The Art of Surrendering

Let go, let flow, and discover freedom beyond resistance

Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash

“Allowed doesn’t mean agreed with. It means seen, without rushing to oppose, judge, deny, rushing to tell a story about.” —Jan Frazier

Welcome to our fourth step to spaciousness:

surrendering.

If you are mystified by this one, you are not alone. The concept of surrender is one of the most difficult for us humans to get intellectually because it is not intellectual. Unlike the word implies, it is not about giving up.

Surrendering is more about stepping up (your game) by stepping back and allowing things to be as they are.

It means being more of a compassionate observer of your experience as it plays out, instead of an attached observer.

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To the degree that you are willing to be fully present and open your heart, the practice of surrendering will stretch you big time.

It will help you to let go, lighten up, and transcend anything that holds you back. In our work with clearing, it’s a game changer.

The one caveat is that you won’t be able to think your way through this one. Surrendering is a way of being. As Eckhart Tolle so wisely reminds us in his book A New Earth, “Being must be felt. It can’t be thought.”

How convenient that we’ve already had ten weeks of practice with sensing!¹

And…how convenient that

beginning next week we get 10 weeks to practice surrendering.

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Wonder what surrender means in practical terms? Keep reading.

Ahhh ✌🏼🎈

What surrender might look like, practically speaking

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Consider these ways:

1. Less chasing, fighting, hiding

“There is a Tibetan story of a monk who retreats to meditate in a cave only to be plagued by demons. He tries everything — chasing, fighting, hiding — to get the demons out of his cave, but the thing that finally works is surrender. He simply lets them have their way and only then do they disappear.”

—DailyOM, “The Wisdom of Surrender”

2. Letting go

“That’s a cliché from the movies. Dangling from a railroad bridge, only determination and firm grip can save the hero.

In our modern world, we often end up holding on to ideas, to grievances or to our view of the world.

Ironically, the harder we hold on to the things we’re hiding from, the less dear our life becomes.

Perhaps we could let go for dear life instead.”

—Seth Godin, “Holding on for dear life"

3. Not identifying

"How do you let go of attachments to things?

Don’t even try. It’s impossible. Attachment to things drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them."

—Eckhart Tolle

Experience less chasing, less identifying…and more gentle letting go over the next 10 weeks…

As we begin our practice series in Surrender.

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This 10-week clearing journey — the fourth segment this year — with additional new material (not found in the book), full access to this community and all previous challenges you may have missed — is being made available to paid subscribers.

All for less than $1.15 a week.

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Learn more about this ongoing clearing series here…

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1. Excerpted from Part 4, “Surrendering,” A Year For You: Release the Clutter, Reduce the Stress, Reclaim Your Life by Stephanie Bennett Vogt © Hierophant Publishing, 2019.