The Counterbalance of Choice and Surrender

     When I landed in recovery in my early twenties my life was an unfolding train wreck. Things happened. I reacted. My reaction spawned more events that I reacted to and on and on and on.  Recovery introduced me to the concept of surrender and to a higher power as tangible presence in my life, rather than abstract idea. Although I didn’t like the idea of surrender, I couldn’t deny that my addiction had kicked my butt.

     Integrating and getting my head around the concept of surrender involved a lot of playing with it. What did the Universe want from me? How far did this surrender thing go? One morning I dumped all my socks on my bed and decided to sit there until the Universe told me which pair to put on. I don’t remember how long I waited to put on my socks. I felt both disappointed and relieved when a sticky note didn’t appear on my bed telling me what to wear.

     The relief came from learning that surrender didn’t mean letting something else take me over and force me to do something. That was the beginning of my stepping away from a typical Western concept of surrender into something that looks more like a partnership.

     In our go-getter, make it happen society surrender often has a decidedly negative connotation. Many of us associate surrender with waving the proverbial white flag. We see surrender as giving up, giving in, giving over or some other form of relinquishing our autonomy.

    Surrendering and being conquered are not the same thing. Surrender is about inviting the Universe to be a partner in the life I’m creating and taking more responsibility for my choices, not less.

     As with any other collaboration, the partnership works best when I’m clear on what is and isn’t my part. That’s where choice as the counterbalance to surrender comes in. My part consists of whatever’s happening right now. All the power I have is in the present moment. I can meet what’s in front of me, make choices and the rest is up to the Universe. Simple but far from easy.

     Being able to do that means letting go of whatever isn’t happening right now.  That’s a skill that takes practice. I first became aware of how much I wasn’t letting go when it came to future plans. I’d make a decision about doing something next week or next month. Because I was no longer actively in the decision process, I thought I’d let go. I hadn’t.

     If the decision involved something I felt excited or anxious about, my head leapt in to create scenarios. If the scenarios centered on something that might be difficult I’d spend hours going over what I’d say or do if this or that happened. If I liked the scenarios I’d forget they were just possibilities. I’d feed them with my attention until some part of me was convinced that what I imagined might happen was going to happen.

    When the event I’d spent so much time ruminating over arrived, it rarely looked like my projections. That usually left me scrambling around in my head about why this didn’t look like I thought it would….which made it really difficult to stay present with what was happening.

    It took me a few years to see that all my monkey mind after making the choice was a warped attempt at controlling or influencing future events. I forgot and still often do that all the power I have to change or affect future events lies in this moment. When I get ahead of myself, I rob myself of my own power by trying to do the Universe’s job.

    While the idea staying present and making plans seems contradictory, it isn’t. For most of us, making future plans is a necessity. My calendar between now and the end of 2015 has a lot of plans in it. I can pretty much guarantee that most of it won’t look like it does in my calendar. The timing will change. Some of what I’ve planned won’t happen at all.  Some will show up looking entirely different than what I can see right now.

    A lot of that rearrangement will come from surrendering to the Universe and what’s bigger. My part in that is paying attention. Ever hear that saying about “If you want to make the Universe laugh, make plans”? My version is “If you want to make the Universe laugh, get attached to your plans.”

    When I get attached to what I’ve projected, I give myself tunnel vision. The Universe rarely leaves a sticky note on my bed letting me know this fork in the road will lead to something much better than what I have planned. The Universe speaks through other people, unexpected opportunities, gifts and little nudges. If I’m too focused on what I think should be happening, I not only miss the magic by cutting off the ways the Universe can surprise me. Bottom line - collaboration doesn’t work if I invite the Universe in and then decide to ignore it.

     And it doesn’t work if I expect the Universe to do all the work by doing it for me. I am responsible for meeting this moment, making choices and letting go into what comes in the next moment. That letting go is opening to the magic of bigger. The most profound and amazing experiences in my life come from following nudges..not from what I had planned.

