A friend recently passed on an article on surrender (see link below). As we are in the sixth month, related to the 6^th Step, I appreciated this attempt to explain what, to me, has always been unexplainable.

Surrender is a state of being, a sense of relief and exhale. In treatment, one of our counselors frequently walked through the milieu responding with, “Oh well!” to our various dilemmas. Or she’d say, ‘Let it go!” Dear God – what does that mean? “How?!” I’d plead. She would make a fist, then open her hands. “Just let go.” I couldn’t grasp the concept – how could I let go of something that I really didn’t have a hold of to begin with? Precisely.

It’s been remarked that “figure it out” is not a Step, but that mental gyration of searching for answers is an almost automatic response to life on life’s terms for me, with thoughts of surrender my last resort. OK. OK. I give up. 

I can’t demand the relief of surrender, but I can make myself ready. Inventory, prayer & meditation, smudging or other rituals, sharing openly with a sponsor or trusted other – all can open me to the still, small voice that whispers, “I’ve got this. You are being taken care of.”  How many times have I said, “OK, HP, I surrender” while thinking, “Now, where is that outcome I want so badly?” It doesn’t work like that. True surrender = letting go of all of it: the problem and the solution.

A friend talked with me last week about the incessant internal chatter that seems to plague us recovering folks. She noted her tendency to distract with external noise - podcasts, speaker tapes, TV/movies. What would happen, she wondered, if she were simply quiet? After we spoke, I started noticing how often I hurry home to catch the national news or automatically turn on music in the car. Lila R, who's Step workshop we use as a guide in our monthly group, suggests that we pay attention to our thinking. I can't do that if I'm being barraged with noise, no matter how pleasant or edifying. 

How do I live in a place of surrender, with the day-to-day as well as those earth-shattering events that more quickly lead me to my knees? When and how do I make time to listen to my thoughts - not the racing busy-brain, but the quiet voice? Psalm 46 says, "Be still and know that I am God." Just reading that causes me to breathe a little deeper. On that theme, Rumi wrote, "Silence is the language of God; all else is poor translation." 

However you do or don't translate the word "god," surrender seems to begin in the quiet moments, the empty spaces where I'm all out of ideas. To become "entirely willing," as described in Step 6 means without reservations. That doesn't mean I don't grab my defects, my fears, my gyrations back a hundred times. What it means to me is that I continue the practice of getting quiet and letting go, over and over again.

What is on your heart today? Where do you desire to let go on a deeper level?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/inviting-monkey-tea/201605/why-surrender-is-so-powerful-and-how-experience-it?eml