Spiritual Surrender

Several years ago, I was at a crossroads. One choice was to embrace an unknown path that I didn’t really want to take, but that I felt was right. Where did that feeling of “right” come from? I don’t know. It was a quiet assurance, a still clarity, an inner knowing. Yet, I chose a different path. I chose the path that I logically wanted. I forced a choice onto life, yet my inner spirit softly yet piercingly rejected that choice. I soon found out why my forced choice was wrong. That decision led to a career transition cut short and that did not work out. It led to a period of confusion about what to do next. At a deeper level, it led to a period of spiritual darkness.

When I say spiritual darkness, I mean a period of time where I was disconnected from my familiar resonance with a higher power. I was alone existentially. I felt a deep darkness that could not be lifted.

The darkness led me to question my life path, even my desire to live. It is as if something died in me. A piece of me died that trusted in myself, that trusted in my rational mind. I was lost and felt alone even with other people around me. Slowly, I started to work (and honestly continue to work) on myself in that darkness. It was less my conscious choice of powering through the darkness. It was more of a surrender. I had to surrender to a force bigger than myself. The darkness was bigger than me. The light that I felt previously was also bigger than me. Surrender was central to this inner transition.

Surrender can sound like a nasty word (particularly in US culture). Surrender is often accompanied with words and phrases like giving up, quitting, and weakness. In war, surrender is giving into the enemy. It can be seen as an acknowledgement of one’s lack of power to overcome, but what if surrender has a spiritual spin to it. Spiritual surrender can be to relinquish supposed control into the hands of a bigger plan, purpose, and/or power. Spiritual surrender can be more about trust than weakness. I learned through my spiritual darkness that I needed to surrender myself to a plan and path that is bigger and better than I can create on my own.

Spiritual surrendering to a bigger power and plan is scary. It is taking a step into an unknown without any clarity of how it will play out, yet there is a trust in a deeper abiding force. Spiritual surrender is an acknowledgement of humility. It is accepting that one may not know the way forward, that one may not feel clarity, that one may not easily become “the master of [their] fate” (Invictus, William Ernest Henley). To me, spiritual surrender is a process. I vacillate between wanting to control my life path and continuously being reminded that I cannot control what wants to happen. What wants to emerge from my life is bigger than my rational mind.

So what? What is the purpose of this blog post? It is simply an invitation. Perhaps none of this resonates with you. Perhaps you are in control of your life. If so, great. I also want to invite you to remember that if there comes a moment when your control slips through your fingers, maybe you are still okay. Maybe you can still find a way forward but in a completely different way. Maybe that moment is an invitation to surrender to a force that is bigger than your control. For those of you who understand elements of what I am referencing on spiritual surrender, my invitation is to remember. Remember that to surrender is to trust in a plan for life that is bigger than you. Remember that life works for us when we work with it instead of against it. Remember that spiritual surrender can be a strength, not a weakness. Remember that the inner spiritual frequency may be catching a signal that you do not yet understand, but that is best for you. Simply put, remember to trust.