Surrender in layers

      The only thing I really celebrate this time of year is the Winter Solstice. The shortest day gives way to longest night that opens into the slow return of light. This week I’ve been reflecting on my year in preparation for celebrating the Winter Solstice on Sunday night.

   This year has been and still is a full tilt roller coaster of challenges, opportunities, good adventures and ginormous gifts. When I looked at where I’ve been this year, two things kept jumping out at me – surrender and freedom.

    Surrender gets a bad name in Western culture. It’s often associated with waving a white flag, giving up and relinquishing your power to some external thing. Before I got into recovery surrender was something forced upon me by various external authorities that wanted me to do something I didn’t want to do. My introduction to surrender as spiritual principle came when I got clean in the mid-eighties.  The idea that the only way I was going to learn to live clean was through surrendering to something greater than me was hard to swallow. I didn’t like the idea but it made sense. My addiction had kicked my butt. I needed to do things differently. I had no idea to do that. Surrender was the only practical option.

    That surrender, born mostly of desperation, was my introduction to the idea of letting go. Even in my first few attempts at that level of surrender brought an immediate sense of relief. Surrendering let me off the hook for trying to do the Universe’s job.

     From there my definition of surrender expanded to include not messing with the things I can’t change. There was a sense of both relief and freedom in looking at something I was scrambling to “fix” and realizing I couldn’t change it.  However both the relief and the sense of freedom were pretty limited.

     Although I was learning not to take action on things I couldn’t change, I didn’t know how to stop spinning around in my fuzzy little brain about them. Learning how to redirect my mind when I found myself endlessly analyzing a situation and running scenarios about how it might come out took years. I’m still a work in progress on that one.

     My path this year has brought me a new understanding of surrender. Surrender is the art of getting out my own way. Each time I surrender I cross the threshold of freedom and make more room in my life for magic.

     I also have a new clarity about what I let go of when I surrender. Surrendering to an external authority is surface level sort of surrender. I invite in something much deeper when I surrender to the unknown.

      This year has brought me face to face with big piles of unknown. I experienced many moments of yikes and wanting to fight with what was happening. Fear blocks surrender. Once I got past the fear and my ego’s desire to control, I found myself in a very different place. Although my head still wanted to run scenario’s and analyze the situation, it didn’t hook me for very long. I couldn’t talk myself into believing what my monkey mind was spitting out.

     Surrender is more than letting go of control. It’s letting of my illusion of control, any beliefs I’m holding that this “shouldn’t” be happening or that I “should” be in control. Control is an attachment to outcome. Yes, in most situations I do have a preference for how things come out. But when I keep feeding that preference with my attention until it becomes an attachment, I box myself in.

     That feeling of being cornered or boxed in triggers my fight instinct the same way it did when I was kid and an authority figure wanted me to do something I didn’t want to do. The difference now is my awareness that what I’m really being cornered by is not an external authority or situation. It’s me; my need to control. I can’t blame that on someone or something else.

     Being faced with an ongoing heap of unknown, I knew I had two choices. Surrender and go along for the ride or refuse to surrender and keep pushing the river. Again, surrender was the only practical option. Because I had more clarity about what I really letting go of, I was able to see surrender as choice and not something that was being forced on me.

     To my surprise, surrender without resignation brought a more enduring sense of freedom. Much of that freedom came from some trial by fire learning about staying in the now. With so much unknown, redirecting myself over and over again to the present moment seemed the only way to move with what is without making myself crazy.

     In that I discovered another lovely little paradox. Although I often chose surrender from feeling powerless, surrender is one of the most powerful choices I can make. All the power I have lies in the present moment. When I surrender, I give myself the power to be fully present and work with what’s happening.

     Another aspect of this new freedom has come from inviting the Universe, my soul and the unknown to be my partners in the life I’m creating for myself. My life works much better when I don’t limit myself to living in the confines of what my little self (personality, ego, etc.) can grasp.

      As Albert Einstein said, “There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” Surrender paves the way for everything being a miracle. When I’m able to stay in surrender and equal partnership with the unknown, my soul and the Universe, I let of my need to know where anything is going to come from. In that place everything that arrives becomes a gift.