What does it actually mean to surrender?

What does it actually mean to surrender?

Happy Sunday, Soothers. What does it mean to surrender? And why do we struggle so mightily with the concept, and resistance to it?

It might have something to do with what we've been taught surrender is.

Definition of surrender (Entry 1 of 2)
1a: to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand
surrendered  the fort
b: to give up completely or agree to forgo especially in favor of another
2a: to give (oneself) up into the power of another especially as a prisoner
b: to give (oneself) over to something (such as an influence)

Yeah, not fun. Love to give myself and my power up as a prisoner!!! Woo!

But on a podcast the other day, I heard this alternate interpretation of surrender:

“The word surrender has significant roots, in which ‘render’ has the meaning to melt and ‘sur’ means super or highest. In other words, the true meaning of surrender is to melt into that which is higher than yourself. True surrender is a conscious choice made from free will." - Margot Anand

Now, I'm no linguist, but I like that definition of surrender much better than what the standard English language dictionary offers us. Melting into that which is higher than ourselves sounds a LOT better than submitting to somebody else's power.

But there's the other side of surrender. Melting into something higher means that... our power, our ability to control, is limited. There's an end to it. We don't have ultimate say in how things go. And really admitting that to ourselves — that can be terrifying.

This quote from Elizabeth Gilbert always brings me back to that reality, too:

"Surrender is what happens when you've come to the end of your power. Surrender is what happens when you've searched to the bottom of your soul and found out this truth, which is that you can't do this thing anymore. Surrender is what happens when you don't have any more ideas about how to fix everything. Surrender is what happens when none of your survival strategies work anymore and your playbook is out of pages. Surrender is what happens when you turn it all over to God. You release your grip on the thing, you stop whiteknuckling it, you stop pretending things are ok when they are actually horrible, you stop putting on a fake face or glossing over the problem or lying. You face the truth that you are not the most powerful force in the universe and turn it over to fate. You exhale and let go. You crack open to possibility and let life do what it will do."

That we'll be brought to our knees to surrender many times over in a life is an inevitability, but as I get older I learn that we can submit to the surrender more quickly, to realize when we're being called to it, and while it may not make the process of surrender any more... fun or anything, it can make it a bit easier.

It's like, when we choose to surrender, we admit it's time to lay down in the river and let it carry us, even though we don't know where that river may be going. But when we fight surrender, we are trying to paddle upstream against a current for weeks, months.. sometimes years.

And that resistance to surrender is exhausting and can add even more pain to an already-difficult situation.

So how do you know when it's time to surrender? What is the difference between surrender and just totally giving up? And, like, HOW does one surrender? What does that look like?

How to know when it's time to surrender: You've decided one thing and one thing only is the only acceptable outcome to a situation. And yet, despite your fervent declarations that that is the thing that will happen it keeps... not happening. You have tried 12 different ways to Sunday to make it happen. You think if only you try harder, do more, try different angles, it will eventually work out. It MUST work out.

I see this a lot when a client of mine is burned out or in a toxic workplace and is also being called to entrepreneurship but is scared to make the leap. They have decided they simply need to just get a new job and that will solve the thing. So they apply to every job they can get their hands on.... and none of them ever work out. But instead of surrendering to the fact that maybe it's time to make the leap into work for themselves, they believe that if only they keep applying, they will find that next job. So they work themselves into frenzies, spending hours, days, weeks, applying to dozens and dozens of jobs, burning themselves out, wondering what they are doing wrong, why they can't get hired anywhere else, that they just have to keep grinding.

I see it sometimes in relationships, too. A person or couple will have tried everything to make their relationship work: therapy, couples therapy, books, retreats, all the stuff.... and sometimes, the surrender is simply in the reality that the relationship is not meant to go beyond where it is, and it's time to end it, but there is strong resistance to that, that surely, SURELY, there is one more book, one more therapist, who could fix the thing. Surely there is a way to fix it.

In short, I think you know when it's time to surrender when you're exhausted. When you've tried multiple approaches to getting the outcome you want, and none of them are working. This isn't a sign you just need to push through and keep going; it's a sign to surrender. To stop. To rest. To say, maybe what I thought was supposed to happen, what I thought I wanted to happen... maybe it's not meant to happen after all, as painful as that may be. Or at least in the way I thought it would.

It's like this: You'll know it's time to surrender if you've felt that you've been banging your head against a brick wall, trying to bust through. You'd been told, you thought, that busting through that brick wall was the key to everything that needed to happen in your life.

But you're weary. You're bruised. You've exerted so much effort. Yet, you have made no dents in this brick wall.

Surrendering looks like saying, it's time to step back from bashing my head into the wall. I don't know what to do next, I'm just going to step back. Maybe I'll rest. Maybe I'll focus on joy. Maybe I'll simply stop taking so much action. Maybe I'll just sit here and stare blankly and unthinking at this wall for the next few days, or weeks. Maybe I'll nap.

Either way, you are stepping back from that brick wall that you thought busting through was the key to everything, and you're saying, "I have no idea how to get through this wall, and that is what it is."

And then this is what happens, I find:

It's that step back from the brick wall, the pause from banging your head against the wall, the realization that you cannot break through the wall with sheer force alone, the rest... that moves you back up 10, 20 feet from that brick wall.

And it's that pause, that shift, that allows you to finally see...

Fifty feet away down the brick wall you've spent months bashing your head against, that you were so focused on.... fifty feet away, there's a door you never noticed.

And you never would have known it unless you submitted to the surrender.

What do you think, Soothers? I'd love to hear your takes on surrender, or stories of surrender in your life, when you released your grip, or threw up your hands, or just lay down exhausted, and said, enough. What are your stories of surrender? What was your brick wall? And were you able to be redirected to that door? Send your stories to this email, and I'll share them in a future issue of the Sunday Soother.