What happens when we surrender?

Surrender is difficult, yet it often leads to the best things in life.

I heard someone say how all of the best things in life were the ones that just happened. Things that were not planned, not scheduled or much thought about. The things that just appear on your path as if from nowhere, delightful little events that end up changing the course of your life. Those decisions you make because they feel good, and paths you take that lead to another and another, organically and effortlessly.

Does planning equal happiness?

It made me think about my own life, was it really so? I’m a fan of planning and confess to being somewhat of a control freak. So yes, I have achieved many things due to my planning, my excel sheets and colour-coordinated maps. Things like my education, the jobs that I have had, the general trajectory of my life, this physical, operational existence. But are these the events and things that have given me the most happiness in life?

Honestly, no.

They help me survive on this earth, they help me buy food and pay for my taxes. But what about the things that light up my soul? What about the things that actually make an impact, a permanent joyful mark on my spirit? They have something different in common entirely. They have all been about unplanned surrender.

Following a feeling is to surrender to intuition

Like the time I followed this oddly persistent feeling back to Finland because I felt “there was something there for me.” I quit my job, packed up my apartment and left my best friends to move to a city where I barely knew anyone. But I knew there was something there for me and the feeling was so strong I could not have disobeyed it. Or perhaps I could have. I could have fought against it, to rule with my logic, to stay sensible and reasonable.

Luckily I am neither of those things when it comes to my heart, so I ended up walking the snowy streets of Helsinki smiling, because I could feel I was close. I could almost touch it. And after only 14 days I did. I met the love of my life, my partner in adventure and also the father of my child. And I honestly cannot imagine how life would be without him! All this happiness just happened. Unplanned, unscheduled, by pure “coincidence” on a dark January evening.

Letting the Universe live through you

Or like the time three years later when I wanted a change of scenery from the snowy streets of Helsinki. In spite of the crippling fear and anxiety I gave myself over to the events that were unfolding through me. I decided that life should be lived more simply, life should exist on a beach somewhere, and I trusted that the Universe would show me a) the beach, and b) the steps for me to take in order to get there.

And it did.

What followed was such a well-orchestrated chain of events that it’s hard to believe even to this day. I spent three amazing years in the Philippines, on the beach, in many ways my biggest adventure and manifesting triumph to date. And I planned none of it! It just happened, organically one thing after another. All that was left for me to do was to have the courage to actually take the steps whispered by my intuition. Not always a simple task I can assure you, but oh so worth it.

Come through me, my child

Or like the time few years ago, when I offered my entire being to the Universe. My biggest surrender to date. Again, even through all of the fear I knew there was something beautiful on the other side. I just had to let go, allow the current to take me and trust. Take a leap of faith bigger than I had ever done before.

And I said to the big open space, come through me if you wish, I am open. Not knowing where the path would lead, I was only following the faint whisper that told me it was the right thing to do. The only thing to do. Something that would tear down the old, something that would break me down at first, but in the aftermath would heal me and lead me higher. And luckily, I let go.

I stopped resisting and trying to make sense. I followed the energy and the wise wisdom of my body. This resulted in a tiny, cheerful human who joined us a year ago. A tiny being that breaks me and heals me at the same time. Every day. And I planned none of this.

Surrender and get out of your own way

Why is this important?

Esther Hicks says that if we only get out of our own way, magic will happen. We simply must stop resisting long enough for the Vortex to suck us in (Vortex = the flow, the universe, what every you want to call it). I find this both sad and amazing at the same time, because it is so simple, yet we struggle to do it. But it’s enough to just stop resisting.

Stop trying to control what happens, how it happens and when it happens. Simply trust that when you are in the Vortex, you are in the proximity of all those things that make you happy.

When we try to control it all, we are essentially worried whether we will be happy in the future. We are so concerned about our future happiness that we forget to be happy now. Today. The only day that counts.

As I am thinking about my next move in life, I want to do it differently this time. I want to be conscious about the process of attracting. I don’t want to push and shove on the level of form, because I know it’s futile. We need to change things at the level of energy, because the world of form is full of has-beens and by-gones. It’s merely a reflection of our past manifestations.

So I want to leave things open. I want to surrender to whatever my destiny is. The things I plan are just activities to keep me busy in between my quantum leaps. And it all scares me, still. I fear that things will go too fast, I fear something will seriously break before a new path can open before me, and I feel fragile. No more heavy burdens, I beg the Universe. Please be gentle with me! 

On the other hand I fear that it will not go fast enough if I don’t plan it myself. Typing these words makes me smile, because I know how ridiculous it is, and yet part of me fears it anyway. As if the mighty Universe, who moves stars and galaxies, would surrender under my planning excels and to-do’s. Yes, we co-create, but the infinite wisdom is not on my end.

So this is what I will try. To get out of my own way and surrender. To meditate more in order to really hear the impulses that are there to guide me. And then doing my best to have the courage to follow them, no matter how crazy.

I’ll ask the Universe only this: please show me, one organic and easy step at a time, how I can best serve the humanity with my talents, gifts and passions. I don’t care where it is, what it is or when it will come to me, because I surrender to you.