On Serenity and Surrender

Step Three and Our Four to Follow - April 2025 edition

Our next rung on the DARE TO BE challenge ladder has us stepping into surrender. Step three asks us to turn it over. Give it all to some One else to hold and carry for you, with you.

If you are not familiar with the DARE TO BE challenge that is underway, I recommend starting here for an overview. If you’d like to get caught up on steps one (Honesty) and two (Grace), click here then go here. Please know, there is no need to read those essays to be caught up. You will still glean a lot on this week’s topic if you only visit right here. I’m just happy you are here; however you got here.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Pull up a chair. I invite you to stay here for this month’s segment of FOUR TO FOLLOW.

If you are new to DARE TO BE, HELLO! I am so happy you are here. The second Friday of every month is a FOUR TO FOLLOW feature spotlight of other writers on Substack that are daring me to feel. It’s a shout out to fellow creatives who moved me, shook me, made me nod my head or shed a tear that month. Because that’s what I want when I read. I want to be moved. I think you do, too.

I selected this week’s FOUR using a lens of what we’ve explored so far about addiction these last three weeks - honesty, grace and, up next - sweet surrender.

I encourage you to take the time to read the words of the writers below. I’m willing to bet they move you, too. And their words might expand the steps even more for you. Perhaps you’ll feel even lighter with each step you take (into the steps).

Again, we’re using a very broad and expansive brush stroke here with our examination of the Twelve Steps.

STEP THREE:

“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

Again, feel free to replace the word “God” and/or “Him” with whatever feels safe and true to you.

In my mind, the companion to surrender is acceptance, which we unraveled in Step One when getting honest. We can only surrender after we’ve accepted this is all too much to hold, too much for me to steer. Often, we get here after we’ve depleted all our internal resources. We get here when anger, aggression, and insistent resistance spirals us in circles. We’re chasing our tails and circling worn out patterns. Those patterns and thought loops that simply no longer work for us yet entice us to return. Because they are so damn familiar.

For me, my tendencies to cut and run, fight or flight, stacked up one pain on top of another, hurting me the most, more than anyone else. I had to reassess. It took me so long to accept that I had to clean up MY insides before I could show up in full capacity for those I love. I am still working on this, and I am grateful to do this work.

The thing is: acceptance doesn’t require you to move or to really do anything. It’s just a reflection and an admission to self. Surrender insists on action.

If you follow the Big Book¹, the relevant chapter begins with:

Again, if alcohol is not your thing and you can take it or leave it, get honest with yourself and name your thing. Is it co-dependency? Workaholism? Is it endless self-improvement teetering on perfectionism that feels debilitating because you can’t stop trying to optimize yourself and all your systems? (Ummmm, that last one came pouring out of me way too easily - something to unpack there for me!)

In Breathing Under Water², Rohr reminds us that, “Acceptance becomes the strangest and strongest kind of power. Surrender is not giving up, as we tend to think, nearly as much as it is giving to the moment, the event, the person, and the situation.”

We don’t give ourselves away when we surrender. We give ourselves to more when we surrender. It’s an opening. Not a closing. It’s not defeat. It’s expanding your team. Adding to your roster.

Because why do this alone?

Right now, here in New England, nature is showing me what surrender looks like. The buds on the branches of the trees in my yard are slowly and bravely opening up, despite the still cold temps in April. The grass is starting to lift up and brighten a bit, despite the not yet ideal conditions. Flower bulbs are starting to lift themselves out of their dark retreat.

Spring is in action.

We can do the same.

Mark Nepo is someone who teaches me with his words how to rest our human tendencies to overthink. No matter what your thing is that you are addressing in this 12-week Challenge, bring it (or them) to your mind right now and consider the work of the seeds as described below:

All the buried seeds crack open in the dark, the instant they surrender to a process they can’t see.

What a powerful lesson is the beginning of spring.

All around us, everything small and buried surrenders to a process that none of the buried parts can see.

