and something set this off in 2018: a certain theme, if you like. The theme was surrender.

I think by the time I hit 40, I’d realised that I had spent a lifetime holding on to things… tightly. I could see I’d been holding on to some beliefs that were holding me back.

We are led to believe that we have control, and yet we don’t. This belief sees us trying to achieve control by holding on to things – the things that we want more of, the things we want less of, the things that we want to stay just as they are. I’m not just talking about big life things, I’m also talking about the little day-to-day stuff that we hold onto.

I see this all the time when I’m facilitating workshops for the Service Habits transformation journey. People carry beliefs into their workplace, and the unhelpful beliefs that they bring into interactions with colleagues and customers really hold them back and get in the way… And it’s exhausting.

The reason I made a commitment, during the summer of 2018, to dive deep into what it really meant to surrender and let go of stuff, was because I could see that I was a master at resisting, controlling and grabbing on to anything and everything that I could… and I was exhausted.

I think in 2020, when the pandemic hit, many people saw their beliefs get thrown up into the air like a fistful of glitter. Suddenly, the things many of us held onto so tightly and believed we had control over were disrupted. We’ve all been forced to let go of a lot over the last couple of years. But what if letting go was a choice rather than something we were forced to do?

Letting go is one of the quickest ways to come back to the present moment.

When you surrender to what is, what has happened – you are right here, in this moment, and you are experiencing all of the moment. You are able to be more still, and to stay in a place of connectedness to the present moment. Letting go brings me closer to peace each day, each moment… It’s for that reason I practise it. (And trust me, it’s a practice every day – you never arrive at this one!)

Question

Where might you still be clinging?

Practice

Perhaps there’s a thought, idea or belief – something from the past or future – that is holding you back. Can you loosen your grip on it?

Note: If this blog resonated with you, then I thoroughly recommend reading The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer. It’s not for the faint-hearted, but it will open your mind to new ways of understanding the mind and emotions and what it takes to fully let go.