Surrender was my word for last year. As an Enneagram 9 who has always had a tendency to withdraw and disengage from the hard things, I have been learning that the way through is to remain actively in them and let the hard things do that work on me, as I surrender.
I see this as such a great stance of self-awareness Benjamin.
My Enneagram 1 self shows up often insisting I can (and ought to) handle all this better. The perfect plan always seems right there, if only I can optimize my day and do, do, do. Reach, reach reach then I can maybe rest.
For me, surrender is a form of rest. And I have a very hard time letting myself rest. Particularly in my mind. I overthink EVERYTHING. My therapist tells me it’s a gift, that I’m super insightful. Yet, most days, it feels like a burden. To live so much in my head.
I love that surrender was your word of the year. “Let the hard things do their work on me.” That’s beautiful, actually. Thank you for sharing, Benjamin.
Having a 1 wing, I also feel like I spend a lot of time in my head. Being action repressed, as a 9 however, my default is inaction, and I have had to shift my thinking so that surrender becomes an ‘active remaining’ rather than a passive giving up.
Allison I love this week 3 theme: Surrender is what I need in this stage of my healing. ‘Let go’ is my mantra. Loved the idea of the little worry canister. Need one of those! I find it hard to surrender. I expect you do, too. We Aries are the children of the zodiac. We want to play, be free, and ‘go, go, go!’ Onto the next thing and the thing after that. To surrender to what is out of my control confounds the very idea of self I’ve clung to—that I can control so much of my life if only I work hard enough, try harder, be better, be good. Ah sweet misguided younger me, that striving inner child, is learning otherwise now that serious debilitation back pain has derailed her life. She must rest. Slow way down. Surrender. Only by giving up control and any expectation of a timeline can I fully heal.
Amy - I hear so much of myself in your words. They help me tremendously. Thank you. Please know you aren’t alone in the wrestling with surrender.
Replacing “go,go,go” with “let go” is hard. Especially given we’ve been clinging to the misguided belief that all that doing keeps us in control.
My sweet misguided younger one sees your sweet misguided younger one. She’s asking her to take a break with her. To lay down in a carefree field of wild flowers. And enjoy our birthday weekend 💕
Timelines waver as they chose. Leaving us wondering, waiting and worrying.
Consider that this comment you left was put into a container and that healing will find you.
I’m so grateful for your presence here and all the resonance you bring me, friend.
What a beautiful image of our younger selves lying in a field of wildflowers with our adult selves stroking our hair, and whispering’Let go.’ Have a wonderful loving restful birthday weekend, or whatever you need it or want it to be 💗
The biggest thing I need to let go of right now in my life is my need for control! I am trying to learn how to fully surrender to my sobriety and also to my higher power. I have long struggled with this fact, and I personally believe that this is one of the major reasons for all my relapses in the past! I often question what it looks like to fully surrender?
I still waver often in fully surrendering to my sobriety. Just because I don’t feel the pull to drink anymore I can easily fool myself into thinking, “I’m good”. When, in fact, the dis-harmony and dis-ease that led me to abuse alcohol still bubbles up often. I just channel it in different, yet still, unhealthy ways.
Hence - why I’m here staring at the 12 steps for additional guidance. 😅
I’m grateful to have company here, that is certain.
I wish I knew what it looked like to fully surrender. We can both practice that together. Perhaps in micro moments. That may be the way in.
I agree it is a process, thinking about it today when i was first learning to be alcohol free in the world it was a constant surrender but it was active. A constant surrender to say no, a constant surrender to the anxiety, a moment to moment kinda movement to being comfortable with the uncomfortable. That's what I am wrestling with in step three...its a constant turning over, moment to moment.
Surrender (and Acceptance) were concepts and practices I resisted, yet now feel a bit more reflexive.
OK, that is not true. I think back to October through January when I was in a fight with my mind and body and you, ever so gently, suggested a podcast about anxiety being our friend. Oof, I did not surrender to this concept readily-I fought it - for MONTHS.
I think surrender for most of us feels like giving up, quitting, not fighting hard enough. Our culture does not teach us nor respect surrender-we are taught the opposite:
work harder, don't give up, don't quit, "Come on, *you* got this!" (as in you, alone, must figure this out and conquer it).
And aren't most of us here in recovery for exactly this reason? Resisting something about our selves or someone else and so we try to run; numb; turn away.
