Surrender: Encountering The Wild Edge of Living
“Dreaming after all is a form of planning.” -Gloria Steinem
It’s the depth of Winter. While the light continues to grow longer and stronger each day, the earth where I live is mostly frozen and set for a couple more months. The lack of light and warmth In Winter causes our energies to withdraw and contract to more fully support our core energies needed for survival - we can live without a finger, but we can’t live without a heart. Our moods reflect that similar inward trajectory that often feels like Seasonal Affective Disorder or depression. Just as the trees have stripped down to their skeletal essentials, in Winter we learn how to encounter the bare essentials of who we are. Winter invites us to go inwards where the light shines strongest: retreat, reflect (bring the light of your attention inwards), slow down to the pace of your core energies, and even surrender to the darkness within and outside of us. What lies there in the darkness awaiting your excavation and discovery about yourself? Light or our awareness, not heat (the desire or effort to create change), can transform darkness.
Preceding Spring’s exuberant growth is Winter’s dormancy. While at the surface of the earth - our conscious minds - nothing is happening during Winter; beneath the surface - our unconscious minds - we and the tree are resting deeply, consolidating energy, integrating the past year’s growth, shifting and creating forms and shapes and structures, accommodating for new growth, creating meaning and coherence from experiences and emotions, and laying the foundations that will shape growth and provide the resources to fuel the next stage or season of growth. Just as we need sleep to survive, the earth needs time to be fallow to be fertile; the trees need a season of dormancy; and we as humans also require a season to consolidate, integrate and dream to keep growing and evolving. These essential functions are entirely unconscious and cannot be prodded along with efforting; they require space, time, self-compassion and self-care to simply be, and our willingness to surrender to the process.
Rather than distracting ourselves from uncomfortable emotions or empty time by reaching for a long to-do list, your device, Netflix, a snack, or even for the voice of a familiar friend, what happens if we can be with and hold that wild edge of boredom, of the unknown, of uncomfortable emotions without trying to fix anything? What emerges from those empty moments? This is the wild edge of living - the place where we can make more space and surrender a little bit more into the darkness, into the unknown, into discomfort, and ultimately begin to behold what lies beyond the realm of our conscious knowing. What is awaiting to be manifested within you? When we surrender, we let our guard down and allow forces beyond our control to shape us, heal us, and begin to refine us into truer versions of ourselves.
What lies within that potentiated space of You?
More Ways to Surrender more deeply: Let your exhales be bigger and more complete (allow them to touch your root); take time to surrender rather than push when you feel stuck trying to figure something out; make plenty of space to dream (at night and during the day); “sleep on it” when considering complicated problems; meditate; engage your parasympathetic nervous system with warmth - warm baths, fireside lounges, keeping your feet toasty, warm beverages; surrender to boredom; simply be :) More ideas?