Surrender is the spiritual skill to learn in the 21st century
In the spirit of spiritual transformation, I hereby nominate “Surrender” as the word of the 21st Century.
In our Western culture, Surrender has often been synonymous with Losing.
As in, poor you, you gave in, you gave up, you great big Loser. Surrender is rarely seen as being a successful move. We all grew up with a steady diet of Good vs. Evil, and how important it was for Good to win. Or for the hero to achieve their goal / win their lover’s heart / get the money or job, etc. Winning was the goal always.
What was rarely discussed or looked at was the cost of needing to win. There didn’t seem to be space or time to get deeper into a philosophical discussion about why there always had to be a clear winner, which meant everyone else wasn’t a winner.
Wars have been created because one or both of the parties involved couldn’t let go, forgive, give in, or move on from the past.
The act of Surrender is never seen as winning, in this way of looking at things.
And we all know that if you’re not the Winner, you’re the Loser. Winner takes all, in this mindset. In a capitalistic economy, for example, there are clear winners and losers. When it comes to power and money, you must win at all costs.
Non-resistance is seen as weakness, along with gentleness and pacifism. The concepts of honor and saving face rule over all. People are more afraid of losing than they are of dying horribly and violently.
Rather than being powerful tools we all need to learn how to use daily more effectively, compromise and cooperation are seen in a negative light as ‘giving up and being weak’. That old trope ‘survival of the fittest’ cannot even begin to measure up to the power of cooperative action. Everyone wins when we work together, dig into ourselves and find a way to move forward together.
Everyone wins except those who want to control the whole game, and there is a whole lot of control-freakery going on in the name of winning.
Winning and the need to win can be quite an addiction. One example: the stories about adults behaving badly at children’s sports games. Where’s the spirit and fun of the game?
We each have a spirit and it’s powerful.
Humans like to believe that they control the whole show, but recent events have reminded us how very little control we actually have. A sense of humor is necessary, hopefully you are able to have yours even in the face of the daily news and events. Talk about having to let go of every old way of doing business.
Though sometimes painful and often frightening, the things that are falling apart might have needed to so we could more consciously choose differently. We are evolving, and we need new ways of doing business, in every sense of the word.
Every single fear, loss, heartbreak, and win can be viewed through the lens of energy, spirit. Maybe the things and people that are out of my control are actually helping me to let go of something that I simply do not have control over. Am I a loser because I cannot control that which is out of my control?
In the spirit of spiritual transformation, I hereby nominate “Surrender” as the word of the 21st Century.
Much more than a word, the concept of Surrender is what we are working on right now. A spiritual surrender includes learning how to trust, to have faith in yourself and your reason for being here. Surrender means you get to release whatever had a negative hold on you.
Surrender doesn’t mean you give up or stop taking action or trying. Perhaps there’s more space now to work from your spirit instead of trying to control every last outcome.
If you are having a difficult time, you may be fighting rather than surrendering. You won’t lose by letting go, but you might by trying to hold onto what must be released right now. Like a good yard sale, Everything Must Go!
Give it away, release its hold on you, put it down for a while. Lighten your load.
Years ago, a psychic I knew told me ‘you’re trying to run the 3 minute mile and you keep picking up rocks along the way’. I understood him immediately, laughed out loud, and let some of the rocks fall by the wayside. As a lifelong responsible control freak, I was the one who chose to pick up those rocks, and only I could surrender their hold on me.
I’m still learning, but happy to report that my experiments at letting go of what’s not mine to control have so far been successful.
Being able to let go is the skill of the 21st century, the skill to develop.
It’s harder to learn this one than it is to learn how to walk, talk, read and write. We humans are hardwired to hold onto things, and to become responsible for everything around us, which means we also try to control those things.
We learn this from each other, we learned by watching adults when we were small, and if we were validated for acting this way, the programming stuck.
We also teach each other.
If you decide to practice surrender, forgiveness, release, and letting go, others can learn these skills from you. What a gift you bring them by doing so! By letting go, we become stronger as community, and community is certainly what we need moving forward in this new era.
Surrender to beauty, love, miracles, magic, awe, nature, joy, your own truth!
