"you are in a predicament: it's called reality."
moving from clinging and controlling to curiosity and surrender.
The quote I used in the title of this article was originally spoken by author and spiritual teacher Michael Singer in a series he offered on the topic of surrender.
There are certain sayings we’ve all heard (and seen on bumper stickers) so many times that they’ve almost lost all meaning:
“Surrender.”
“Accept, and move on.”
“Let go, let God.”
If you’re anything like I was before I began the path of spiritual seeking, you might see/hear/read something about “letting go” and immediately roll your eyes, promptly moving on to your daily (unconscious) practice of controlling and clinging and seeking validation from the outside world.
How’s that working out for you?
On my podcast, I’ve spent the last few months covering what I believe to be our collective core wounds: The Mother Wound, The Father Wound, inherited toxic shame from generational trauma, and family scapegoating abuse.
For the last 3-4 years, I’ve been on a relentless path of “self-healing.”
Don’t get me wrong - this journey has led to many breakthroughs and “a-ha” moments. I believe that a certain amount of intellectualizing and researching is an essential part of any recovery path.
The thing is, there comes a time when you’ve read every book. You’ve listened to every podcast episode. Maybe you’ve bought a course or two. Hell, perhaps you’ve even joined a couple of “sacred containers” after finding yourself lost down another #TikTokSpirituality rabbit hole.
You’ve therapized yourself into the ground. You know what the root causes are. Now what?
This newfound state of awareness - in its initial phases - can be incredibly painful and isolating. It can almost feel like we were happier when we were less informed. Less self-aware.
What are we supposed to do now that we are deeply and profoundly aware of how fucked up it all is?
drowning
In Michael Singer’s series on surrender, he describes this state of being as feeling like we’re drowning.
When someone is drowning, they’re in a state of fear, entirely focused on survival. If someone swims over to help a drowning person, they too, are at risk of being pulled under. Singer posits that the majority of people are living their lives like they’re drowning.
When you’re drowning inside your own mind, you try like hell to grasp onto something solid from the outside. You’re not centered. You’re not clear-minded. You’re attempting to create some sense of solidity by depending on validation from the outside in.
It typically plays out like this:
“If only I can get/achieve/have [insert thing/person/achievement], then I will be happy/healed/feel okay.”
We grab hold of this belief like a life vest. Maybe now we won’t sink. Right?
But what happens when we don’t get the thing? Spoiler alert: we rarely get the thing. (Or at least in the way that we expected we’d get the thing.)
I mean, The Rolling Stones wrote a whole ass song about this:
the sweet taste of cold hard truth
Here’s the reality:
The world is coming in. You’re experiencing it. Your mind is reacting to this process. It always has been and always will be. This is because you have stored reactive triggers inside of you due to your past experiences. This just is what it is.
You might be thinking at this point:
“So basically I just get to suffer forever on an endless loop until I die. Love that for me.”
If we want to grow spiritually, and if we want to feel like we’re not always suffering, we have to learn what it actually means to surrender.
We’ve all heard about the concept of the mid-life crisis. In fact, I just interviewed depth psychologist and Jungian analyst James Hollis about his new book, A Life of Meaning, that explores this very concept.
From what I’ve observed in myself - and by wading through hundreds of voicemails and emails from my podcast listeners - we’re all experiencing a collective LIFE CRISIS. At all ages. Not just during mid-life. We’re all grasping for meaning. We’re all waking up.
(If I wanted to get super geeky about it, maybe it has something to do with the whole time-is-speeding-up-as-the-universe-gets-older thing that metaphysicists are discussing more and more recently. But the last thing I need to do is get further up into my damn head about all of this, so… I digress.)
A mid-life crisis (or just a “life crisis”) is nothing more than the result of when all the clinging and grasping we’ve been relying on just… stops working. It’s the moment we’re hit directly in the face by the reality of that realization.
And just like a splash of ice water, that reality can hurt. But it can also hurt so good.
This is the point where you realize that you’ve done all the therapy, you’ve bought all the material possessions, achieved all the achievements, and you are STILL NOT OKAY. And even worse, you’re having to tread metaphorical water like absolute hell just to keep yourself afloat, to continue maintaining the illusion that you’ve somehow got it all together. When deep down inside, you know it’s all a façade.