It took me a few years into sobriety, and really, it was my Bell's Palsy episode in 2022 that made in necessary for me to really FEEL what surrender was like; or at least to begin to crack open that door of willingness.
The irony of surrender-of saying, "I am not OK and I cannot do this alone" -is that when I have given IN to it (not given UP), everything I had been trying to both ignore and to carry became both clearer and lighter.
Thank you for this opportunity to reflect and share, Allison. You are offering such good stuff here and are doing amazing work.
And thank you for including me in the link to the podcast I had the honor to do with Julie.
Yes Rosemary!!!! The giving in (not the giving up) is what this is all about. We are so conditioned to think giving in is acquiescing or settling or compromising or admitting defeat. It’s not. It’s unclenching our fists and simply holding nothing. Just keeping them open for whatever is meant for us. So f’n hard to do. I don’t know if this will ever come naturally to me. I just know I’m willing to try. I’m willing to put this thing down, then maybe this thing over here and then maybe I can place this really heavy bolder I’ve dragged with me everywhere down. And once I feel lighter and realize this way feels freer, I’ll trust I can do it again.
I think that’s how it goes. 🤣 I don’t know. I’ll report back.
I still can’t quite wrap my head around the idea of surrender. I imagine if I surrendered, my shoulders wouldn’t feel so tight. Is surrendering like relaxing—just letting go? What happens when MOM lets go? I look around and see everywhere people who have been told over and over that it is our responsibility to put the world back together. If I surrender, do I just get carried down the river to whatever fate lays beyond what I can see? I’m already in the river. Am I a beaver or a fish? Is there an option to stay on the shore? Do we have enough sunscreen and are we sure that the water isn’t contaminated because I think we are green lighting contamination as long as it grows the economy. Help.
Maybe surrendering is knowing you’re always going to straddle that line between que sera sera and we must save the world at once. I don’t know. I await your report back.
Also I don’t know if you’ve read it yet but I have 4,000 Weeks in my TBR pile. It’s the anti-routine time-management book.
Am I a beaver or a fish? Is the river contaminated? 🤣 I love your mind, Julie. And your process in peeling this back is so honest. One foot in que sera sera and the other sinking in the swamp of a planet that is disintegrating.
For me, the only way I can remotely do any of this is try on micro moments of surrender. Scale it down. Like, ok today I thought I would do xyz and I only got to x. That’s just the way the day went and I’ll leave it there. I’m hopeful that building that muscle will lead to having the strength to let other (bigger shit) go. Clearly, my biggest thing is control. It’s the crux of why I drank in the first place. To quiet that inner critic screaming at me about all the shit I’m doing wrong or not doing at all.
I did read 4,000 weeks. It’s so good. Really impacted me. In fact, I just finished his other book, Meditations for Mortals. It’s along the same lines and just as good (about embracing our limitations).
This is what I need to practice on my knees everyday. It is so hard for me to ask for help, accept help and yet I want help so badly. AND this, "And aren't most of us here in recovery for exactly this reason? Resisting something about our selves or someone else and so we try to run; numb; turn away." I did not know this is what I was doing until I stopped all the doing.
Not sure why I have had so much resistance to this step since you posted last Friday Allison. I have come here to add my feelings at least half a dozen times since and have just stared at a blank screen. I have seen evidence in my own life that reaffirms the power of surrendering to a higher power and yet I resist.
This line has stayed with me all week and this is what I mean by having evidence. “A heart packed with hurt actually heals by cracking open. It has to be that way, I believe.” The minute I stopped analyzing everything, which had been my default for my entire life, things began to change. It took many months of meetings (I was and am still part of the Naked Mind community) sitting on my hands, silently mocking all of the “losers” who obviously were way worse off than me. Somewhere around month 3 I was on a call and someone shared the most heartbreaking, fucked up thing about their kids and how their drinking had devastated their entire family. It was shared with such raw honesty and I could feel the shame and regret flowing from this person like it was an actual overflowing river. I had to turn my camera off as I broke down completely. The same sense of regret and shame suddenly was crushing me too as I reflected on my past. In that moment I prayed for redemption, for someway out of this misery I had created. I had been AF since the program had begun but I was not committed. I was doing it to keep my wife off my back and had zero intention of quitting for good. In that moment though I knew. I knew that I was not going to drink again. I was shattered and all I could do was surrender in order to survive. I am forever grateful for that day and that person for their heart wide open share. It is exactly what I needed to hear at exactly the right time, a universe wink as it were. It has changed my life. But being human I still resist almost 2 years later.
