Define Surrender

Having a personal interest in this topic...we go into the concept of Surrender or Self-Surrender. I talk about The Surrender Scale, behavioral studies around the benefits of it, and also talk about the personal journey of surrendering. 

Transcript

Kaili Spear  0:00  
Hello everyone and welcome to define. It's been a while sorry about that totally on me.

Today,

I'm super excited to kick off this podcast again, speaking on a topic that's kind of near and dear to my heart right now, today, we're going to be defining surrender. Now, I'm not talking about surrendering in battle or anything like that. But this whole concept of self surrender, we've, we've probably all seen posts, we probably all have, like, read the read some of the books, or even if we haven't, you might after this. But I want to look at the behavioral studies about what the impact of self surrender is, and see if we can find out why. Why does that work? And I just tried to help you understand why I picked this topic in particular, and I'm kicking off with one of these instead of an interview, which, by the way, keep nominating I've had so many great nominations I just haven't gotten around to I'll be getting my button gear on that in the next couple of weeks. So I'm super excited for that. But in the meantime, we're kicking off with this one to help you understand why I'm going to tell you a little bit about my personality. For those of you who know me know this will be a surprise so you can probably like skip the next 30 seconds. I mean, don't but you know, you can if you want to I but for those of you who don't know me very well, I need you to understand why this topic in particular is being researched with such passion on my part. So I'm your typical type a control freak. For example, during my divorce, I kind of just shoved my emotions aside and made a check list of all the things I need to do to provide for my family. I'm really not into feelings. I'm super big on setting goals, making plans and working hard to make things happen. If you go on the Define FaceBook page or my blog, you're going to find like my favorite comic that describes type a people and type B people. That type B person's just watching the type a crazy cross eyed lunatic type a person saying Whoa, whoa, slow down friend, don't you know that sometimes you have to stop and smell the flowers. And the type a person basically responds by grabbing a ton of flowers and snorting them essentially, like I don't know what else to explain and then leaves with the trophy that says flower smelling champion, leaving the Type B person traumatized. All right, that like sums me up like I I'm like, not a chill person. I'm very intense. Like, I love people. And I could be a lot of fun. But like, yeah, like I'm like, I'm an intense person. So now knowing this about my personality, like I'm super in control. I love having a plan. Bring it on. Let me tell you how my summer has been. So almost all of my siblings have moved out of the state one has come back hopefully stays back, but probably not. And they're like my support system. Like I told him not super to feelings, I could talk to them about my feelings. That's pretty much the list. I'm getting better. But that's pretty much what's been. I had a feeling to quit my job, which is what I've been working towards for years. Now. Not the number for like longer than that. But like dream job, great salary. I got ahead of my own department. It was in the software industry. Yeah. And then out of nowhere, I felt like I had to quit and focus on being a full time mom huge opportunities super grateful but very much out of my comfort zone. I've never been a full time Mom, I've always worked. It's been an adjustment for sure. A relationship that means the world to me ended and dealing with that has really sucked like it's has not been super fun for me. And to top that all off, I turned 30 last week, which I was super excited about and I'm like What the crap and I'm still living with my parents, which I adore them. They're fantastic. But yeah, like things just not have have not panned out how I plan I was gonna be in a house I had this great job. I was trying to get married this year, like know that none of that none of that's on the table anymore. And I am no idea what next week looks like, let alone the rest of the year. This isn't to say I'm just floating through my life. It's just oh my gosh, I have no idea what's happening. And I anytime I try to take control the situation it blows up in my face. So like clearly, I need to learn to chill. This is my opportunity. Now cello. Now I put some of the blame on this on an amazing book called The surrender experiment by Michael singer. If you've read it, you know what I'm talking about. If you have it, you can go check out the blog post and you can learn a little bit more about that and go to the link and if you buy it then sweet I get some money just you know full on disclosure there. I had been trying to embrace uncertainty this year and be more vulnerable. And the idea of not knowing what's next gives me tons of anxiety. And this seemed like a great book to help and it really is amazing. I highly recommend it.