And this innate surrender allows everything edible and fragrant to break ground into a life we call spring.

In nature, we are quietly given countless models of how to give ourselves over to what appears dark and hopeless, but which is ultimately an awakening beyond all imagining.

As a seed buried in the earth cannot imagine itself as an orchid or hyacinth, neither can a heart packed with hurt imagine itself loved or at peace.

The courage of the seed is that once cracking, it cracks all the way.

~Mark Nepo

A heart packed with hurt actually heals by cracking open. It has to be that way, I believe.

A few years ago, at the check-out line at a local Dollar Store I spotted a small tin cannister that said, “Give it to God.” In it, were little blank pieces of paper. The instructions on the back of the cannister read, “Write your worries here and then, give them up to God.” I spent the $.99 on it and decided to give it to my daughter (anxiety finds her often). She was 8 years old at the time. I suggested to her that she use it when she feels extra worried. She decided to place them under her pillow after jotting something down at night. Making her bed the next morning after she left for school, I would find some of these notes. They were so sweet - hopeful wishes to not fight any more with a friend, asking God for her older brother to play with her more like he used to (GAH!), to do good on a math test, etc.

In spending time on Step Three this week, it occurred to me that she (and I) let this practice go. I think I’ll gently encourage both of us to return to it.

Photo by Nastia Petruk on Unsplash

THIS WEEK’S FOUR TO FOLLOW:

If you are in the sobriety sphere, then I am willing to bet you are quite familiar with the words of

Laura McKowen

. Laura has been a beacon to me in my recovery journey these last four years and this week - oooof. Her essay from yesterday solidified the power of surrender. And how hard we thrash against it sometimes. A reminder of the human nature in all of us to want questions answered, problems solved and tidy resolutions. But that is actually not it at all.

There is no resolution.

All of it but especially this part:

It’s easy to sound spiritually enlightened when you haven’t faced real loss, betrayal, or hardship. Easy to self-righteously post, preach, or write about surrender and “trusting the universe”—to talk about high-fiving yourself like it’s an actual solution to anything real—when you’re standing safely outside the arena.

Inside the arena, it’s messy. It’s bloodshed, undoing, and disillusionment. It’s unfiltered and un-Instagrammable. You’re not reciting mantras in a mirror—you’re praying into the void, bargaining, breaking, trying to remember who the hell you even are or what you believe. The three-step solution gig is up. There are no shortcuts, no black-and-white answers. In fact, you start to understand that truth only exists as a paradox—and that’s not something you can truly grasp from a podcast, a book, or a theory. You have to live it.

We have to live it. And then give it (up).

Stephanie

is new to me. I stumbled upon her essay The Mirage of More and just the title alone hooked me.

It opens with this:

There’s an invisible metronome pulsing beneath modern life, a relentless ticking that urges us forward. More, faster, better. You open your phone for a quick dopamine hit, just a scroll, just a glance. Fifteen minutes later, you’ve watched an influencer unbox their latest “must-have” haul, skimmed three self-improvement threads, and added a book to your cart because someone on TikTok swore it was life-changing. You don’t even really want the book. But that’s not the point. The rhythm is relentless: consume, accumulate, optimize.

I nodded my head all along while reading because. Well, the rhythm is relentless. Relentless. We try to relent and mitigate and abandon our “bad habits,” yet they persist. It’s only when we surrender to the understanding that more will not complete us that we can get close to what we are truly hungry for - maybe we’re spiritually starved, maybe we are lonely, maybe we are stuck in the spin cycle of a life that feels like not ours. I could quote this whole essay. I think those of us who find ourselves in the rooms of AA or looking in the mirror knowing we’ve lost our way somehow with consumption of something in excess can relate to this:

The Devaluation of Enough

The problem with hyper-consumption is that it metastasizes. The hedonic treadmill, our tendency to quickly adapt to new pleasures, rendering them less pleasurable over time, is now turbocharged. We are conditioned to believe that whatever is just beyond our grasp will finally slake the gnawing feeling that something is missing. But the moment we obtain it, the goalpost moves. The watchword of our era is optimization, and yet, paradoxically, we are left in a chronic state of dissatisfaction.

