Artwork by Fabio Bacchini – Instagram @_baccc

 

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I want to have a conversation with you about surrender.

It’s a big topic, one that I’ve been thinking about for some time.

More recently I’ve come to a theory.

The theory is that surrender is one of our primal needs. Like love or touch (as opposed to food and water type needs).

On that basis – I’ve been watching.

I’ve tried to really consider how and where it shows up, and have been tracking it, to see any common correlations.

January has been a super month; this year has gotten off to an amazing start. Full to the brim with lessons and opportunity to show up more as myself. It’s the scary, messy kind of opportunity that you don’t always wish for but know deep down are the most valuable.

Something ended last week. Within this I noticed how my head was full of thoughts about it that I couldn’t shift. Even nonsensical stuff. I started to think about what it was to be stuck thinking about things within the context of loss (in this case loss of future connection).

Once you frame it in the context of loss, you see almost instantly (well I did anyway) that it’s not “thinking”, it is control.

The sticky thoughts are not you actually really thinking… it’s just control disguised as that. It was an unwillingness to surrender to the loss. Like a last ditched attempt to somehow change the outcome.

This then got me thinking about how loss brings a forced surrender. It (whatever ‘It’ is) is gone, and you don’t get any further choices. You can’t control what isn’t there, so all you can do is just surrender to it.

Back to the theory. 

If surrender is in fact a primal need. Then it will find its way into our lives whether we like it or not. It will creep in and it will push and influence out choices – mostly unconsciously, if we have not given it the space it deserves, as a primal need.

Alas, I came to think.

That maybe there is a correlation between the amount of loss you experience and the amount you are willing to surrender in life.

When you choose to surrender you are choosing things like love, trust, connection, focus, orgasm, achievement (think the athlete in flow, pushing past their known ability to win). That’s the kind we choose.

The reverse of this is, then, when surrender will choose you, and as the brilliant beings we are, when it’s primal, and it’s a need, we always choose the quickest and easiest path.

Loss. Pain. Fear. The death (metaphorically speaking) of something.

So, the theory of surrender has expanded.

We must surrender to survive.

Therefore, if we are unwilling to do so in love & trust, achievement or connection we will unconsciously break our lives over and over, so we surrender to loss – because loss is the fastest, most effective way to fill that need.

My focus for this year is to cultivate more joy. To live this, I’m making decisions that minimise suffering. Doing something every week that pushes me into unknown outcomes, things I can’t control, things I need to trust and connections that require love past my perception of my own ability, choosing to surrender over and over, in as many ways as possible, may just be the path. Or not. I don’t actually know.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to surrender to that & see what happens.