SURRENDER OR RESIST?

One of the things I talk about in my work is the idea of "surrender" versus "resistance."

You can have two exact circumstances; at one point, one choice will be "surrender," and at another, "resistance.

"For example, I had RESISTANCE to taking the alleged "unsafe road" by becoming self-employed. The resistance came because I was afraid, not trusting, felt I was "unsafe," was worried I'd be dead in a ditch, etc etc etc.

I had to SURRENDER to that fear and prove to myself not only that I could do this... but that I'd be taken care of the whole way. (Surprise, I was. Completely.)

But then, two years into that, the surrender shifted. All of a sudden I was RESISTING a side income (that I wanted) because of an ego program that said I was "too good, beyond this," etc etc. All of a sudden, my former surrender became a place of resistance.

See, it isn't about what's happening. It's about where you, inside, are not yet "free." That's where you're either surrendering or resisting.

It has nothing to do with the earthly circumstance. It's about what's internal.

Sometimes, the same choice will mean "surrender," or "resistance," depending on the circumstance, and in life, truly, those are the only two things we can do.

When we surrender, we open and receive. When we resist, we close and usually have a much harder time.

Where are you holding on? Where's your resistance?

*Let’s explore this more: * Let’s say you have a New Year’s weight loss aspiration.

You will likely have to surrender to a new way of eating. (Diet is everything. Can’t escape it. Them’s the breaks.)

BUT, after a while, your surrender to that new way of eating might change. You might cling to a pre-determined “plan” or some other culturally embedded nonsense. That’s when your surrender has shifted into resistance.

I went through this. Had to learn to eat a new way to not be heavy any longer, but then I found after a few months I was really hungry and quite frankly, deprived of nutrients!

I wasn’t giving my body the stuff it needed, and I was feeling the effects of it. That’s when I needed to learn to trust, allow, and surrender to the idea that I could choose what was best for me. Nobody else needed to tell me.

I also had to surrender to the idea that if I created the result of “being overweight” in my life, I probably didn’t know anything. (I began reading books not about diet culture, but about how the human body operates.)

You hear this rhetoric all the time: “I know what to do. I just have to do it.”No… If you knew what to do, you’d not have this problem. You think you know what to do. You actually have no idea what to do.

Another example: The guidance of first mentor in personal development

When I met him, my ego was so angry.

He said things that just flat-out insulted me. I would think “he’s wrong! He doesn’t know anything!”

But then I realized, I had the recipe for the life I was living at that time… and that life was not a great life.

So, I had to surrender to the possibility that I didn’t know jack shit… about anything! Everything my brain knew had to be brought into question. That was my surrender.

It wasn’t until a few years later that that same surrender became resistance. All of a sudden I had PASSED the test of “challenge your thinking,” and spiritually moved on to “trust your inner knowing/gut intuition.”

All of a sudden, I was coming up against a barrier when my mentor would say things (not about me but just in general) that I intuitively knew were not my path. Then, the resistance became about wanting to trust his path over my own.

You see how this is playing out?

It’s not about what’s happening in life. It’s about whether internally, you’re in a place of surrender, or in a place of resistance.

When we surrender, we’re open to receive all things. When we resist, we’re giving ourselves a much harder time. That’s when the little ego inside, the protector/controller/driver of the human “little i” wants to have some sort of authority over the majestic force of the universe that only wants to give you unlimited abundance!

(And it’s true…)

Here’s how it works when you get out of the “logic” and into the “magic”

When you give the energy of surrender, everything else will fall into place.

When I surrendered to getting a part-time job, for example, I got like… 50 new subscribers to this Substack, almost overnight.

How does that work?

You could say it’s a coincidence, or you could look at it through the lens of everything being energy. My energy was in a state of flow, so other things in my life unrelated to that job shifted because I shifted.

That has happened to me so many times. I “let go” in a place that I’m holding on to, and other shit in a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DEPARTMENT changes. (Picture your life like a Macy’s.)

It’s like if your job sucks, and you know it sucks, but you’re holding on for some erroneous reason you know is just deep fear, when you let go you might say… lose 20 lbs.

Or, if your relationship sucks but you’re grasping at it, when you let go, you might get something, a passion project or whatever-the-fuck, completely out of left field.

This is the magic, but it only happens for you when you surrender.

The external circumstance isn’t the thing… Pay attention to your body and where you feel resistance.