You know that feeling you get when you’ve exhausted all the possibilities for something you’re trying to achieve and nothing you’ve tried has worked?
When you’re left with the choice of…well, actually, it often feels like you’re left with no choice at all.
That’s when you feel like you’re between that famous rock and a hard place. You don’t know whether you should fall down—or run away—because you do not want to submit to the fate that awaits you.
UGH. I hate when that happens.
And it happens (at least to me) waaaaaay more than I like to admit.
Last week I opened the conversation to the possibility of surrender as a choice so I could share something with you this week that’s really useful—and weirdly compelling.
Full disclosure: for much of my life, when left with the choice of falling down or running away, I typically run away. Since my first successful run (away from home as a 17-year-old) I discovered that running was a very useful solution for those times when I’ve exhausted every possibility I can think of in my quest to solve something. Over the past five decades, I have run away from jobs, living situations, and relationships (including two marriages).
Running has benefitted me so much because it gives me a break from whatever pain exists in the situation I’m immersed in so I can breathe again. This gives me the space to think about what I want to do next. Typically, I’ll get another idea. More often than not, running takes me to something—or someplace—better; something/someplace I would never have considered had I stayed put. So I have to say, at least 80% of the time, running has proven itself to be a viable solution for me.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot on Surrender
So what in the name of all that is holy would ever possess me to investigate this practice of surrender?
There’s really only one good reason: I’ve come to believe that knowing how to gracefully surrender is the most powerful alternative to running, especially when I’m running out of some version of fear—that is, chasing (whatever it is) or trying to escape (whatever it is).
Surrender brings me peace and clarity because it allows me to stay—in the midst of anything—so I can adapt and learn.
Most importantly, when I say I choose to “surrender” instead of “submit,” I totally acknowledge that I’m making a distinction that doesn’t exist in the dictionary. (It wouldn’t be the first time…)
- For me, surrender is something I freely choose, using every ounce of my personal power, despite all the other alternatives available to me.
- For me, surrender is the exact opposite of “submit,” which retains the emotional baggage of me being forced to do something—or accept something—that I don’t want to simply because I don’t have the power to do anything else.
- When I submit, I’m stuck; when I surrender, I stay.
Surrender Means I Choose to Stay
Surrender has become a practice that keeps me centered and grounded and receptive to the seasons of my life. Making that one distinction has made all the difference for me.
For much of my life, I ran because I simply wouldn’t submit to anything I could no longer tolerate. Even if I missed some of the things I had to leave behind, none of them seemed to be worth the price of staying—given the amount of pain I was in.
This was my version of throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater.
Over the past three decades, I have slowly learned the value of surrender in the two most important arenas of my life, both born in 1990:
- in my third—thriving—marriage, I’ve made all the same mistakes I made in my previous two, yet the thought of running never entered my mind. I found new ways to work through our challenges and my mistakes by surrendering my ego and my (formerly) very strong need to be right and to win at all costs. Surrendering to love—every time—has been my saving grace.
- in my business, I’ve made almost every single mistake you could make (short of breaking the law) and I’ve had more failures than anything I’ve ever done in my life. Although I’ve pivoted in every direction imaginable, I’ve continually surrendered to the idea that this is the work I was born to do, which has made staying my only feasible choice. Surrendering to something bigger than me has been my saving grace.
Surrender is a Practice
Now here’s that weirdly compelling and useful discovery: in the past six months since my first ER visit for Atrial Fibrillation in August, my practice of surrender was the one thing that seemed to elude me when it came to my medical situation.
Despite everything I’ve just shared, I couldn’t seem to map “surrender” over/onto my struggle against the medical model, where it’s the normal practice for the patient to (in my view) submit to their medical diagnosis. Through every physical setback, I remained supremely confident that I could beat the doctor’s prognosis with my time-tested arsenal of non-traditional therapies that had always worked for me.
Until they stopped working for me.
Until my body finally got my attention by landing me back in the ER on St. Patrick’s Day—making it my third time in 6 months—even though I was already taking two prescribed medications.
This time was different. This time I was totally listening when my body invited me to choose. No longer fighting someone else’s opinion, I was listening to myself.
After the failure of everything I did to manage the situation my own way, my body simply invited me to surrender to my current reality, for the sake of my own aliveness.
Presented with the fact that I always have the choice to “Live Free (and) Die” I chose to surrender to my body’s infinite wisdom. The message was: “Maia, now that you’re 71 and a half, you need to pay attention to your cardiologist if you plan to be vibrantly alive when you reach 100.”
Like every human on the planet, I always hold my life in my hands. What I do with it is always my choice.
Meanwhile, as a result of that last ER visit, I deeply trust that surrender is nothing like jumping into the deep end of the pool in one shot. I’ve discovered that adding the “U” back into surrender means that these three factors are always in play:
- It’s a process.
- You have choices.
- You don’t have to surrender everything all at once.
What would be different for you if you decide to put the “U” back into surrender for yourself? I’d love to know!
Meanwhile, in case you want to join me for a free Masterclass that will change your conversations the way “surrender” changed my medical experience, here’s a link to register:
Have a phenomenal week!