“But being human, I still resist.” Yes, resistance sticks to us. I think one major thing we often overlook though is the power of self awareness. The fact that you can feel, name and pinpoint the resistance is huge, Rob. Seriously. That part of recovery is a beast. You’re doing the work right there.
I also have been on the receiving end of witnessing wide heart open shares on meetings that changed me. That’s the service part of being in a program that we all can provide to one another.
My broken heart still sometimes points me back to my shameful days and all the regrets over where drinking led me. When that happens, I let myself go there. I’m realizing it happens less now. And it rips through me a bit quicker. And when I give it up to my Higher Power and ask for help in holding the heaviness, it works.
Thanks so much for coming back here, to the blinking screen and sharing your perspective. It helps all of us. 🙏🏼
MK this is why I keep coming back to these rooms. Something lands in a way that I wasn't prepared to hear before. I just read Laura McKowen's Substack from yesterday where she talks about the best people being in recovery. I find this to be so true as well! It is something about the humbling of ones heart while going through the process I believe.
Hey Allison, thank you so much for the nod here. The act of surrendering to something unknown was a huge part of my shift into faith. I can still remember the moment of getting down on my knees in my bedroom and having a 'chat' with 'God', saying the serenity prayer out loud and going to bed. I had been a devout atheist, happy to shout about it to anyone who cared to listen and yet here I was in absolute desperation doing the only thing that was being suggested to me. The discomfort was intense, I can still reconnect to it. I can also connect to the fear and desperation from almost taking a sip from the open bottle of red wine that had been left out in my kitchen. From that first chat everything changed. The endless rollercoaster that I had been on since first stopping disappeared and I could actually breathe. I prayed again and again, pointing out where I needed His help, sharing my fear and my distress. Offering up my faith in return for His support. It saved my life. My prayer practice evolved into additional prayers, always learning them so that I could recite as required. Taking breaks throughout the day to connect with them. Everything that has happened to my life in the 16 years since that last drink has been in conversation with my God, my definition, my understanding. That's why I ended putting a course together, to support people who didn't have anywhere to go to have this conversation, to share my experience and provide space for them to invite one in. Surrendering is the handing it over, the way I lived led to drinking, I needed to be shown a new way of living. All this I owe to that moment that I got down on my knees and said, I need help, please let me be worthy of yours ❤️
Louise - what a gorgeous reflection. Thank you for sharing how you got here, how you dropped down to seek faith from your God.
I especially love how you describe it as a “chat”. That’s what it can be (and I would argue must be). I believe God wants us to talk to Him. To speak our own prayer language. I’ve been chatting with Him a lot lately. Bending his ear helps me stand up straighter.
Thank you for the service you provide to so many. 16 years of following your faith. It shows. ♥️✨♥️
Also worth noting that I experienced step 1, 2 and 3 as cyclical, not linear. The more I accepted, the more I came to understand, the more I surrendered, ad infinitum ❤️
Yes, I once heard it described as a spiral staircase. You climb the steps, a gradual rising but things recycle and resurface. It may not feel like upward motion, but it is if you keep picking up this work. Certainly not linear, at least that has never been how I experience it.
I prayed again and again, pointing out where I needed His help, sharing my fear and my distress. Offering up my faith in return for His support. It saved my life. This is the third time I have copied and pasted...asking for help. This is what step three is for me, again and again looking up, sharing in the presence of a loving source who does not care about my mistakes but loves freely anyway, asking for help....Lousie I hope to be in your course someday.
Omg... first, thank you for this title .... for I know it's in surrender that I will find the serenity I truly seek! So much to say ... let's start simple, hell yes this is helping me. The timing is perfect. I know exactly what I need to let go of ... in fact, I've known it for a while and I do well when I stay "on track" but once I start to loose sight, it's like I totally forget and find myself right back in the weeds of misery. YET! I can be cheerleader for the rest of the world! Ugh! LOL!
As you said so beautifully ... surrender insists on action. Right now, the action for me is to carve out time proactively every day first thing for me to get my damn head on straight. Somewhere along the way, I've lost track of that and don't seem to have enough time in the day to get everything done! But I'm the one telling myself it needs to be done/get done on some imaginary timeline I've created!! Again, I've known this. I love the idea of no resolution. It reminds me to stop trying to figure it all out. This is the moment I have before me, let me surrender to it. Sitting here to read and respond these last few weeks has been so healing ... thank you for the prompt and companionship ! Gosh I needed it!
