Surrender is the feeling that you can let go of control and trust that you’ll be okay. It’s the feeling that you can completely trust yourself, even when things feel chaotic and out of control. When you surrender you no longer feel like you have to control everything. Instead, you feel empowered to take big leaps into the unknown. However, surrender feels like a free fall, even when you’re good at it.
Surrender can be terrifying, especially to someone from a traumatic background.
Surrender Is Necessary For Happiness
Deep happiness takes that all out – pee your pants – oh my god – kind of surrender.
It takes the deep inner knowing that you can trust yourself and that you can handle whatever happens.
Surrender is the ultimate trust-fall.
A trust-fall is that oft-used trust-building exercise from oh so many church summer camps and after school programs. Even the movie “Mean Girls” has a scene where everyone does a trust-fall.
Open up your arms, turn your back, and just fall backward trusting people will catch you.
I remember being terrified of trust-falls as a kid. Part of me just didn’t believe that I would be caught.
Trauma Causes The Fear of Surrender
When you come from a traumatic background you often feel like you can’t trust. It feels threatening to let your guard down.
It doesn’t feel safe to trust that things will work out okay. Instead of trust, you are filled with anxiety, fear, and worry.
This is the act of surrender. Trusting that you can handle it and you don’t have to cling on for dear life.
Yet, when you come from a toxic background you feel like you have to hold on for dear life or something horrible will happen. This is where you learn that surrender feels like a free fall. You feel the need to be hypervigilant so that you’re not attacked or so you won’t elicit someone else’s unhappiness.
You feel like you have to control your surroundings and do whatever you can to make things turn out in a way that feels “safe”.
However, instead of having this feeling because you know you can trust yourself, you try to control your environment.
Because of emotional invalidation (being told your emotions are wrong) you:
- Doubt yourself.
- Lose trust in your inner world.
- Question your worth.
- Doubt that you can deal with whatever comes your way.
- Feel terrified of going out on a limb
- Avoid the big risks which lead to big rewards and successes.
Surrender Feels Like A Free Fall
There’s that moment on a roller coaster when you’re weightless and you feel the world fall out from under your feet.
That moment can either be incredibly fun and exciting, or it can be terrifying.
When I was a child I was terrified of roller coasters. I would cling on for dear life to the guard rail on the roller coaster feeling like it was inevitable that I would fly out.
As I got older I learned to let go and relax on roller coasters.
For someone who has issues with trust. Surrender feels like a free fall. Like killer clowns popping out of their birthday cake. Scary, unnecessary, and the stuff of nightmares.
I used to be one of those people.
But I’m not anymore.
When you work through issues with trust you can use surrender to your advantage.
It helps you feel like you can trust:
- Yourself.
- Your feelings.
- That you’re good enough.
- Your judgment and decisions.
- Other people.
- That you can figure things out, even if shit hits the fan.
The Modern World Is Stripping You Of Trust
Trust can be one of the hardest things to achieve in a world that engenders a lack of trust.
The media tells us the world is violent. That you can’t trust other people. That it’s dangerous to trust your neighbor let alone that nice person holding the door for you.
So many of us were raised with emotional, verbal, physical, or sexual abuses that made trusting others seem like an uber risk.
Lies told by the government and constant bickering in politics make us question who we can trust, look up to, and feel has our security and best interests at hand.
The media thrives on selling us fear.
Fear motivates people to buy things. To try to buy security and safety. Fear motivates people to stop cooperating with each other.
Most things in our society point us toward feeling less trust.
So we all go it alone. We fear leaning on other people because we don’t want to look weak. We feel like can’t admit that we’re in pain, or having difficulty.
The worst part is that many people don’t even trust themselves.
Without trust what’s left? When you can’t trust yourself, others, or the world around you, you’re left in a vacuum. A vacuum of trust. A world where trust no longer exists. A scary world where no one feels safe.
<< Shudder >>
You Have To Give And Receive Trust
Here’s the thing, you must give and receive trust for it to flourish in your life. You have to allow it to flow. Trust begets trust. The more we trust the more we’re able to trust. When you can’t trust yourself, you can’t trust anything.
First and foremost, you have to be able to trust your own judgment. You have to feel like you can always depend on yourself.
When you don’t feel like you can trust yourself you’re suddenly left feeling empty and like the world doesn’t make sense. All for a lack of trust.
And yet trust is the very thing you need in order to lead a happier more successful life.
In order to leap fully, you must trust that you’ll be caught.
Surrender is feeling that you can trust that:
- Goodness is on its way to you
- In nurturance and feeling taken care of
- Everything is possible
You have to trust yourself to:
- Not freak out
- Pick up the pieces if things don’t go exactly according to your expectations
- Wake up to self-sabotage and resistance as quickly as possible
- Pivot and course-correct when needed.
- Nurture yourself.
Believing In Yourself Is The Ultimate Trust-fall
When you first completely surrender it’s going to feel terrifying. Surrender feels like a free fall, especially when you first begin.
You might even feel like you’re going to die.
You have to surrender your ideas about “control” and “pushing” things to be a certain way.
Your life will hinge on moment-to-moment awareness and the ability to make incremental course corrections constantly that will keep you on the path to your highest self (and highest good).
You Won’t Always Know What’s Happening
When you truly give into and surrender into self-trust it might make you feel afraid. Very afraid.
Until you allow yourself to relax into “not knowing” and not having control.
When you relax letting go of the fear and anxiety and instead just focusing on what’s in front of you at any one moment.
Then you’re able to get ultimate clarity. When you can focus on what your current thoughts are and how you’re feeling now.
That’s when you’re the gold zone. When you:
- Surrender to the chaos of now
- Stop feeling as though you must control everything for your life to be amazing
- Realize that you have to leap in order to fly
- Ultimately allow the free-fall feeling to become fun instead of scary *
Everyone is afraid that surrender feels like a free fall. They’re afraid before they take the jump out of the airplane. Everyone is shitting their pants to a certain extent. But in order to risk the rewards of having your deepest desires, you have to be willing to take leaps that you never used to think were possible for you.
*I always imagine that people feel exhilarated and the falling becomes fun when they’re sky diving. I’ve never skydived myself. And perhaps I should to test this concept in real life, lol. But the same idea is true of roller coasters. The more you clench and hold onto your idea that you can control it, the worse it feels. Only when you let go and allow yourself to be taken by the flow of the roller coaster does it become a whole lotta fun.
