the poetry of surrender

A poem first, with comments and then a collection on the concept of surrender and acceptance.

Are you willing to be sponged out, erased, cancelled,
made nothing?
Are you willing to be made nothing?
dipped into oblivion?

If not, you will never really change.
The phoenix renews her youth
only when she is burnt, burnt alive, burnt down
to hot and flocculent ash.

Then the small stirring of a new small bub in the nest
with strands of down like floating ash
shows that she is renewing her youth like the eagle,
immortal bird.

 by D. H. Lawrence

from  Complete Poems by Lawrence

I have learned that trying to change myself actually gets in the way of  healing.

I am okay with acknowledging I am not in control. Sometimes life hands you a crisis where the only way out is coming to accept that reality. For me, what happened to me on psychiatric drugs was one of those situations.  In that realization too, there  is grace.

The idea of not being in control, nor ever being able to be in control, isn’t a comfortable thought for a lot of people. For me, though, surrendering to “that which is” is where my healing comes from. No choice anymore, just surrender. I practice letting go and watching. In that process I get out-of-the-way and let life flow through me. We find we have an amazing teacher right within us if we can learn to do that. That has been the way I’ve been able to find the inner guru and thus find some peace and happiness even in the midst of ongoing autonomic nervous system chaos…now I get to watch this body and mind and spirit heal. It’s an amazing ride and I’m grateful to be here to watch it.

More on surrender and acceptance:

Surrender more. Seek less.

freaky sensations and surrender

Surrender to the process of being born

Letting go, acceptance, surrender

• You are your own teacher, guru, healer
• Acceptance doesn’t mean acquiescence…
• the light enters us where we’ve been wounded: radical acceptance
• Radical Acceptance is one of the most challenging and liberating of practices

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