The Magic of Surrender
Surrender: Allowing Universal Change
As the pandemic continues, we approach the holiday season with an understanding that we will continue to be navigating through unchartered territory, which includes many uncertainties and unknowns. Stepping back to look at the big picture of life, we might realize that life is actually rife with uncertainties and unknowns. We might find comfort in what we think is certain, but in reality, the future is always in flux, even when we are not experiencing a global pandemic. In that respect, we might find solace in understanding that the more we accept what is, the more we are able to discern what we have control over and what we need to let go of and surrender to. It is from that place we can make healthy decisions.
Surrender is a powerful way of allowing life to take the twists and turns it needs to take, without exhausting ourselves in the fight of what isn't meant to be. In fact, fighting against the flow is exactly what is not helpful. If we see our life path as a river, we might more easily envision how fighting against the current is most likely working against ourselves and the path the Universe is trying to help us take.
Over the past five years, I have often been asked how I navigated through a very devastating illness that sank me into a wheelchair about twelve years ago. At first, I grappled for words to help the questioner understand. Now, I can express that I first needed to come to a place of complete acceptance of my dependence on a wheelchair. I learned that in order to shift anything, I had to start with being grateful for the wheelchair, as I couldn't mobilize without it. Secondly, I thought of myself in that wheelchair for the rest of my life. Since that didn't feel right, I decided that it was a temporary necessity. Although I fully accepted that I was in a wheelchair, I would not accept that I would be in a wheelchair forever.
From that place, I became incredibly focused on moving myself from point A to point B: from wheelchair to walking. I envisioned it, I felt it and I breathed it. It was as if I brought my future dreams of health into the present. I dreamed up the parts of the puzzle that seemed impossible to envision. The other parts of the puzzle that I could more easily see, I let speak louder. In addition, I practiced a beautiful shamanic technique called Transfiguration on a daily basis and after a time, I could taste the dream I was dreaming up as if it were already happening.
I surrendered and let go of the illness not by rejection but transmuting it and directing it into what would feed my dream of recovery and wellness. Surrendering to the present circumstances freed me from fighting what was no longer to be, which allowed me to reserve more energy to feed what I was dreaming up instead. I can and have applied this to many things in my life since, including the pandemic. Although it feels like it is forever, the pandemic is indeed temporary.
Whether we like it or not, the truth is that this pandemic is here to teach us all something of great value. We can either choose to fight and go against the Universal flow or we can surrender to it and ease our fighting grip and listen to its lessons. In my journey, my own deep shifting began when I learned to surrender to my illness, allowing it to become a Great Teacher for me. If we begin to see the pandemic as another Great Teacher, we can allow ourselves to let go and glean the lessons it has come to teach us - which are rich. From that place, we can make the changes that it is asking of us individually and collectively.
There is great power in surrendering. We might find ourselves in a better place if we find the courage within to confront the fear of letting go. Like stepping onto a cliff with wings spread open, we might look upon the terrain with eyes of trust. As we do this, the canyon below may hold an abundance of dreams we may never know could have even existed for us. Once I began to understand this, the act of surrender shapeshifted my experience into a magical journey for me ~ one that I continue to walk now.
Today is Winter Solstice, which marks the returning of Light into our hemisphere. As the days begin to grow longer and the nights shorter, it is an opportunity to hold intention around dreaming up the world we wish to live in, individually and together. In letting go of the dark and welcoming in the Light, we can hold gratitude for the blessings that we do have in our lives, while we surrender to the passing of those things that no longer serve.
If you practice shamanic journeying, you might journey to your Helping Spirits and ask to be shown a ceremony to help you bring in more Light into your life in the New Year. In shamanism, intention is everything. But you do not have to practice shamanism to hold intention to receive new blessings of Light to enter into your life in the New Year.
That is something you can intend right now.