After a 50 hour work week - at a job that was supposed to be me stepping down/slowing down toward retirement - I'm wound up tighter than a top and emotionally and physically broken down. Today ... right now in this moment ... it is so clear to me that I have control only of my self and my response to this world. I truly am so eternally grateful for so much and so many blessings ... yet, I loose track of my peace so easily. I know that I know in my bones it's from trying to hold onto to control of too much!! At the same time, I know that I am in the freaking arena ... bloodied and sweating, yup, literally some days and the lessons learned will be amazing grace. This past week, I had a major throat punch that took my breathe away. But I stood back up and it actually helped me to see how far I've actually grown.
I remember after a few years of attempts at sobriety and the beginning of my now nearly 2 years ... I understood that surrender was not a passive term, but certainly a call to action. Thank you for this opportunity to remember it.
You know me, I can go on and on ... but last thing I wanted to reflect on ... when I read the step today at the beginning of your essay, for the first time, I noticed the words "the care of God". I've never been cognizant of the words "care of" - I think I've always focused on the turning over and letting go of (control), perhaps feeling a sense of failure? The idea of turning my life over to someone else's care feels freeing and eternally comforting. Grace and Peace be with us all, what a beautiful journey.
Yes, Judy! The “care of God”. Thank you for pulling that piece out. May we let go and let the care of God hold us and guide us.
It does feel counterintuitive (that letting go is not passive /that surrender is a call to action). I know I can get stuck in the spin cycle of thinking about how to best let go / what it should look like, etc. Rather than just opening my clenched fists, shaking them out and holding nothing.
I also find myself wrestling time. Running out of it. Wishing I had more than 24 hours in a day. Have you read David Whyte’s poem from Consolations II on Time? I’ll try to find it and share it. It totally transformed how I view time.
Thanks for really going with these prompts and sharing here like this. It’s exactly what I hope for this space. 💟 I appreciate you, friend. I hope the week ahead is gentler for you.
An absolute honour to feature here Allison! Thank you 😊 Definitely a favourite poem of mine; and one I haven't had to edit since I wrote it. Definitely guided from above in my writing of it!
Thank you for sharing this ! Wow! "Time needs me: exists in a field of possibility which I influence & partly determine." "Time needs more of me: it exists in a field of possibility which I influence and partly determine. The universe again directs my attention inward. Alcohol no longer has a choke hold on my time (I am only beginnning to come to terms with the recees peanut butter/lindt chocolate that has taken it's place), now caregiving and workaholism have taken all my energy and time. They have ridden shotgun for decades of course, but now battle for center stage on the daily! This line is powerful from Whyte's poem and feels helpful in the metabolism of "surrender". "It exists in a field of possibility I influence and partly determine ".... a gentle reminder that I do not have ultimate control over time, right? I play my part ... but the rest is up to the universe. My part is actually where I have lost control! I get so busy and fixated on everything and everyone else, I stop taking care of me and wind up a hot freaking mess! Good news! I am already doing better this weekend!! Enjoy the day, friend! 60 and sunny tomorrow! We'll be able to see all the growth that has been going on under this snow!! (no coincidence in that irony!) Thank you for taking the time to use your gifts here and make this world a better place. xoxoxoxo
Surrender was my word for last year. As an Enneagram 9 who has always had a tendency to withdraw and disengage from the hard things, I have been learning that the way through is to remain actively in them and let the hard things do that work on me, as I surrender.
I see this as such a great stance of self-awareness Benjamin.
My Enneagram 1 self shows up often insisting I can (and ought to) handle all this better. The perfect plan always seems right there, if only I can optimize my day and do, do, do. Reach, reach reach then I can maybe rest.
For me, surrender is a form of rest. And I have a very hard time letting myself rest. Particularly in my mind. I overthink EVERYTHING. My therapist tells me it’s a gift, that I’m super insightful. Yet, most days, it feels like a burden. To live so much in my head.
I love that surrender was your word of the year. “Let the hard things do their work on me.” That’s beautiful, actually. Thank you for sharing, Benjamin.