This is a special state of hell - because it allows your ego to win out in making you believe that something must be wrong with you. That somehow, you’ve failed at this life thing.
But that’s just not true.
For some of us, it takes a literal disaster to wake us up from our own bullshit. A car wreck, the death of someone close to us, a serious illness that stops us in our tracks.
Even in moments like this, we strive to cling and control.
We’ll wish it never happened. We’ll curse the gods. We’ll blame someone else. Maybe we’ll even pursue legal action.
We’ll do just about anything and everything except for surrendering to the reality of What Is.
It’s only when we become fully aware of the dumper fire in front of us that we can make conscious changes to extinguish the burning mass and find a way forward through the rubble.
The scariest part about waking up to the fact that you’ve been fighting and controlling your way through life is the realization that typically comes next:
“I have no fucking clue what to do.”
And of course, the even scarier one:
“I have no fucking clue who I AM.”
On the spiritual path, these questions are very common. It should be seen as a sign of progress.
As you develop, you come to recognize that we’re all simply repeating things we’ve been told and seen, and that all of that has nothing to do with who we are. They’re all just mental and physical patterns we keep unconsciously revisiting. Sometimes these patterns make us feel good. Sometimes they make us feel bad. It’s that simple.
This is what waking up from the dream looks like.
When something dies, what does it do? It struggles. It fights like hell. It’s no different with consciousness shifts. Your old reality is dying. This pain is just part of the birthing process. You are giving life to a new state of being.
You have been shaken up enough to see that there are imbalances in your life and your psyche. This is a good thing.
paddling like hell
Surrender is probably the most misunderstood concept within all spiritual traditions. It’s often seen or interpreted as being asked to become more passive or submissive.
Some might try to sell you the belief that learning to surrender will immediately result in you being showered with "abundance™ (what the hell does that word even mean anymore?) or that you will instantaneously “attract” your heart’s desire without having to actually do anything.
Now that we know what surrender is not, let’s talk about what surrender is.
Surrender is true acceptance (and consciousness of) your present reality. It is only from this place that you can begin to take rational action in your life that is aligned with your highest Self.
There’s an old saying that goes:
“Be like a duck. Stay calm on the surface, but paddle like hell underneath.”
I’ve never really liked this saying. Mainly because I really don’t think that ducks are paddling like hell at all. They’re fucking chilling. They’re doing their thing.
They’re going with the flow.
Ducks, unlike their human counterparts paddling in a boat, actually pay attention to how the water around them is flowing. They know that they could fight the current, but they’d likely only do that if they were trying to fight for survival.
When ducks aren’t in active danger, they prefer to go with the flow of the larger element that they can’t control: the water. Once they lean into their felt sense of how the water is flowing, they can paddle wisely.
As humans, we’re often paddling un-wisely. We’re trying to go upstream instead of with the current and hitting rock after rock along the way. Fighting against the elements. Fighting against What Is.
Why is this so easy for ducks to understand but so damn hard for us?
Once we surrender to the flow of What Is, we can begin to understand the clarity and ease that emerges from this state of being. Over time, surrender becomes the lens through which we engage in every aspect of life. This new reality allows us to pause and reflect.
To ask ourselves:
“Am I paddling like hell against the elements? Would it make more sense to just… go with the flow?”
so like… just do nothing?
Not exactly, but kind of.
“Doing nothing” feels terrifying. Your ego is going to trick you into believing that in order to really embark on a journey of “self-healing,” that you need to:
DO.
READ.
CONSUME.
Once I really started diving into spiritual and esoteric texts, it was practically impossible not to come across the idea that all of our suffering comes from desires and attachments.
This idea initially confused the hell out of me.
How am I supposed to entirely free myself of all desire?
Was the goal of spiritual enlightenment to just become some sort of blissed-out non-reactive blob person? My bullshit alarms were going off big time. [But maybe that’s the old ego again. 🫠]
What I’ve come to understand is that these spiritual traditions weren’t trying to tell us that we need to remove any and all desire. This just isn’t possible.
