Surrender and Abundance
By: Dr. Truesdell, Dr. Tea
Tags: Surrender, Abundance, Writing Challenge, Academic Recovery, Soul

Image: Abundance

If we really understood just how much abundance there is in life, surrender and acceptance would become loving acts that allow us to grow.

On Surrender…and surrendering more

What is spiritual surrender? At its core it’s about letting go of the need to control the where, who, why, what, and how of our lives. Releasing these mundane needs of the ego allows us to be led by Spirit, not by might.

To surrender means to allow what does not serve you to stay in the past where it belongs, while also learning from those experiences so you can fully live in the present. Surrender then becomes an acknowledgment of a greater power, one that is smarter and more compassionate, who will catch you the more you let go. Surrender is also what we call Faith.

I learn the art of surrender over, and over…and over again. And I am still learning, because whenever I think I have surrendered, Spirit lets me know I can still let go of more. Even now, I am learning this lesson; I have a fixed timeline in my head of how a situation in my life should move. Meanwhile, Spirit is making it clear that while what I desire will happen, I have to let go of the timeline I am clinging to so desperately in my head.

I must let go of the need to control how my desire will manifest, because my “how” is rooted in my anxious need to know exactly what will happen. It is a common defense mechanism leftover from the days when I felt the ground had been ripped out from under me. By fearing the future, I am trying to control what I think I know — which is actually nothing!

These past emotions are trying to dictate my present, and sometimes, my best laid plans are not the plans I actually need. They contradict the flow of the Universe, which causes me to react by becoming more and more pissed off when my desires don’t match my reality.

So then I have to (lovingly) tell myself, “Nicole , just let that shit go.”

Surrendering allows us to fully see and know ourselves. As I learn surrender, I get to know more about myself: my triggers, my assumptions, my mental processes and health, and my physical reactions. Oftentimes, we only know superficial aspects of ourselves because we let others’ perceptions of us dictate our own self-perception. Surrendering allows us to see when this happens, taking us deeper into self-reflection so we can find and sit in the Soul.

When you really know yourself, can’t no one tell you who you are.

Prayer is the vehicle to help get you there. Faith is the belief that powers prayer, and creates the spaces for us to let go of the things that no longer serve us. Meditation is the action that helps us find our center. Surrender neatly, powerfully, ties these all together.

There is another piece to this Soul Puzzle that I don’t think is addressed enough when we talk about surrender, and that is the role of abundance.

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

On Abundance

Abundance is the idea that there is enough, for all. It is creation, overflowing with what we need to live. Abundance is more than just money or wealth — one can have abundance in love, friendship, experiences, and so on.

Any part of our lives can be filled with even more abundance. It is why we are here ; we are not meant to just sit in hardship, but to also truly experience joy and abundance. It is all about balance. The best teacher of this is Mother Earth — she shows us that she can always create life, even after massive destruction.

Our inability as humans to grasp the concept of abundance leaves us in its inverse state, approaching life from a perspective of lack. Time and again, I have watched myself slip into this mode of thinking. Just recently, I was talking with my husband and noticed that I was being so damn negative! I subconsciously resigned myself to the thought that we were not going to get what we exactly wanted (see not surrendering) and I kept using the words “not enough” and “being ripped off” because “we always get the short end of the stick.”

He had to look at me and finally say, “Babe…it’s only been a week.”

Advances in technology and instant gratification have made life more and more convenient, but it sure has warped humans’ ability to understand Time. Life takes time. When we do not see the results of our labor in the time we have imagined, negative and counterproductive thoughts start to invade our minds and settle into our psyche. That’s what was happening to me.

My prayers really are and were being answered! My life has more flexibility and I have to just worry about myself and my family, for the first time in a long time. Yet there I was, sitting in a deficit mindset when abundance was showing itself all around me. Even during a pandemic.

Modern society often leads us to believe that there’s never enough of anything — time, food, space — you name it. But there’s always enough — and more.

At the beginning of the year I asked Spirit for freedom. I wanted the freedom to be able to be me again, perhaps for the first time. Over the last eight months, Spirit has provided that in a way I wasn’t expecting, of course. With newfound freedom came the gift of more time than I could have imagined, and I saw how freedom and time were connected. Spirit knew that more time with my family and developing my creativity were the keys to the freedom I desired. I just had to accept the gift.

When we think we really understand abundance and the goodness there is in the world, Spirit/the Universe ends up showing us there can be even more because Spirit is more than what the human mind can comprehend.

“You do the work first and then Spirit blesses it” — HOUGAN ZO (Black Spectrum Network)

The relationship between surrender and abundance is a simple and difficult concept to fully embrace. Your work is to let things go, and Spirit’s job is to then bless you. Once you let go, your mind is unburdened, open enough to see the world around you in a new light.

Photo by Tom Fisk from Pexels

An exercise in surrender and receiving abundance

Try this: after the full moon period, go outside with scraps of paper, a pencil, a fire-proof container and a lighter before going to bed. Write down all the things you want to release, no matter how silly it may seem: “I release self-doubt”; “I release this anxiety — I don’t want you no more!”, for example.

Put each statement on its paper. When you’re done, sit where you can (ideally) see the moon, but if you can’t, the night sky is enough. Take a deep breath, and then say each statement out loud, with conviction and oomph, and then burn that paper! Release that energy in the Universe. Repeat this until you are done, then have a good scream if you need it.

Over the next 28 days (one lunar cycle), write down how you are feeling before bed. No judgement, no page limit, just write. At the end of the cycle, read over your entries and see if you notice any shifts in what you released under the moon/night sky . You may be surprised by the abundance you notice.

Repeat as needed.