Having a 1 wing, I also feel like I spend a lot of time in my head. Being action repressed, as a 9 however, my default is inaction, and I have had to shift my thinking so that surrender becomes an ‘active remaining’ rather than a passive giving up.
I love that insight. What a powerful shift.
Allison I love this week 3 theme: Surrender is what I need in this stage of my healing. ‘Let go’ is my mantra. Loved the idea of the little worry canister. Need one of those! I find it hard to surrender. I expect you do, too. We Aries are the children of the zodiac. We want to play, be free, and ‘go, go, go!’ Onto the next thing and the thing after that. To surrender to what is out of my control confounds the very idea of self I’ve clung to—that I can control so much of my life if only I work hard enough, try harder, be better, be good. Ah sweet misguided younger me, that striving inner child, is learning otherwise now that serious debilitation back pain has derailed her life. She must rest. Slow way down. Surrender. Only by giving up control and any expectation of a timeline can I fully heal.
Amy - I hear so much of myself in your words. They help me tremendously. Thank you. Please know you aren’t alone in the wrestling with surrender.
Replacing “go,go,go” with “let go” is hard. Especially given we’ve been clinging to the misguided belief that all that doing keeps us in control.
My sweet misguided younger one sees your sweet misguided younger one. She’s asking her to take a break with her. To lay down in a carefree field of wild flowers. And enjoy our birthday weekend 💕
Timelines waver as they chose. Leaving us wondering, waiting and worrying.
Consider that this comment you left was put into a container and that healing will find you.
I’m so grateful for your presence here and all the resonance you bring me, friend.
What a beautiful image of our younger selves lying in a field of wildflowers with our adult selves stroking our hair, and whispering’Let go.’ Have a wonderful loving restful birthday weekend, or whatever you need it or want it to be 💗
Same to you, Amy! Happy birthday 🎈🎈
The biggest thing I need to let go of right now in my life is my need for control! I am trying to learn how to fully surrender to my sobriety and also to my higher power. I have long struggled with this fact, and I personally believe that this is one of the major reasons for all my relapses in the past! I often question what it looks like to fully surrender?
Thanks for sharing this, Laci.
I still waver often in fully surrendering to my sobriety. Just because I don’t feel the pull to drink anymore I can easily fool myself into thinking, “I’m good”. When, in fact, the dis-harmony and dis-ease that led me to abuse alcohol still bubbles up often. I just channel it in different, yet still, unhealthy ways.
Hence - why I’m here staring at the 12 steps for additional guidance. 😅
I’m grateful to have company here, that is certain.
I wish I knew what it looked like to fully surrender. We can both practice that together. Perhaps in micro moments. That may be the way in.
I agree it is a process, thinking about it today when i was first learning to be alcohol free in the world it was a constant surrender but it was active. A constant surrender to say no, a constant surrender to the anxiety, a moment to moment kinda movement to being comfortable with the uncomfortable. That's what I am wrestling with in step three...its a constant turning over, moment to moment.
Yes, the surrender is constant - even when it is subtle. Moment to moment - that is true to me, too.
Wow wow wow, I am so honored that my words resonated with you in this way. Thank you so much for sharing 🩵
Your essay stayed with me long after I read it, Stephanie! Such resonance.
Wow, this means the world to me! Thank you for sharing such kind words.
thank you always Allison, such helpful and inspiring references always.
Thank you, Elena. Always grateful for your presence. 🫶
Thank you so much for all of your writings, I am thoroughly enjoying being on this journey with you!
Hi Laci! I’m so glad you are here and look forward to connecting more. 🫶
Thank you for this note.
Surrender (and Acceptance) were concepts and practices I resisted, yet now feel a bit more reflexive.
OK, that is not true. I think back to October through January when I was in a fight with my mind and body and you, ever so gently, suggested a podcast about anxiety being our friend. Oof, I did not surrender to this concept readily-I fought it - for MONTHS.
I think surrender for most of us feels like giving up, quitting, not fighting hard enough. Our culture does not teach us nor respect surrender-we are taught the opposite:
work harder, don't give up, don't quit, "Come on, *you* got this!" (as in you, alone, must figure this out and conquer it).
And aren't most of us here in recovery for exactly this reason? Resisting something about our selves or someone else and so we try to run; numb; turn away.
It took me a few years into sobriety, and really, it was my Bell's Palsy episode in 2022 that made in necessary for me to really FEEL what surrender was like; or at least to begin to crack open that door of willingness.