Anyone who tells you that it is (and especially if they’re a 25-year-old TikToker living in an Airbnb in Joshua Tree telling you they can sell you a course on it) is someone you need to run away from. Fast.
You can’t free yourself of desire. Desire just happens. Desire just Is.
The trick is realizing that you are in a conscious relationship with something called your Ego. And that your ego is not you. You must realize this down to the very fiber of your being.
The Ego is not meant to be the foundation of your sense of identity and the lens through which you react and make important decisions. The problem is, this is the way 99% of the population lives out their every day lives.
When you stop identifying with your desires and see them as “happenings” arising from something outside of you (the ego) you will experience desires less like things that are part of you and that they must be acted on. Desires simply become, in the words of philosopher Alan Watts, “happenings” playing out on the stage in front of you in this thing called life that we’re all experiencing together.
In this space, desires are happening, but you’re no longer attached to or identified with them.
You don’t have to believe me. I actually don’t want you to believe me. What I actually want is for you to try it for yourself. Watch and witness how this shift in consciousness changes your reality.
When we’re attached to our desires, we are also usually buying into another lie. That one sounds like this:
“If I don’t get what I want / if things don’t turn out in x way, then something is wrong with me / my life.”
This sounds pretty child-like, doesn’t it?
I’d say a lot of us need to be more child-like in certain ways, but why is it that the only child-like behaviors we seem to hold onto in adulthood are the ones that keep us paralyzed in a state of fear and ignorance of reality?
When we buy into this immature belief that tells us there should be NO unwanted experiences or feelings in our life, we are cheating ourselves out of our own metamorphosis.
For the vast majority of my adult life - if I’m being really honest with myself - my inner narrative often sounded like a petulant child, completely unaware of the reality of the laws of the universe:
“I really need ____. If I don’t get/accomplish/achieve x by x time, that means I’m a _____.”
This is usually the constant refrain playing out between my ears. If I really think about it, I realize how enslaved I am to it. It’s enough to make me want to scream (and watch The Matrix again.)
red bill or blue pill?
Ready for another hard truth from your parasocial (and extremely far from a spiritual guru) big sister?
You’re going to have to choose.
Are you going to live in a state of contraction and resistance, or one of expansion and receptivity?
Are you going to contract and control, or are you going to expand and allow?
No one one is going to come and make this decision for you. I understand that this can be a very uncomfortable - and likely terrifying - realization to come to.
Try your best to focus on the images and feelings that arise when you see the word contracted. Now that you’ve done that, really think about it: contraction doesn’t allow for creation. Expansion, openness, and receptivity do.
That controlling part of you - the part of you that claims to know exactly what you need to do/buy/read/accomplish to “move to the next phase” in your life/spiritual journey - is made up of trauma and programing. That part is a delusion, and yet you choose to allow it to run your life and decide your fate.
The truth is that there is a part of you that does know exactly what you need. But in order to hear it and allow it to take the seat of your higher awareness, you have to let go.
This higher part of you has always known that it is whole and complete.
This part has always known that the human experience means enduring the being hurt (and let down by) others, likely hurting others (and letting them down, too), but doing our best to learn to make better choices while growing and evolving along the way — and being OKAY with (and constantly curious about) that reality.
This part of you is the “I AM.”
This part is your creator space.
When we really let go, that is the Self that steps in and takes the head seat at the table.
don’t talk about it, BE about it
Speaking of our different parts, there may be a little part of you right this second that’s thinking,
“yeah, yeah, yeah. I know all of that.”
There is so much discourse happening all over the internet about psychology, spirituality, and awakening™. Many of us have heard a lot of this “acceptance and surrender stuff” more times than we can count. It’s almost like white noise in the background at this point.
Do you realize how sad this is?
What this actually means is that the major keys to psychological wholeness as well as genuine (and integral) spirituality are turning into nothing more than Hallmark card slogans devoid of any and all meaning.
You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to see how beneficial this is for any corporation/agency/etc that wishes to keep people stuck in a cycle of suffering and spiritual starvation. People incapable of acceptance and devoid of meaning make great patients/customers, which isn’t so bad for the bottom line.
