Couple of years back, someone I deeply loved, a close family member, was going through a major health challenge. I was watching them deteriorate day by day, despite all my efforts. I had never felt so helpless in my life before.
I’d tried everything in my capacity to help them, heal them, change the situation. But nothing was working.
One morning, in early hours before dawn, I was on my knees. Crying profusely, at the utter helplessness of not being able to help my loved one.
I wanted to scream, howl and try to fix this somehow. When I stopped and gasped for breath, it dawned upon me, that I was trying to control something that I had no control over.
My mind wanted comfort and relief. It wanted certainty that everything would be ok. Things will be the way I wanted them to be.
That day, I realised that it was my inability to handle the pain and discomfort of seeing my loved one in pain.
I’d done whatever I could do. Maybe this was their soul’s path. Maybe this was happening for their highest good.
How could I say that I know what’s the best for them?
I breathed deeply and felt this truth in my body and my body relaxed.
I saw the path: pray and surrender.
Since that day, I felt light and served my loved one without attachment, with pure surrender to the outcome.
While coaching, many clients ask me, when going through tough challenges – “How do I surrender?”
They usually ask from a place of exhaustion. From grief.
From the quiet despair of trying everything and still feeling stuck in hurt, pain, guilt or self-sabotaging patterns.
I usually say, “I don’t know how.”
Not because surrender is elusive, but because the one asking the question is usually the very part that cannot surrender – “Your mind”
The Mind Wants Relief, Not Surrender.
The mind asks about surrender when it has failed at controlling life. When fixing hasn’t worked or efforts have run out, when reality refuses to cooperate. So the mind says, “I need to surrender.”
True surrender begins the moment we see this clearly:
We never had control to begin with. Reality is exactly as it has to be.
Whether we accept it or not, it doesn’t make a dime of a difference to the reality.
“Reality ko meri acceptance se kuch farak nahin padta.”
Reality doesn’t change whether I accept it or not. It remains exactly as it is. The only one struggling is me, resisting, fixing, tightening against life.
That realisation didn’t make me passive. It made me courageous to accept the moment as it is, make a conscious choice to do what I could do and trust the outcome, as it would be.
This awareness is the beginning of awakening, what most spiritual conversations miss:
”The Body Is Already in Surrender”
It breathes without effort, It feels without explanation. It responds truthfully to each moment. The body doesn’t argue with reality.
It doesn’t demand that life be different. The mind does. This is why surrender and awakening is not about understanding more concepts. It’s about returning to the body. To the present moment.
To what is actually happening now. When mind, body, and breath align, without wanting to change the moment, one is in natural surrender.
Let’s clear a big myth. Surrender does not mean:
- That You stop taking action. Or You tolerate what harms you
- It doesn’t mean you give up, or lose discernment or boundaries
Surrender means you stop fighting the fact of the moment.
You fully meet reality as it is, and from that grounded space, action becomes clear.
Not desperate or fear-driven, rather aligned.
Also, Higher Awareness doesn’t mean that the mind disappears.
Just yesterday, my daughter was complaining about something. Instantly, my mind said, “She should be grateful instead.”
within few moments, awareness peeped in, nothing was wrong with that moment. Just my judgement, resistance to what is.
Catching yourself resisting- this is the daily practice. Softening and returning.
Here’s a little Reflection for you, If you seek more ease and connection with life, Just start noticing…
Notice where you’re resisting.
Feel in your body – when and where you feel tightening.
Where you’re trying to manage life instead of meeting it.
That seeing non-judgmentally and softening your grip is surrender.
Surrender isn’t giving up. It’s learning how to dance with life, without needing to lead all the time.
As a coach, I don’t teach my clients how to surrender. I stand with them in loving awareness, while they navigate this reality and come into full awareness of the present moment with their whole presence.
What’s your experience of Surrender? Have you felt the darkness and the light it brings along with it. Share with me. I’d love to hear from you.
much love,
Saloni