The irony of surrender-of saying, "I am not OK and I cannot do this alone" -is that when I have given IN to it (not given UP), everything I had been trying to both ignore and to carry became both clearer and lighter.
Thank you for this opportunity to reflect and share, Allison. You are offering such good stuff here and are doing amazing work.
And thank you for including me in the link to the podcast I had the honor to do with Julie.
Yes Rosemary!!!! The giving in (not the giving up) is what this is all about. We are so conditioned to think giving in is acquiescing or settling or compromising or admitting defeat. It’s not. It’s unclenching our fists and simply holding nothing. Just keeping them open for whatever is meant for us. So f’n hard to do. I don’t know if this will ever come naturally to me. I just know I’m willing to try. I’m willing to put this thing down, then maybe this thing over here and then maybe I can place this really heavy bolder I’ve dragged with me everywhere down. And once I feel lighter and realize this way feels freer, I’ll trust I can do it again.
I think that’s how it goes. 🤣 I don’t know. I’ll report back.
I still can’t quite wrap my head around the idea of surrender. I imagine if I surrendered, my shoulders wouldn’t feel so tight. Is surrendering like relaxing—just letting go? What happens when MOM lets go? I look around and see everywhere people who have been told over and over that it is our responsibility to put the world back together. If I surrender, do I just get carried down the river to whatever fate lays beyond what I can see? I’m already in the river. Am I a beaver or a fish? Is there an option to stay on the shore? Do we have enough sunscreen and are we sure that the water isn’t contaminated because I think we are green lighting contamination as long as it grows the economy. Help.
Maybe surrendering is knowing you’re always going to straddle that line between que sera sera and we must save the world at once. I don’t know. I await your report back.
Also I don’t know if you’ve read it yet but I have 4,000 Weeks in my TBR pile. It’s the anti-routine time-management book.
Am I a beaver or a fish? Is the river contaminated? 🤣 I love your mind, Julie. And your process in peeling this back is so honest. One foot in que sera sera and the other sinking in the swamp of a planet that is disintegrating.
For me, the only way I can remotely do any of this is try on micro moments of surrender. Scale it down. Like, ok today I thought I would do xyz and I only got to x. That’s just the way the day went and I’ll leave it there. I’m hopeful that building that muscle will lead to having the strength to let other (bigger shit) go. Clearly, my biggest thing is control. It’s the crux of why I drank in the first place. To quiet that inner critic screaming at me about all the shit I’m doing wrong or not doing at all.
I did read 4,000 weeks. It’s so good. Really impacted me. In fact, I just finished his other book, Meditations for Mortals. It’s along the same lines and just as good (about embracing our limitations).
I love this and thank you for making me laugh...i think I have been a salmon when indeed I would like to be a turtle
"I am not okay and I cannot do this alone"
This is what I need to practice on my knees everyday. It is so hard for me to ask for help, accept help and yet I want help so badly. AND this, "And aren't most of us here in recovery for exactly this reason? Resisting something about our selves or someone else and so we try to run; numb; turn away." I did not know this is what I was doing until I stopped all the doing.
Thanks Rosemary
I so get all of that. You are not alone. ❤️🩹
That part of the conversation that Allison mentions still haunts me and probably always will.
Same. The thought for me has been there for about 4 years-about a year into my sobriety.
Yeah, I sorta wish I never listened to the episode 🤣
Not sure why I have had so much resistance to this step since you posted last Friday Allison. I have come here to add my feelings at least half a dozen times since and have just stared at a blank screen. I have seen evidence in my own life that reaffirms the power of surrendering to a higher power and yet I resist.
This line has stayed with me all week and this is what I mean by having evidence. “A heart packed with hurt actually heals by cracking open. It has to be that way, I believe.” The minute I stopped analyzing everything, which had been my default for my entire life, things began to change. It took many months of meetings (I was and am still part of the Naked Mind community) sitting on my hands, silently mocking all of the “losers” who obviously were way worse off than me. Somewhere around month 3 I was on a call and someone shared the most heartbreaking, fucked up thing about their kids and how their drinking had devastated their entire family. It was shared with such raw honesty and I could feel the shame and regret flowing from this person like it was an actual overflowing river. I had to turn my camera off as I broke down completely. The same sense of regret and shame suddenly was crushing me too as I reflected on my past. In that moment I prayed for redemption, for someway out of this misery I had created. I had been AF since the program had begun but I was not committed. I was doing it to keep my wife off my back and had zero intention of quitting for good. In that moment though I knew. I knew that I was not going to drink again. I was shattered and all I could do was surrender in order to survive. I am forever grateful for that day and that person for their heart wide open share. It is exactly what I needed to hear at exactly the right time, a universe wink as it were. It has changed my life. But being human I still resist almost 2 years later.
