The Path from Acquiescence to Surrender
They look the same, but they’re opposites. An entire life journey separates one from the other.
Acquiescence: Being a victim at the mercy of your environment. Having gone limp and being carried by the tide.
- powerlessness — unwillingness to acknowledge or exercise power
- resignation
- learned helplessness
Boundaries: saying no — the first act of having a defined shape. Other markers:
- recovery programs
- non-violent communication
- self help
- healing modalities
Independence: letting go of a dependency. May involve ending, dismantling or severing something, for example:
- leaving a dead-end or golden-handcuffs job
- leaving an abusive or codependent relationship
- stopping a behavior pattern based in powerlessness or dependence
- cutting off a source of emotional addiction
- exiting an acquiescence-based dynamic
Agency: claiming or re-discovering your own capability.
- personal responsibility replaces blame and victimhood
- cultivation of self-reliance
- exercise of power
- deliberately choosing how to feel and act
- selective engagement
Solidity: access to the core that is unchanged by circumstance.
- A shift from external to internal focus
- Re-evaluating past experiences—rewriting the narrative and meaning of events
- Reconciliation and re-connection
- A sense of wholeness / completeness within oneself
- Choosing to graduate from chronic healing
- Emotional freedom
Play: remembering the game of it — having the freedom to choose any option and take it on as a game to be played.
- A shift from the outcome to the process, from results to ways of being
- Volitional emotional play replaces triggered reactivity
- Broad emotional range — intense passionate emotions aren’t harmful and are invited back in
- Easy connection with a broad range of people
- Experience of happiness and flow in a broad range of circumstances
- Ability to switch hats or exchange roles with someone
- Shift of focus from healing / recovery to potential, possibility, play, and going from good to better
- Actions are generative, not threat-avoidant
- Saying Yes
- Deeper, richer engagement, but less attachment
Surrender: no real need for boundaries. You are not fundamentally at risk in the world.
- Humble confidence
- Can concede, apologize, change directions, support others, etc. without any sense of loss
- Unshakable power, sourced from within
- The capacity to get behind a leader, to act in a supporting role
- Allowing someone who’s new or learning to take the lead
- Recognition of others’ inherent rightness
- Others’ greatness is not a threat to self
- Complete surrender to a lover; relinquishing control
- Devotion as an elevated or sublime state
What is the difference between acquiescence and surrender? And which are you engaged in?
Let’s say that one feels like defeat in a battle with another — like submitting to an opponent in a fighting ring.
The other feels like triumph in an internal struggle — like the dedication of a devout to their practice, beliefs, or God. This is the sense in which I mean the word “surrender.”
They may be similar in action. But in intent, they could hardly be more distant. An entire life journey can be taken on the road from one to the other.
The sequence above is very common. Whole books have been written about each step here. But it can be helpful to zoom out to see your current location in the bigger picture.
© 2014 by Ken Blackman. All rights reserved.
About the author:
Ken’s passion topic these days is how women’s empowerment intersects with intimate coupledom. A former Apple software engineer turned international sex and intimacy educator turned relationship coach, Ken is in his 20th year helping couples co-create, bond, have great sex, thrive, and live happily ever after. His work has garnered mentions in Business Insider, Playboy, Cosmo, Tim Ferriss’s 4-Hour series and elsewhere. Find out more at kenblackman.com.
