A Conscious Conversation on Surrender

By Kym Kennedy

It has been on my mind to have a conversation about surrender for some time now.  It just seems like it is the thing that is so very necessary for a stress free, peaceful life and yet it appears to be one of the most elusive states of being there is.

Why is it such a challenge to “Let Go & Let God”?  My teacher Iyanla Vanzant said to us once that control is the #1 human addiction.  In my life I have struggled with letting go of it and I have had many friends and clients who have also. 

What exactly do we want to control?  Everything!  Our families (spouses, children, parents, siblings, in-laws) our careers (bosses, co-workers, environment, projects, rules, etc.) our churches, our politicians, our friends, and the list goes on.  We want to control it all.

After more than half a century of living it hasn’t been until recently that I became aware that the one thing I really don’t have much of is control.  I never had control of ANY one in my family that is for sure!  Children included!  I have had some influence at work over the years, but CONTROL, hardly.  Heck, I haven’t even taken complete, consistent control of my eating, my housekeeping, my checkbook, or my speed while driving.  Why then do I freak out when something else comes along that I want to control and I find out that I can’t?  Why can I not just accept the fact that getting and keeping control is an illusion and that I should indeed just let go and let God.

Ahhh… “Let God”.  No matter how much I know (or say that I know) intellectually, that God is in me and I am in It, or how much I try to recognize that I am not separate from God, but an extension of It, powerful beyond measure, to let go and let God feels as if I am turning my “stuff” over to someone else.  Heaven forbid, how could I trust someone else with MY stuff when I can’t trust myself with it? 

Therein lies the dilemma, God can’t handle it if I can’t handle it.  I slip so easily into making my God-Self into my human image and likeness instead of the other way around.  No God isn’t careless and wishy washy, I am (the unconscious human me).  God doesn’t procrastinate or resist doing what needs to be done, I do.  God is on its job 24/7 and since I am made in the image and likeness of It, I can be on mine 24/7 too.  The deal though is that I have been given free will, another way of saying, I’ve been given a choice.  I have the choice of surrendering to my God-Self or I could keep trying to control people and circumstances.

What is it like to surrender to my God-Self?  It is hard to say cause I haven’t done it much (truth be told) yet when I have done it, it has been awesome.  I just decided not to sweat “it” whatever “it” as at the time.  What could I really do?  Either I had the money on hand or I didn’t.  Either “they” were going to do as I wanted them to or they weren’t.  In any scenario I came up with, I always had only one choice, and that was to accept the outcome or get upset by it.  The outcome is going to be the outcome so if I surrender it to God I can relieve myself of all the mental stress that gets me nothing anyway except sick. 

This doesn’t mean that you give up on life.  You indeed stay in the game, but you learn as the famous Serenity Prayer says, to recognize the difference between what you can change and what you can’t.

Iyanla also used to say to us, “it is never what happens, but how you handle what happens.”  The frustration that follows yet another situation that you didn’t “control” takes you to a place of joylessness and we just don’t have to go there!  I say, let’s all learn and practice surrender.  Surrender your family to God, surrender your career to God, surrender your finances to God, and surrender your health to God.  Ask for guidance and WAIT for it.  It really is all better in Its hands anyway. 

When you surrender you are then free to play, free to create, free to relax, free to love and free to just BE.  (We are human beings and not human doings after all).  Go ahead, take your foot off the imaginary brake now and coast your way to the joy and peace of Surrender.