There is a massive difference between recognizing and intellectually understanding a spiritual concept and embodying it.
Embodiment refers to the process of fully integrating and manifesting a concept, belief, or practice within one’s physical, emotional and experiential being.
Embodiment means going beyond intellectual understanding and involves living and expressing these ideas in one’s everyday life. It’s the difference between merely comprehending a spiritual concept like acceptance and surrender and genuinely living it.
Without embodiment, you may understand the importance of these things - you may even give others really good advice about implementing these things in their lives, but you find yourself failing to actually apply it consistently in your own actions, reactions and thoughts.
Calling myself out big time on this one. You know how often I find myself answering a listener voicemail on the podcast and realizing that if I actually acted on half the advice I was giving how much less suffering I’d endure in my own waking reality? As they say, “many such cases.”
Embodiment means allowing acceptance and surrender to become innate responses to your life’s challenges, rather than just abstract ideas (or advice you offer to someone else.)
When we actually embody the concept of surrender, we will find that this leads to a deeper, transformative experience. At this point, surrender becomes a fundamental part of our consciousness and begins to actually guide our actions and reactions.
This (extremely slow and arduous) process of integration often leads to our lives expanding in ways we never thought possible. As we step into a truer version of ourselves, we become capable of unlocking vast inner stores of power, love and creativity.
I have by no means achieved a state where I embody surrender and acceptance consistently in my life.
I have, however, been able to experience flashes of what that might be like. These brief periods of extended “surrender consciousness” served as temporary hits of flow and ease that made me eager to continue pursuing feeling like that all the time.
It’s almost addictive (and easier to do) the more you recognize the benefits.
opening, blooming, rising
As I mentioned above, most of us are trapped in a loop of thinking that we should always get what we want in life, and that if we don’t, that means something “bad” about who we are.
We have such a good idea of what we want and how things “should,” be, that when things/people/ideas come into our lives that don’t match up with our veiled and trauma-skewed view of reality, we push them away.
We resist.
We contract.
We truly believe that there should be zero unwanted experiences or feelings in our lives.
We so easily forget that we do have natural processes within our minds and bodies that take over if we trust them enough to allow them to.
Your body is not your enemy. It is your dearest friend and most loyal companion. Surrender allows your body to release its life force, allowing it to come through you and do things for you.
Surrender isn’t about an inability to take action. Surrender means understanding that some actions are already being taken.
It also means accepting that some things are bigger than you and that most of what you’d do (out of control and grasping) would be counter-productive - or get in the way of - what’s already at work.
There is a deeper Flow in life, whether you want to believe it or not. It sure as shit keeps on doin’ its thing regardless of your belief. That, I can assure you.
When we surrender to The Flow, we allow ourselves to be pulled along by the universal forces, instead of fighting against them. When we’re in Flow, it makes life so much easier. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t need to paddle our little duck leggies — otherwise, we’ll hit rock bottom.
This way is much faster (and less painful) than trying to avoid or counteract The Flow (or sitting on the shore wondering why you’re still stuck in the same place.)
Don’t think of surrender as giving up, or releasing your own will. Think of it as a way to see life more clearly and a path towards the most aligned and sacred ways forward available to you.
Surrender is the smartest non-action you can possibly take.
from control to curiosity
So what do you do with your mind while you’re allowing your body to do what it does best? You get curious.
Next time your ego decides to throw up its self-limiting thoughts or beliefs, or tries to convince you that things should be going a certain way, flip the script.
Instead of resisting/controlling/identifying with what’s happening, try asking yourself questions like:
“Is this true?
“What if the opposite was true?”
“What part of me is showing up now?”
Let go of the idea of how you think things should be playing out. Do this consistently, and watch how fast you begin shed what no longer serves you.
You will begin to UN-fold. To UN-become.
With curiosity and receptivity, you learn to let go of fantasies and (in the words of Ram Dass) you learn the magic of what it feels like to be here NOW.
The longer we put our intention on the here and now, the more we begin to learn (and un-learn) about ourselves and about life. These realizations turn into new ways of feeling and living that you will likely experience as more organic and dynamic. You experience life as worth living.
