What's Right Right Now #4:
The Practice of Surrendering: How Letting Go Decreases Worry, Increases Agency and Makes Space for the Sacred
The neighbors’ growls drift through the walls tonight as they rile each other up and then settle, only to do it all again a while later. I can’t hear the words, only feel the vibrations of anger, followed by the silence of retreat, like waves crashing and receding, the last squall waking me just before midnight.
A restless hour later, my own post-menopausal body takes charge of waking me again on this early spring night. I roll over, try to retreat to sleep.
Another hour, another waking.
Not so long ago, I’d have resisted this kind of waking, fighting from the wee hours until past dawn, determined to sleep, succeeding only in becoming entangled in my sheets and my thoughts until the alarm granted permission to rise.
Now, I roll from bed, light candles, gather pen and paper.
In a few hours, I will run (‘run’ not meaning the same thing it did ten or even five years ago) with my daughter (‘with’ not meaning side-by-side; rather that we have both signed up to and will ferry our bodies across/over the same course, inspired by the same starting gun), right about the time I’ll likely want to go back to sleep. I could use this as an excuse to remain in bed, fight for sleep, but I know it’s futile.
And right now, the world is still; right now, a pair of candles burns beside me, making this ordinary writing and this pedestrian, post-menopausal insomnia seem secret and special—sacred moments stolen in the wee hours, a surrender. (‘Surrender’ not meaning to give up on but to give in to; not meaning to retreat from but to yield or melt into, the way one becomes one with the sea, floating on one’s back, only nose and mouth exposed to sky, opening to something greater. To cease resisting what is and in-so-doing, to open to what might be.)
Like the insomnia, this ability to surrender is relatively new for me.
Over the past few years, I’ve become aware of how much of my life I’ve spent fighting whatever is happening; internally, if not externally, resisting. To be sure, there have been times when a fight was warranted—when I was being mistreated or noted that someone else was—but those are not the times I’m talking about here. This is about how much time I’ve spent at odds with what’s happening not because it’s abusive or objectively wrong, but because it’s not the way I wanted/imagined/expected—because it illuminated the fact that I’m not in control (ouch!). I don’t think I’m alone in that. I think we all have a penchant for this at some time or another, and if we grew up in chaotic or abusive environments, one of the habits of mind and heart we develop to keep ourselves safe is trying to control every little thing, afraid that if it’s not unfolding precisely the way we planned, something very bad will happen.
This surrender to insomnia is, for me, part of a larger practice of learning how to give up control while retaining agency. It’s not about running away from/retreating/not facing things or giving in to a sense of not being able to handle things. It’s not about allowing people or organizations or events to mistreat me. It is about recognizing when I’m in a fight because it’s a habit of mind and heart, or simply because the fearful part of me thinks everything must be exactly as she envisioned. It is about accepting things as they are; of bringing my Self more fully into conversation with life.
In a perhaps counterintuitive way, this letting go of control actually increases our sense of agency: once we’ve released the attachment to one particular way/path/outcome, we open space for myriad options and access our agency in choosing which one we’ll now take.
In the moment, as my prose poem suggests, it can make the mundane feel sacred, or at least imbued with ease rather than fraught with fighting. And as an ongoing practice, it can make us less worried and stressed and more effective in responding to whatever is taking place in our lives.
To begin to get a sense of how this surrender might feel, here’s a meditation to guide you.
If you’d like to explore this kind of mindfulness in class with me, you can find out more here.
If you have questions or want to connect, please comment or reach me here.