“But being human, I still resist.” Yes, resistance sticks to us. I think one major thing we often overlook though is the power of self awareness. The fact that you can feel, name and pinpoint the resistance is huge, Rob. Seriously. That part of recovery is a beast. You’re doing the work right there.
I also have been on the receiving end of witnessing wide heart open shares on meetings that changed me. That’s the service part of being in a program that we all can provide to one another.
My broken heart still sometimes points me back to my shameful days and all the regrets over where drinking led me. When that happens, I let myself go there. I’m realizing it happens less now. And it rips through me a bit quicker. And when I give it up to my Higher Power and ask for help in holding the heaviness, it works.
Thanks so much for coming back here, to the blinking screen and sharing your perspective. It helps all of us. 🙏🏼
ask for help in holding the heaviness...the message I need!
Rob
oh my...how one person, one share can make an impact right? I know for me I can hear something but I must be ready to listen to hear the message.
MK this is why I keep coming back to these rooms. Something lands in a way that I wasn't prepared to hear before. I just read Laura McKowen's Substack from yesterday where she talks about the best people being in recovery. I find this to be so true as well! It is something about the humbling of ones heart while going through the process I believe.
I have read it at least twice!
Hey Allison, thank you so much for the nod here. The act of surrendering to something unknown was a huge part of my shift into faith. I can still remember the moment of getting down on my knees in my bedroom and having a 'chat' with 'God', saying the serenity prayer out loud and going to bed. I had been a devout atheist, happy to shout about it to anyone who cared to listen and yet here I was in absolute desperation doing the only thing that was being suggested to me. The discomfort was intense, I can still reconnect to it. I can also connect to the fear and desperation from almost taking a sip from the open bottle of red wine that had been left out in my kitchen. From that first chat everything changed. The endless rollercoaster that I had been on since first stopping disappeared and I could actually breathe. I prayed again and again, pointing out where I needed His help, sharing my fear and my distress. Offering up my faith in return for His support. It saved my life. My prayer practice evolved into additional prayers, always learning them so that I could recite as required. Taking breaks throughout the day to connect with them. Everything that has happened to my life in the 16 years since that last drink has been in conversation with my God, my definition, my understanding. That's why I ended putting a course together, to support people who didn't have anywhere to go to have this conversation, to share my experience and provide space for them to invite one in. Surrendering is the handing it over, the way I lived led to drinking, I needed to be shown a new way of living. All this I owe to that moment that I got down on my knees and said, I need help, please let me be worthy of yours ❤️
Louise - what a gorgeous reflection. Thank you for sharing how you got here, how you dropped down to seek faith from your God.
I especially love how you describe it as a “chat”. That’s what it can be (and I would argue must be). I believe God wants us to talk to Him. To speak our own prayer language. I’ve been chatting with Him a lot lately. Bending his ear helps me stand up straighter.
Thank you for the service you provide to so many. 16 years of following your faith. It shows. ♥️✨♥️
Also worth noting that I experienced step 1, 2 and 3 as cyclical, not linear. The more I accepted, the more I came to understand, the more I surrendered, ad infinitum ❤️
Yes, I once heard it described as a spiral staircase. You climb the steps, a gradual rising but things recycle and resurface. It may not feel like upward motion, but it is if you keep picking up this work. Certainly not linear, at least that has never been how I experience it.
I prayed again and again, pointing out where I needed His help, sharing my fear and my distress. Offering up my faith in return for His support. It saved my life. This is the third time I have copied and pasted...asking for help. This is what step three is for me, again and again looking up, sharing in the presence of a loving source who does not care about my mistakes but loves freely anyway, asking for help....Lousie I hope to be in your course someday.
Will be lovely to have you with us 💞
Omg... first, thank you for this title .... for I know it's in surrender that I will find the serenity I truly seek! So much to say ... let's start simple, hell yes this is helping me. The timing is perfect. I know exactly what I need to let go of ... in fact, I've known it for a while and I do well when I stay "on track" but once I start to loose sight, it's like I totally forget and find myself right back in the weeds of misery. YET! I can be cheerleader for the rest of the world! Ugh! LOL!