But because I have been having This desire that that energy had been thrown out to the universe, I want to figure out how to let go control and the universe delivered quite quickly in a very dramatic way. Because apparently, that's the only way I can learn things. So as I'm learning the artists surrender, I figured I should probably learn more about it. Someone looking at this concept of surrender or self surrender, you know, if you, you can find all sorts of stuff. Most of what I run into is information guidance from like a Zen Buddhist standpoint when it comes to books. So there are a lot of amazing books out there. And there's one by Eckhart Tolle, I'm going to read this quote, kind of stuck out to me, it says, sometimes surrender means giving up from trying to understand and becoming comfortable with not knowing. So there's a lot of really cool books out there. And it makes total sense meditation and yoga has been focused on a lot as a way to let go. And it can work really, really well. Like I we do meditation and yoga at night, we my kids, just to help us kind of calm our brains down and focus. So I'm so that's really cool. And I'll talk about this a little bit, but I don't know a lot about it. So if any listeners out there know more, or someone who does know more or like does this or runs yoga or whatever it is, I would love to chat with them sometime. So feel free to nominate them on my website. Kaili speaks comm I would love to kind of pick their brain on this on that part in particular, because the behavioral studies lean in other way well, so the other focus is on religion and surrendering to God and or Christ. This is the path I've worked with, mostly, you know, there are a lot of religious texts. But when you look, look at the behavioral studies, it's actually really focused on the religious aspect of that. And we'll get into that a little more a lot of behavioral studies, in particular touch on that part of the surrendering surrendering to a god. So but when I talk about it, we're going to talk about the studies in particular, but when I'm thinking of surrendering, just to clarify, I'm thinking of surrendering to like, any kind of higher power, or the universe, God, whatever you want to call it, you're surrendering control to something greater than yourself, and not another person. I have thoughts on that. I think trust is crazy important. And we should probably do a post on that on a podcast episode on that Sunday. But for this, in particular, surrendering to a higher power. So a couple of the behavioral studies I read mentioned something called the surrender scale. And again, there's a link on the blog post, no, I don't get money for it, because it's free. Thank heaven I found a PDF. super interesting. It's also known as the Reiner s scale, it was originally used in a study on alcoholics and how surrendering affected their recovery. So the PDF link is on so you can take it, it's super interesting. IT was made in 1997. And keep in mind that the studies that use this scale, were testing the factors the gap, again, testing the effectiveness of surrendering to God or higher power. So if you take this assessment, you can, you know, think about the wording accordingly. But what I find super interesting is that in every study on surrendering to God universe, higher power, it always helped reduce, like there was a study that says reduce stress in pregnant women for that study, and particularly mentioned and increased the addiction recovery success rate, it helps with stress in general, it helps reduce cortisol in your system, which is the stress hormone like all these people who surrendered what whatever someone's will is like, did it but also keep in mind that the studies, the ones that surrendered but didn't take any of the actions like they didn't go to the meetings, they didn't do the recovery stuff, they didn't have a decrease in stress or success in addiction recovery. So you still have to do something, which is I think the thing that's always been like a roadblock in my mind. To me, surrendering was always this perception that whatever happens happens, I don't have to do squat. And I don't think that's true. I think I think surrendering is very now that I'm like reading and trying to learn more about it. My reading all these books and trying to do it myself. It's very active, like you're not just sitting in your room chilling. And even if you're just meditating, I don't think it's just meditating. It seems very, very intentional by what I've read and understood and tried to do. Like there's a purpose. You're not just sitting and waiting for something to happen. You're taking actions to help you surrender. It's just really intriguing to me, because I want to understand why why does it work? Why does it work when you start into a higher power? And I do believe in a higher power. But you know, this is my brain. I'm like, there has to be a reason that letting go works as a just as simple as feeling like and knowing that there's someone bigger, there's something bigger than you helping you out like, does that just reduce the stress on your brain? Is it? I've just, I'm just so intrigued by this whole concept. I haven't found a satisfactory satisfactory answer to why it works. It could just be a huge comfort that you're not trying to figure out alone that there's someone who's got your back.