Something is missing. What is it we are all chasing?

Priscilla Harvey

wrote a beautiful piece titled, On Going Viral, Being Present, and Making Space for Grace. She writes about how we all know we are too attached to our phones and the irony in how she had a Note go viral about what we are missing when we are attached to our screens.

She shares:

“The irony is, after writing about looking up, I couldn’t stop looking down at my phone. The post went viral just as I was heading out on a long-awaited family vacation, our first in over a year. Suddenly, there were new subscribers, kind messages pouring in, people reaching out. I felt the urgency to respond to each person, to keep the momentum going, to write something new right away before it all slipped away.

But my writing journey has always been about listening closely to my inner voice—going deeper, not faster. And that voice was loud and clear: Don’t let this online moment pull you away from the people right in front of you. Stop operating from scarcity. Trust that what is meant for you will still be there when you return. Don’t sacrifice this sacred time with your family to chase connection online.”

I love her honest reflections. How we chase this online connection at the detriment of those right in front of us. For me, this is my continuous work. PUT DOWN THE PHONE. STEP AWAY FROM THE EMAILS. The “stop operating from scarcity” really speaks to me.

Sean Corcoran

writes so sincerely and candidly about his journey out of the addictive stranglehold of compulsive gambling. His publication I Wouldn't Bet On It is fairly new to me, and I am loving what he puts out.

This piece Maybe it is 'weak to speak' is a poem that points out maybe weakness is exactly what men need. This sounds like surrender to me. The paradoxical life lesson: when we get weak and put down our defenses, we grow stronger. This part!!!

“To sit across from another man, baring more of the depths of your soul than this hetero-normative world would allow, seeking nothing but a tight hug in return.”

BEFORE WE GO:

Two recommendations:

Louise Atthey

has a gorgeous offering for a six-week course titled, Finding Faith in Sobriety. If you feel this is a missing link for you, I encourage you to look at what Louise is offering. You can more details here

If the idea of endlessly chasing more, more more sounds like something you need to peel back and dig into, listen to THIS conversation between

Rosemary Writes & Recovers

and

Julie Fontes

where they pose the question about writing our way through recovery: Are we ever really sober when writing this way?

I will say this each week of this Challenge: PLEASE keep in mind that I am not an addiction specialist. I hold zero degrees or certifications in counseling. I am just a person who has a litany of addictions that are super skilled in the game of whack-a-mole. I will be coming here with my experience only and that, really, is the only thing I am an expert in. I am an expert of my experiences, and you are of yours. Let’s keep that in mind.

JOURNAL PROMPTS/REFLECTIONS:

1. Rohr states, “Surrender will always feel like dying, and yet it is the necessary path to liberation.” What could you let go of in your life right now? What can you put to rest and allow to die, so that you can open up to more?

2. Are these unconventional examinations of the Twelve Steps helping you? Is there resonance? I’d love to hear from you.

For the majority of this 12-week challenge, the comment section will only be for paid subscribers. THIS WEEK, I’M OPENING THE COMMENTS TO ALL.

Next week, we’ll return to closed. Keep an eye on the chat feature for paid subscribers this week. I’ll be reaching out there to pull at some insights and will be polling for thoughts on a Zoom gathering to come.

If you want all access to the content and discussions that will transpire over the course of this challenge, you can upgrade your subscription to paid by clicking here

If you can only offer a one-time gesture of support, you can do so below.

ADDED BONUS: STEP THREE PLAYLIST

If music helps you see inside yourself (it does for me!) here are some songs that open me to believing in the power of surrender. Do you have any you’d like to share?

1. Alcoholics Anonymous

2. Breathing Under Water - Spirituality and the Twelve Steps