The one big reason people fail in healing is that they’re trying to get rid of their feelings and experiences instead of embracing them.
Embracing shame, self-hate, terror, guilt, frustration, anxiety, and more is not fun, and when we use spiritual surrender, we feel more vulnerable to those and other feelings and sensations.
But in surrendering, we are taking energy away from those feelings. In time, they run out of energy and disappear from our experiences, or they only have brief cameos in our lives. 🙂
When we try to get rid of them, we are strangely energizing these emotions and sensations. By giving them energy – the energy of our rejection and resistance – they are reinvigorated and continue to arise in our lives.
This resistance-reinvigoration can make many people feel stuck in endless healing circles for their whole lives.
5 Misunderstandings About Surrender
2 Comments
Hi, Jim. Thanks for keeping this blog. I'm not ready to work with a spiritual teacher like you yet but have gotten lots of good information. I have a quick question you may be able to point to – you've said many times throughout the blog that you need to embrace your feelings and experiences instead of embrace them. In other places, you say emotions are an ego choice and we need to be able to see that we have a choice in how we feel. How can you tell the difference between an emotion that needs to be felt and acknowledged and one that is a choice you're making unconsciously? For example, if a boy I like doesn't accept my invitation to dinner and I get disappointed and whiny, how do I know whether I am making a choice to have that emotion or whether I need to process it and feel it?
Thanks!
It all starts with surrender. So acceptance inherently embraces wherever you are in your emotional maturation process. As you accept where you are, now you can inquire into the emotion. You can ask yourself, "Why are you disappointed? What are you trying to get from the boy you invited? What aren't you getting that your ego thinks it wants?"
Then you can focus on your body and see where you are holding any physical or emotional tension. Breathe into it, and see where things take you from there.
But again and again, it comes back to surrender. You have to allow any and all thoughts, emotions, and sensations to come without trying to control them, stop them, or feed into them. You do that by continually returning to awareness.
Let me know if that helps.