I have no idea. I'm trying to find that out. If you have any ideas, let me know. But the thing that's just fascinating to Mi is when I'm looking at all these people are trying to surrender or self surrender or fighting it. And I'm just noticing this for myself. So please forgive, please forgive my ignorance, as I'm new on this journey of self surrender is hundreds, maybe 1000s of little moments throughout your day where you have to choose to let go. And I I'm an obsessor like, I'm really big on oh my gosh, what's next? What's next? What's next? What's next? I'm not very present. And I'm working on it. And I have to constantly catch myself and think, Okay, this doesn't matter right now, I need to let this go. And it's getting easier. But still just there are times where it's really, really hard. Like when I can't sleep, or when I wake up from a crappy dream. And just, I'm sad. Things aren't what I thought that they were going to be. And it's overwhelming. And it's hard. It's so freaking hard to know you had a plan for your life. And it was a really nice plan. I didn't think there was anything wrong with it and everything was lined up. It wasn't even like pie in the sky. It was Yeah, every according to everything on paper right now I am on track to do what I need to do. And to have it all just disappear, has been really, really hard for me. And I'm curious on the moments that you guys have had, where you had to kind of wipe away your plan. And it's weird, because the times where I get the most anxiety about it is when I'm trying to find it is when I'm trying to make sense of what's going on. But when I can take a deep breath, one amazing things happen because now I'm paying attention to what's around me, I've reconnected with people I made new friends new opportunities have just come in banging down my door. And again, I'm sorry, I'm beating a dead horse here. But read the surrender experiment. Like he talks about his journey. In particular, he has another book called The untethered soul I'm gonna read, but I just loved seeing his thought process and how when you let go and let life take over, I had absolutely, like he wanted to go be alone in the wilderness and just meditate. That's what he wanted. And that's not what happens. And he had to make a conscious choice that whatever was brought to him, he would accept. And it was crazy, some of the things that have been and I'm getting a tiny taste of that I'm really intrigued to see and understand this more, I feel like I'm in the testing period of this concept. And I'm really curious to see what I learned. All I know is that it is really hard, especially when the thing you can't control is other people. And I think that's the thing that's bothered me the most, I don't know, if you guys have listened to define Kaylee or define resilience, I think you know that one of the reasons I started this podcast was to help me connect and to help me be more vulnerable. Totally selfish reasons. But But you know, on the non selfish part is I'm wanting to hear people's stories and share people's amazing lives and the things they've gone through and what they've learned, because I think we can learn from each other. And everyone we talked to, if we really want to, I feel like I'm finally dropping a wall. That's kind of always been there. Part of the reason I'm such a control freak, part of the reason I've really fought being vulnerable or, or been fighting, the whole, letting anything even a higher power, you know, I love God, I trust God, I have a great testimony, I feel like we have a pretty decent relationship, it could always be better. But the idea of letting go, especially something I want and need, in many ways has been really, really hard to do and always has been like, I've always thought the only way to keep yourself safe is to be in control, no control of your emotions, control of your life trajectory. And I'm finally learning that although it hurts like crazy. I don't want to be safe anymore. I don't want to hide behind my fortress, a wall has dropped down, things have reconnected, and I don't want it to go away. And if learning the art of self surrender, is going to help me learn the art of vulnerability and lead to things that wouldn't have led to otherwise then Heck, I'll do it. And in the meantime, it's just learning how to feel and learning how to kind of do this piece on my own. It's interesting because it's not really on my own. Like I've always thought for me to become the person I needed to be, I need to be on my own. And I realized this year that that's not true. You know, and it's not always a partner or spouse that helps you move forward. It's other people. It's just crazy. It's it says something I'm learning so I hope you forgive my ignorance and if there's any thoughts or experiences you've had of learning the art of self surrender or surrendering, I would love to hear it and please reach out Kaili speaks Comm. I hope this was helpful to anyone. Honestly, I

have a feeling it's probably more helpful to me. Because, again, this is something I'm working towards and this is something I'm learning about. That's makes me curious. All I know is that growing pains suck when you're growing and you're becoming a new person or you're learning something that's so anti what you have been what you've been I it hurts or hurts like crazy. And it really bites like their I really wish I was still in a relationship I really wish that I had any idea of being a full time mom is all about and I can do it well, like, this is all just super hard. But at the same time, I think this is why I'm focusing on the surrendering aspect to the purpose of all this stuff happening at once is to make me a better person. It's to help me grow and growing pains suck, but they're necessary. So I'm very curious to see what ends up happening. And I'm testing this concept of Okay, you're in charge. Now, I'm not just sitting around. Like I said, being certain surrendering is a very active thing. So focusing on my kids connecting with people trying to find the next step. Now I'm not in charge. And I'm trying not to fight that so much. So it's gonna be interesting. I'd love to hear your thoughts. I can't wait to get some more episodes out for you guys. Thank you for sticking around and being patient as I was a total slacker the last few months. But I can't wait to get this going again and keep learning and keep sharing some amazing stories. I'll be Have a great day. And good luck on your surrender journeys. If you're on it, and if you've had yours then please reach out and share your wisdom. I know I personally greatly appreciate it. And anyone else learning will greatly appreciate it too. Have a great great day, guys.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai