As I use the word, surrendering spiritually means easing your grip on small things that are out of your hands, while you go on doing what's yours to do. It never means giving up your safety, your health, your treatment or your recovery. Your care for all of those stays exactly as it is.
Clodagh's laptop picks the worst possible moment to update itself.
Her book club meets on a video call in a quarter of an hour, and it's her turn to lead. The screen has gone dark blue. A ring of dots turns slowly, a number underneath says 31 per cent, and a line of text asks her not to switch the machine off.
She leans towards the screen. She taps the space bar, then the trackpad, as if either might hurry it along. Still 31. She picks up her phone to check the time, puts it down, and picks it up again. Her shoulders have crept up, and her jaw is set.
The laptop is plugged in. Her notes sit beside her on paper, with the novel open at the chapter they're discussing. Nothing on her side is left to do.
She notices that. She sits back in her chair and drinks the rest of her tea before it goes cold.
The number reaches 32 when it's ready.
What does it mean to surrender spiritually?
It means letting small, uncontrollable things run at their own pace while you keep looking after what's yours. You still care, choose and act. To me, that's what makes it spiritual: once the straining eases, your attention can turn from the thing you can't move to who you are while you wait.
What does surrender never mean?
Surrender never means giving in to someone who hurts you, or staying anywhere you aren't safe. If anyone is harming you, at home or anywhere else, being on guard is right, and getting safe matters more than anything on this page. In the UAE you can call 800111, a helpline run by the Dubai Foundation for Women and Children; its website says the line is free and runs 24/7. Outside the UAE, find the domestic abuse helpline for the country you live in. And if danger is close right now, contact local emergency services straight away.
It never means giving up treatment, medication or support, either. The care you're receiving carries on exactly as it is, and only you and your doctor, together, should alter it. If recovery is part of your life, your programme comes with you, and so do the people who walk it with you.
And it never means turning your back on yourself or on your own life. If things have begun to feel that way, make today the day your doctor, or a mental health professional, hears how things are. If you're in crisis, contact your local emergency services. Help like that comes before anything else on this page.
Part of the trouble is the word itself, which in everyday English leans toward giving in. Merriam-Webster's first meaning for surrender is "to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand", the way a fort is surrendered. That's not the sense this piece is about.
Where does all the straining come from?
Mostly from caring. When something matters and you can't steer it, sitting still can feel like not caring at all, so the body finds itself a task. It leans towards the screen. It taps the key again. It checks a time it checked a minute ago. All of it feels like helping.
You can usually find the straining in the body: a jaw set hard, shoulders lifted, breath held high in the chest, a thumb that keeps refreshing the page. None of it moves a progress bar. It does tire the person waiting.
Effort is one of the best things you have, and a progress bar is a poor use of it. You are not broken. You are buried. Underneath the straining is someone perfectly able to sit back and wait.
Who Am I?, my masterclass, is free with the code GIFT26. Its last part is guided. If you've ever felt unreal or cut off from yourself, or you're being treated for it, see your doctor before that part or leave it out, and you can stop at any moment. Receive the Masterclass on a day that suits. Or read on.
Is surrender a kind of giving up?
No. Look at where the effort goes. Giving up takes your effort away from something that matters to you. Surrender keeps your effort on what matters and lifts it off small things that effort was never going to move: the weather, the speed of a queue, a progress bar.
Clodagh didn't stop caring about her book club. She'd plugged the laptop in and had her notes ready, and if the update had run long, she'd have messaged the group and joined from her phone. What she set aside was the job of hurrying a progress bar.
That's the narrow sense of surrender here: you keep fighting for what matters and stop straining at what can't be hurried. The strain against small, uncontrollable things eases. Everything you do to keep yourself and your people safe and well carries on.
Surrender also isn't a way around what hurts. If "just surrender" has become a reason not to feel something, or not to deal with something that needs dealing with, that's nearer to what I described in what is spiritual bypassing.
And it can quietly become another thing to excel at. I've done exactly that myself, and I owned up to it in stop fixing yourself. How to stop trying so hard is the piece for effort you can't switch off.
What if surrender is a word from your faith?
Then keep the meaning it has there. The same goes if you know the word from recovery. Those meanings belong to your faith or your programme, and to the people you learn them from. This piece doesn't speak for them or replace them. What it offers is my own, more everyday reading of the word.
Where can you practise surrender this week?
The practice below is for small, everyday waits and nothing bigger. It isn't therapy or medical treatment, and any care you have goes on as before. Panic, anxiety, drink or drugs, and anything touching your health or your safety are for a doctor or a mental health professional, never for this exercise. Anyone who harms you is a matter for the helplines above. If you're in crisis, contact your local emergency services.
Pick a wait you can't hurry this week.
- Choose one small wait that's out of your hands. An update or a download, a web page that won't load, the queue at a coffee counter, a meeting that hasn't started. Not while you're driving, and not a wait for news about health, safety, money or the law.
- Check that your part is done. The laptop's plugged in, the order's placed, the agenda's sent. If something's still yours to do, do it first.
- Spot the straining. The tapping, the refreshing, the checking of the time, the lean towards the screen, the set jaw.
- Let one of those go quiet until the wait is over. Just one. The wait keeps its own pace either way.
This can be left unfinished whenever you like. A counsellor, a friend you can ring or your own doctor is there for anything you want to say, before, during or after.
How does Who Am I? connect to surrender?
Here's why Who Am I? sits well beside a piece on surrender. It's free with the code GIFT26 for anyone who'd like it.
- One idea runs all the way through it. The page presents it as the idea I return to throughout: "you don't have to achieve this stillness. You already embody it."
- A health note from me, before the guided part. If feeling unreal or detached has ever been part of your life, or a doctor is treating you for it, talk to your doctor first, or watch the masterclass and leave the guided part out. You can come out of it at any moment: notice the chair holding you, and let someone you trust know how you are.
I'll leave the forts to Merriam-Webster.
Anne's review of Unbecome is on Amazon.com. "This book is so much more than a read."
Robert Simic, guiding the remembering.
P.S. Keep the practice for small waits, like a progress bar, a coffee queue or a meeting that starts late. For the masterclass, choose an evening that's your own, and Receive the Masterclass.