It is this process that will allow you to become untethered from your ego mind, held hostage by trauma and conditioning that never belonged to you in the first place.
“Well, some go this way, and some go that way. But as for me, myself, personally, I prefer the short-cut.”
This wise quote is from everyone’s favorite (and potentially geeked off LSD) jester, The Cheshire Cat from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
From here on, we will be referring to him as TCC (because tired fingers.)
TCC is basically Allan Watts in cat form. Seriously, check out all these quotes. He’s just dropping philosophical and (and semi-head-fucky) fire the entire book.
While Alice is completely lost and confused and trying to impose her will on the whimsical dreamworld unfolding in front of her, TCC embodies the essence of The Fool/trickster archetype.
TCC’s philosophy of life is epitomized in his famous quote to Alice:
This suggests an acceptance of the absurdity and chaos of Wonderland, encouraging Alice to embrace and surrender to the madness rather than resist it.
Throughout history, it has been the “mad ones,” the “fools,” the “up-starts,” who dare to question reality. “The Fool” goes against the status quo.
There are certain qualities these types of people share. But more than anything, they are curious and inspired. Ancient cultures (the Greeks, Celts, Native Americans, and Sufis, to name a few) have always respected the “wandering lunatic,” believing that these people could be “messengers of the Most High.”
A common quote found in medieval texts is,
“This queer stranger? Let us entreat him kindly. It may that we entertain an angel unawares.”
Let us all aspire to be fools, and be surrounded by them. Let us all aspire to take our hands off the wheel.
Let us all aspire to surrender.
Because after all, we’re just pieces of dust on a floating rock.
And speaking of surrender…
^I’d like you to imagine the above being spoken in a cheesy 90’s gameshow host voice. Why? Because I am deeply uncomfortable with any form of what feels like sales or marketingggggg. 🤡 *Does awkward virtual tap dance.*
Now that that little disclaimer is out of the way, if you want to dive deeper into the concept of acceptance and surrender, I’m hosting my very first live event on these topics on October 28th at 7PM ET.
what you can expect by taking part:
✧ a 1-hour live zoom session, opening with a selected reading and reflection on the topics of surrender and acceptance, followed by an opportunity for participants to share something in their own lives that they're ready to let go of. from here, the group will move into a visualization ritual where participants will be guided in the process of release. closing the experience will be a meditation on the tarot card the hanged man, which encapsulates the emotional alchemy themes of acceptance and surrender.
✧ a free PDF of additional resources that will be available for direct download on the day of the event including books, podcast episodes, articles and YouTube videos that will allow participants to more deeply integrate the concepts explored during the live session. (the PDF will also be sent out via email to participants after the event.)
what i hope you'll will take away from the experience:
✧ feeling less alone: gathering as a group to share what we wish to surrender and release fosters a powerful sense of communal support. it validates individual experiences, normalizes vulnerability, and promotes emotional catharsis. this shared experience we'll create together can aid in reducing shame, cultivating resilience, and nurturing a profound connection, facilitating the healing process in a safe and nurturing environment.
✧ awe + interconnectedness: exposure to spiritual texts in group settings can be transformative for trauma healing, offering a transcendent perspective, instilling hope and purpose as well as providing a sense of continuity and belonging, counteracting feelings of isolation. guided visualizations activate the imagination, helping individuals reframe their narratives and find inner resilience. in the collective journey, participants share a profound bond, reducing the weight of trauma's burden and fostering a sense of shared healing.
✧ psychological integration: the practices in this live emotional alchemy session offer a framework for understanding and processing traumatic experiences, creating a safe space to explore and release buried emotions and memories. as trauma often triggers dissociation initially, emotions and memories may resurface in the days or weeks following the session. this delayed response is a protective mechanism of the psyche, indicating an evolving path toward healing and wholeness. over time, participants may reconnect with suppressed aspects of their past, facilitating more thorough healing and integration.
requirements for participation:
1) a solid internet connection
2) a purchased ticket to access the event
3) a device to view the event (desktop or mobile device both work)
4) an open heart and set intention of what you'd like to surrender during our time together
if you can't attend due to timezone constrictions:
✧ i realize there are BFTB listeners all over the world. planning an event like this and selecting a timezone that works for everyone is nearly impossible. if you can't attend this time due to timezone constrictions, don't worry. I plan on making emotional alchemy live sessions a regular thing, so moving forward i'll be switching up the times to be more inclusive of my international listener-base.
night night bitch
Some of you may be unaware that a few months back, I started a second podcast, cheekily titled “Night Night Bitch.” I needed a creative outlet for my inner Cheshire Cat.