As you said so beautifully ... surrender insists on action. Right now, the action for me is to carve out time proactively every day first thing for me to get my damn head on straight. Somewhere along the way, I've lost track of that and don't seem to have enough time in the day to get everything done! But I'm the one telling myself it needs to be done/get done on some imaginary timeline I've created!! Again, I've known this. I love the idea of no resolution. It reminds me to stop trying to figure it all out. This is the moment I have before me, let me surrender to it. Sitting here to read and respond these last few weeks has been so healing ... thank you for the prompt and companionship ! Gosh I needed it!
After a 50 hour work week - at a job that was supposed to be me stepping down/slowing down toward retirement - I'm wound up tighter than a top and emotionally and physically broken down. Today ... right now in this moment ... it is so clear to me that I have control only of my self and my response to this world. I truly am so eternally grateful for so much and so many blessings ... yet, I loose track of my peace so easily. I know that I know in my bones it's from trying to hold onto to control of too much!! At the same time, I know that I am in the freaking arena ... bloodied and sweating, yup, literally some days and the lessons learned will be amazing grace. This past week, I had a major throat punch that took my breathe away. But I stood back up and it actually helped me to see how far I've actually grown.
I remember after a few years of attempts at sobriety and the beginning of my now nearly 2 years ... I understood that surrender was not a passive term, but certainly a call to action. Thank you for this opportunity to remember it.
You know me, I can go on and on ... but last thing I wanted to reflect on ... when I read the step today at the beginning of your essay, for the first time, I noticed the words "the care of God". I've never been cognizant of the words "care of" - I think I've always focused on the turning over and letting go of (control), perhaps feeling a sense of failure? The idea of turning my life over to someone else's care feels freeing and eternally comforting. Grace and Peace be with us all, what a beautiful journey.
“Time is not slipping through our fingers, time is here forever, it is we who are slipping through the fingers of time.”
🤯☄️
https://open.substack.com/pub/davidwhyte/p/time?r=rkt4u&utm_medium=ios
Yes, Judy! The “care of God”. Thank you for pulling that piece out. May we let go and let the care of God hold us and guide us.
It does feel counterintuitive (that letting go is not passive /that surrender is a call to action). I know I can get stuck in the spin cycle of thinking about how to best let go / what it should look like, etc. Rather than just opening my clenched fists, shaking them out and holding nothing.
I also find myself wrestling time. Running out of it. Wishing I had more than 24 hours in a day. Have you read David Whyte’s poem from Consolations II on Time? I’ll try to find it and share it. It totally transformed how I view time.
Thanks for really going with these prompts and sharing here like this. It’s exactly what I hope for this space. 💟 I appreciate you, friend. I hope the week ahead is gentler for you.
I wish I could curse...."the care of...." Thank you.
An absolute honour to feature here Allison! Thank you 😊 Definitely a favourite poem of mine; and one I haven't had to edit since I wrote it. Definitely guided from above in my writing of it!
Sounds like you surrendered to something and the words flowed from Source. ✨
Love it - glad to connect with you on here, Sean.
Blessed to connect with you too! :)
Thank you for sharing this ! Wow! "Time needs me: exists in a field of possibility which I influence & partly determine." "Time needs more of me: it exists in a field of possibility which I influence and partly determine. The universe again directs my attention inward. Alcohol no longer has a choke hold on my time (I am only beginnning to come to terms with the recees peanut butter/lindt chocolate that has taken it's place), now caregiving and workaholism have taken all my energy and time. They have ridden shotgun for decades of course, but now battle for center stage on the daily! This line is powerful from Whyte's poem and feels helpful in the metabolism of "surrender". "It exists in a field of possibility I influence and partly determine ".... a gentle reminder that I do not have ultimate control over time, right? I play my part ... but the rest is up to the universe. My part is actually where I have lost control! I get so busy and fixated on everything and everyone else, I stop taking care of me and wind up a hot freaking mess! Good news! I am already doing better this weekend!! Enjoy the day, friend! 60 and sunny tomorrow! We'll be able to see all the growth that has been going on under this snow!! (no coincidence in that irony!) Thank you for taking the time to use your gifts here and make this world a better place. xoxoxoxo