Surrendering: tools to help

A quiet realization, years later as I look back at old posts to see what is relavant for my website today…

As I read this now, I notice something that feels important. I don’t end up in that “puddle of goo” anymore. Even during my most recent health challenge, I wasn’t sinking into quicksand of emotions— I was already in surrender. The practices I wrote about all those years ago didn’t make life painless, but they changed how I meet pain. There’s less fight, less panic, and far more trust in my ability to stay with what’s happening.

On Surrender

You may have heard the term surrender.

For me, surrender first showed up on the bathroom floor — the kind of moment where you have no idea how you’re going to get up. It felt like calling “uncle” to life itself, when I had myself so pinned there was nowhere else to go.

It’s a place I half-jokingly call my puddle of goooooo — the moment I finally take my hands off the steering wheel and stop trying to force my way through. Not giving up… but recognizing that I’ve reached the end of pushing and need support beyond my own willpower.

At the time, surrender felt like admitting I’d hit bottom. Like allowing help in a way I’d resisted for a long time. I didn’t yet have the language I use today — I just knew that continuing to fight myself wasn’t working.

But surrender doesn’t only arrive at rock bottom.

It can show up in much smaller moments too — when a child is having a hard day, when traffic won’t move, when plans fall apart, or even when you’re out of coffee in the morning (which, for some people, absolutely qualifies as a crisis).

Surrender is the practice of meeting the moment as it is, instead of wrestling with how it should be.

And that’s not easy.

Our minds are wired to problem-solve, predict, and control outcomes. Letting go of that grip can feel uncomfortable, even threatening. This is why many people don’t naturally reach for surrender — it can feel like failure instead of wisdom.

So the question becomes: surrender to what?

Surrender starts with accepting the reality of where you are and what you’re feeling — whether that moment is painful, exhausting, joyful, boring, or confusing. It’s a willingness to stop arguing with the present long enough to listen.

There’s also a deeper reason surrender matters.

As surrender becomes a more familiar response, it creates space to notice our triggers and the beliefs attached to them. We begin to question the stories that keep us stuck and start aligning more honestly with ourselves.

As awareness grows, old patterns can surface — sometimes as grief, sadness, or discomfort. This doesn’t mean something has gone wrong. Often, it means the system finally feels safe enough to release what it’s been holding.

In my experience, this tends to happen for a few reasons:

• Old memories or emotional patterns resurface so they can be processed instead of stored

• The loss of control activates fear, doubt, or anxiety

• The mind resists change, even when the change is healing

It can feel like hitting an internal wall — this hurts — and many people stop here, afraid that feeling will last forever.

This is where gentleness matters most.

Instead of trying to fix or analyze everything, I learned to step into what I think of as the observer role — neutral, curious, and present. Thoughts became something I noticed, not something I had to obey. Emotions became experiences I could feel without being overtaken by them.

This shift alone can interrupt downward spirals. Not by forcing positivity — but by creating just enough space for choice, breath, and support.

Healing, waking up, evolving — whatever language you prefer — isn’t about bypassing or pretending. It’s not about proclaiming strength or denying the messy parts of being human.

It’s a gradual process of allowing stuck energy to soften and become usable again.

When we resist parts of ourselves — anger, grief, resentment — all that energy stays locked away. When we allow those experiences to be seen and felt with compassion, that energy becomes available for creativity, connection, and life again.

This doesn’t require fearlessness.
It requires presence.

Surrender isn’t weakness.
It’s the moment we stop fighting ourselves.

And often, it’s only when the struggle eases that new possibilities quietly appear.