My Surrender Experiment
Some reflections on my experiences with a "letting go" practice
This year, I have been running a kind of Surrender Experiment, to borrow from the title of Michael Singer's best selling memoir of a life based on “Not mine, but Thy Will be done” as the primary operating principle.
And as in the case of Michael Singer, I too have experienced some rather encouraging, even surprising results.
But first, to clarify, we are speaking here of spiritual surrender and not the kind of surrender that Churchill exhorted his countrymen never to do.
This surrender has nothing to do with cowardice or defeat – on the contrary.
But to avoid confusion, I tend to use the phrase “letting go” instead.
Because to surrender is in fact to let go – of an old love, that rejection email from Google, that untimely passing of your pet gerbil when you were but eight years old.
To let go is to accept things as they are, which is not as easy as it sounds - consider how acceptance is the final stage of the five stages of grief.
To let go is to take your white-knuckled grip off the tiller, and turn things over to a higher power. As alcoholics are encouraged to do, in the 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous program, which has proven immensely effective in transforming the lives of alcoholics over eight decades. Steps 1,2 and 3 of the program are quite literally about letting go and turning things over to a higher power:
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Letting go is about relinquishing control, to take control.
But letting go is not reserved only for weighty matters like processing grief, or battling alcoholism. It is a part of daily life. It can be mundane, like when you miss a train by seconds. Or it can be funny, like when you get to forgive your guilty dog for some minor (or major) trespass.
About six months ago, I started practicing letting go in a structured way, like it was some sort of couch-to-5k deal. I did this by applying The Sedona Method, which is based on the teachings of Lester Levenson, a physicist and businessman, who in 1952 experienced a profound spiritual awakening in the aftermath of a life-threatening medical crisis. His illness sparked a deep voyage inward, which led him to 2 major discoveries:
1. His own feelings were the cause of all his problems, not the world or the people in it as he had previously thought.
2. He had the ability to let go of those feelings.
Based on these insights, he developed a “releasing technique” which later came to be known as The Sedona Method.
And it is simple.
Consider a situation you are struggling with and allow yourself to feel how you are feeling. Then, ask yourself:
Could I let this go?
Would I let this go?
When?
Repeat until you feel lighter and more inwardly free. A mild feeling, like irritation, can be let go of in just one or two cycles. A stronger or more suppressed feeling will likely require multiple rounds. Quite often, letting go of the initial feeling will reveal other layers of feeling below, e.g. anger may sit atop a layer of fear. Each layer is to be handled the same way.
Lester said that all negative emotions have at their root, one of two core needs:
The need for approval from others
The need for control/security
And that underlying these needs is the fear of death (from the perspective of ego).
My experience with The Sedona Method confirms this - most feelings, when observed without judgment, are rather easily mapped to one of the two categories above. Personally I was surprised as to just how much I care about what other people think about me. No one said self-inquiry was easy...and letting go is indeed easier when it is stupidly clear that your trade-off is between your inner-freedom and wanting, say, your boss/spouse/neighbour to think well of you.
But why this focus on feelings/emotions? One theory is that our feelings run much deeper than our thoughts, and that a single unprocessed or suppressed emotion can generate thousands of thoughts over its lifetime (source: Letting Go - David Hawkins). So rather than trying to out-think your own thoughts, the recommendation is to work in the deeper level of emotion instead. Reminds me of what Einstein said, about not trying to solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that created it.
As for my results — apart from the increased self-awareness, my subjective experience of life is that it does flow a bit easier lately. A good bit easier. More than a few times, there has been some chuckle-inducing serendipity - for example,
unwanted meetings getting cancelled after I resigned myself to attending them
an ideal apartment coming on the market and on to my radar within days of giving up on my search to buy one
getting given a team and an expanded scope of responsibility, after I resigned myself to the uncertainty of yet another major re-org at work
Basically, the pattern seems to be that the less you give a damn about the results (but still making your best efforts), the more things seem to go your way (an ever-green strategy for dating & courtship, as is well known through recorded human history).
I grant that there is possibly some confirmation bias here, but it sure is enjoyable to go about my days feeling like The Matrix is glitching…in my favour.
A couple of other tips, for those interested in running their own surrender experiments.
Consider maintaining a logbook as you practice the method, recording not only the specifics of what you are grappling with, but also something about how the situation unfolds after you have tried to let go.
Try and apply the method not only to negative emotions but also to some positive ones - because letting go, to paraphrase Rudyard Kipling, is about meeting with both Triumph and Disaster, and treating those two impostors just the same.
In conclusion, let go and let life flow.
“I didn’t want to be in charge of my life; I wanted to be free to soar far beyond myself. I began to see this as a great experiment. What would happen to me if I just inwardly surrendered my resistance and let the flow of life be in charge?
― Michael A. Singer, The Surrender Experiment: My Journey into Life's Perfection