Surrendering.

If surrendering means letting go of bearing the burden of all the things I cannot control, then so be it.

If surrendering means allowing myself to be free from my past, then so be it.

If surrendering means understanding that I cannot know what my future has in store, then so be it.

If surrendering means accepting that I don’t have all the answers now, then I will have to surrender.

But there is a point in time where I have to look my pain and insecurities straight in the face in my own imagination and tell them that they have no hold over me.

I’ve come to accept that surrendering is an act of discovering that there is more to life than all I once held on to.

It’s a matter of getting past the pain of surrendering, though.

I’ve come to accept that surrendering is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of humble appreciation for the life that I’ve been given.

“When we look in the Bible, Jesus was crying all the time. It wasn’t because He was weak, but because He loved too deeply and widely. So when we take a second look at Jesus, it shows us that to weep is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.” -Asher Earnst.

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I’ve heard that circumstances aren’t always to show us how weak we are, but to reveal to us the strengths that we’ve always possessed, but were never aware of.

There’s a term that I learned in Social Psychology called “immune neglect.” Where a person underestimates the strength of their psychological immune system that allows emotional resilience after difficult times. I don’t know if it’s our immune neglect that stops us from surrendering. The thought of, “I’ll never get over this,” is, after all, a lie that is hard to escape from.
But it’s true, it is a lie.

We are stronger than we think. But at the same time, from someone who is currently practicing “surrendering,” it is not easy. So the question is: Where does the balance lie?

How do I get from step 1) Accepting that I need to let go, to 2) Letting go, to 3) Accepting that I have let go.

Then what about the 4th point? The point where I realize that not only the mind, but the heart, has recovered. Does it ever? And I will surrender to the fact that I don’t know.

And that is okay.