Picture Miss Honey from Matilda whispering a bedtime story into your ear, creating the audio version of a warm cup of tea combined with a long hug for your nervous system.
Ever since I was little, I've been plagued with racing thoughts and existential dread at bedtime. The only thing that ever helped me sleep was listening to bedtime stories on tape or CD (major '90s baby energy, I know.)
I've always been particularly fascinated with the esoteric (hidden) wisdom of both Eastern and Western mystical traditions, as well as the overlap between metaphysics and spiritual concepts. The creation, curation, and production of this project is my love letter to anyone with similar fascinations and struggles.
Each episode allows you to unwind while awakening to arcane wisdom at the same time. I produce each episode myself, intuitively weaving in selected ambient sounds and soothing solfeggio frequencies to create a truly immersive experience. Choose to listen to embrace a deeper and more restful sleep or enjoy an episode to induce a conscious, meditative state, or for (legal obvs) psychedelic journeys —it's your choice.
An episode I recently dropped that should help you with some of the concepts I’ve written about in this post can be found here, where I discuss the esoteric practice of “Self-Remembering” and how to use it to awaken from the dream of life.
and now, for the links for my paid readers.
In each of my posts, I provide additional resources for my paid Substack readers. These will include both paid and free extras (books, podcast episodes, YouTube videos) that are providing insight and fuel for growth in my own recovery journey.
Un-paid readers won’t see anything below this point. If you’d like to upgrade to paid, click the button below and sign up for just $5/month.
sh*t that has me spellbound
Now that it’s just you and me, here’s what I’ve been binging/learning about this month (while of course leaving time for surrender and being in-the-flow 🙃.) Save a few of the freebies that sound interesting and listen to them throughout the month until the next post. Paid resources are marked with a ($).
On the topics of surrender and acceptance:
⛧ Embodiment is Scary AF [Trauma Rewired episode]
⛧ The Practice of Being Here Now [lecture by Ram Dass]
⛧ Addiction and Attachment [lecture by Ram Dass]
⛧ The Space Between Self-Acceptance and Self-Compassion [TedTalk with Kristen Neff]
⛧ ($) Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself with RAIN [Audible book by Tara Brach]
⛧ Fierce Self-Compassion: A Conversation with Kristen Neff and Tara Brach [YouTube podcast]
Other goodies:
⛧ ($) Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet [book by Taylor Lorenz]
⛧ ($) Femina by Janina Ramirez
⛧ ($) Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
⛧ When You Speak This Way, Your Reality Evolves [YouTube essay by Jem Veda]
⛧ The Animal Communicator (Anna Breytenbach) [documentary available on YouTube]
⛧ Active Imagination: Confrontation with the Unconscious [YouTube video essay]
⛧ Humanity is a Sociopath -- and we can heal [YouTube essay by Daniel Mackler]
⛧ 1-hour intermediate Yin Yoga full fascia release [YouTube class by Devi Daley Yoga]
⛧ Do Split-Brain Patients Have Two Minds? [Youtube debate with LeDoux, Pinto, Schechter]
⛧ How Much Fraud is There in Psychology? [YouTube video essay]
⛧ Are We Entering Another Moral Panic? [Youtube video essay by Shanspeare]
So powerful! Loved your reminder that our body is not our enemy; I find making my body an enemy is the surest way for me to impose control over my life when it feels out of control, which allows me to circumvent acceptance instead of working on it. Loved your description of how surrender is seeing that things are already at work 🩷 Such a brilliant suggestion to practice seeing our desires outside of ourselves instead of denying we have desires or viewing them as a part of our core selves....really interesting, thought provoking stuff!! Loved it!