It’s been a fascinating last 16 months. Each health set back has taken me deeper and deeper into surrender. The last three months have been amazingly intense and nearly beyond words, but you know me, I’ll still make a valiant attempt

What have I learned?

Surrender is nothing I do; an ‘I’ can’t do it. When it appears as if an ‘I’ has succeeded in surrendering, look closely. Either you received a mystical assist or it is likely the surrender gave more to the ego than it took — a material trade-off took place. It is sly, very subtle especially the more spiritual you become because ego is silently building a new identity out of the ashes of its demise. It is tricky. Believing it is working in your best interest, it will do anything to keep you safe.

Surrender simply IS when that lie is seen through, when the realization that ‘I of myself’ have no power at all land and grounds within. That’s the beauty of the 12 Step process. There’s a reason it’s the first step and it’s why the AA program has been so successful for so many.

There are many paths to true surrender. Attempting to surrender brings one to the realization as well that I simply can’t. That truth becomes undeniably obvious with the big stuff, the stuff that seems primal like the next breath.

Laying in bed, unable to stop the wild antics of my heart, knowing the value of surrender, having been brought to my knees many times, I made the attempt. It wasn’t surrender. It was wanting, needing the antics of the heart to settle into a kinder rhythm and so caught in the experience as to be unaware I was surrendering in order to make it happen.

It wasn’t true surrender: the willingness in all my cells, deep within my heart and soul, for it to be exactly as it was, to let go of ideas of what that would mean and let my experience be. So the peace of surrender did not come. As I lay there I heard the words: You can’t even surrender. And it landed. You can’t. You are powerless. You aren’t even you.

And then the magic began …

All of life, each moment, each breath, surrenders and the realization dawns that there never was anything to resist, never was a wrong or a right, never was a someone at all. The truth of God Alone becomes Real, a lived reality. The experience of Oneness settles in. The energy shifts within, not on occasion, but a thorough repatterning, like PacMan nibbling all the old bits and replacing them with Nothing At All – the Nothing that is Everything.

Play with surrender my friends. Play with it until It takes you.

“Play with surrender: Open the valve for pure will to wash away limiting concepts of personal will. Start easy. See if you can surrender to something you are resisting that feels a bit safe. Build up momentum. Try to surrender to something that has a little more emotional charge. As your practice develops, push yourself and play with surrender as often as you can.” Card #20 Free Will, The Wild Child