Lessons in Surrender - Becoming More Spiritual

It began with a feeling, then a sign, a nudge and then a book. A signal to change, to slow down, to breathe more deeply and to go within.

At first I hesitated. Unsure, confused. It was so against my normal way, my DNA. Or so I thought. A typical A type personality I had spent the larger part of my life pushing, planning, achieving, driving. It felt good to check off the to do list, to say I was busy and to be productive.

But something over the past few years had been shifting, silently quietly recalibrating, like the sand does under the power of a wave.

My initial reaction was to think that I was drowning, failing, becoming less, when the reality was the opposite, it’s just taken me a while to wake up to the fact.

My story is no different. Many people describe their spiritual path, their “journey” what I have found and am finding is that it isn’t some journey outside of yourself to some promised land of holy la la spiritual bliss, but a journey of surrender, of allowing and of letting go.

I once read that the highest aim of any spiritual path is surrender. And for the first time in my life I think I am beginning to understand that, if only in a small way, but hey it’s a start.

A dear spiritual friend from New Zealand has often discussed such things with me, and while I always felt myself nodding and my soul saying yes within as we talked, my brain, my fickle, logical, structured pea brain would say no. No this doesn’t make sense. No she’s talking gobbled gook. No I don’t understand. No, no, no.

And so I went on my merry way resisting. And as the famous saying goes “what we resist, persists.”

And so it did. And it has.

Until now.

Until now I had always associated the word surrender with weakness, cry babies and giving in. Until now I had seen surrender as defeat. Until now, surrender was not something I did.

Until now.

All those things, the nudge, the signs, the feelings and then the book (Michael Singer’s Surrender Experiment), brought me to now. To a feeling of peace. To a hollowness inside that isn’t empty and void, rather a big vastness inside ready to be filled up, to be flooded and drunk in just being.

I am in transition. I have anxiety about it if I am brutally honest. Taking action always cured my fears and I’ve become dependent on it and now I am being tested to let go and trust.

Letting go of my personal preferences and simply letting life call the shots has actually been easier than I thought. Easier to do practically, but challenging still for my mind.

Recently two big events I was speaking at and involved in organising came across major hurdles. Normally I would feel the need to push and push, to rearrange, to drive a new path and to make it happen regardless.

This time instead I surrendered…

I decided to experiment and allow the events to transpire however they did. I found myself able to breath, not be upset and interestingly let go of the ego, opportunity and financial gain both of these would have brought and instead been open to the space they’ve created for something new to come up instead.

What’s been wonderful about this process has been the lack of stress and, the lack of a story and drain on my wellbeing. Instead, this way of being has truly inspired me to look at my life in a radically different way.

Sure I still feel like a fraud or like I am missing something. I get distracted, I feel the urge to need to know, to find certainty. And yet there is still this inkling, this inner knowing drawing me back in. Back to surrender, to detaching from outcomes and stuff and to allowing the universe to take the wheel.

I am beginning to walk in the land of possibility and I think I like it.

What have been your spiritual experiences? I’d love to learn more about them. If you want to keep it private then drop me a line or else share your thoughts in the comments below, you never know who you might help.