What Happens Once We Surrender?

Unique Perspectives: What Happens Once We Surrender?

By Kim Stevens

All I have to say is: Swoosh!

And I mean it in the best way possible. 

It’s that sigh-of-relief feeling I get once I surrender, once I consciously decide to take the very first step in my Hero’s Journey, Giving Up to God and the Universe. 

The process goes something like this: I recognize that something in my life needs to change. I keep trying and trying and struggling and trying to no avail. Then finally, I Give Up, I surrender, and immediately the Universe reveals an entryway through which it can enter my mind and start moving me in another direction. The surrender produces several emotions that occur simultaneously: I experience the release of giving up mixed with the surge of energy and hope, and it happens all at once.

Martha Beck says, “People don’t cry when they lose their hope. They cry when they get it back.” 

That’s what surrender is. I throw my arms up into the air and say, “God, I give up. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, I’m trying so hard to get it right and it’s just not working for me.” 

Then swoosh! I take a deep breath in and I can feel a surge of hope, telling me maybe there’s another way. Maybe there’s a Power that can help me. Maybe if I align with that, I’m going to thrive. Suddenly, everything is different and I’m looking at life with a new pair of hope-filled glasses. I begin to see what was there all along – the magic, the helpers, the ideas, the hope.

I share this experience of surrender because it’s mine, but that’s also precisely the point; it’s mine. Your surrender won’t look like my surrender, however the exhilarating feeling – that mixture of letting go and finding hope – will be the same, even if the details are different.

I know a lot of people who have gone through tremendous trials and tribulations, decided to surrender, and in doing so, turned their life around. I’ve seen the positive changes, ease and enlightenment that ensued. I also know some people who experienced hardships and didn’t surrender. For them, an unwillingness to Give Up to the Universe led to things remaining relatively the same. 

The choice to surrender is up to me, but once I do, the feeling is delectable. When I make the decision to surrender, I open myself up to the answers I was looking for; I become the savior of my own story. Surrender soon transforms into a realization that the hero I needed all along wasn’t some swashbuckling, sword-wielding stranger. It was me and my ability to align with the power in the Universe. Swoosh!