I read an exerpt from “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle recently. It said something to the effect of… (I can’t find the exact passage anymore) when you surrender you come to realize that you don’t live life, life lives you. This book has a million pieces of gems that say so much and this line really struck me.

I’ve been studying various spiritual teachers and the most common thing that comes up for achieving peace, love, joy, and enlightenment is surrender. There’s something about surrender that’s just really hard to take. My mind is so sure that “I” am the one that makes things happen in my life. “I” am the one that ensures my own survival. If I simply surrender how will I achieve anything, how will I stay healthy, how will I create, how will I survive? These are all abstract thoughts. The mind has this perspective but logic does step in and settle the mind into trusting that everything is really going to be okay and a little surrender doesn’t hurt. The part that’s hard to figure is making surrender a lifestyle.

Activism is a very important part of the queer community. People take a lot of pride in standing up and fighting and “making change”. So what does surrender mean to the activist community? I don’t know and I would never suggest that activists need to be different. I think everything is perfect as it is and that includes the people who fight for change. But, back to surrender. It’s a frightening concept.

The image that came to mind when I read the line, “life lives you” was that of a sailboat. I’m into sailing these days so I thought about it in regards to sailing (I sail little one or two person dinghies).

To say that I live life, is like saying that I power the sailboat. I steer it, yes. But, when there is no wind then there is no power. Without any wind, when I move the tiller it has no affect on the boat whatsoever. This sailboat metaphor really hits home for me. As the skipper I am a decision-maker. I have free will. I can steer it, I can adjust the sails. But, to get anywhere I need to surrender to the power of the wind. An example of fighting against the wind – rather than surrendering – would be trying to sail directly into the wind – it’s not possible. You have to be just off the wind and zig-zag back and forth to get upwind. That’s just the way it is. I can choose to point the sailboat right into the wind if I want to, but I will be stalled. No movement whatsoever.

So, I’m taking this metaphor and relating it to living life with God. (Aside: These days I refer to God in my thoughts as “God, etc.” because to me that means, Life, my Guardian Angel, All-That-Is, Self, Source, Universe, you know, etc.) I am here inhabiting a body and I don’t live life, per se. Life lives me. And that’s amazing because Life is everything and it knows the pathways of least-resistance. It knows where the Love is. It knows where the Joy is. My mind…not so much. Here is where surrender comes into play. My mind wants to live life. My mind thinks that “I” know what’s best for myself. But, imagine if I just “let go and let God”, as they say.

I could say to God etc., “I want to experience Joy and Peace (or, using the sailboat metaphor: I want to reach that island over there). Show me how to head in the right direction based on where I’m at right now and my physical capacity to get there in this lifetime. I will pay close attention to the signs you reveal and make choices to the best of my ability.”

Sailboat metaphor: I choose my destination – the island – and surrender to the power of the wind. I pay close attention to which direction the wind is coming from and how powerful it is. I will make choices about which direction to turn and how to adjust my sails based on my physical ability, the boat’s capacity, obstacles in front of me, signs of the boats responsiveness, and my knowledge and practise up to that moment. Depending on my when the sun sets and what the weather is like, I may or may not get to the island that day. I may have to turn back and try another day. But, I will make those choices to the best of my ability and surrender to What-Is.

I welcome Life to live me and vow to make choices on what direction to take to the best of my ability. Let’s do this thing!

This post is about pain. But, not severe pain. More like, everyday, mild, “I feel like I want to complain” kind of pain.

This weekend I had my first all-day outdoor activity day of the year. I took a sailing class and we had the benefit of sailing two-person dinghies for nearly 5 hours straight.

I decided to ride my bike because it was sunny and Spring and it’s actually faster (compared to the bus). This was another first of the year for me. Of course my tires were pretty much flat and pedalling uphill to the gas station to get air felt like the hardest thing I’d ever done. I began huffing and puffing and ending up walking it most of the way. Eventually I got the air in my tires and with a nice downhill slope got some air in my lungs, as well. In my mind, I’m thinking “damn, this is hard, I don’t know if this was such a good idea.”. Then I came upon a marathon in progress. At the place I passed them I saw a sign that said, “24 km”. I don’t know if that’s what they ran already or what they had left, but, suddenly rolling down the street on my two wheels felt really easy.

So, before I turn this into a long drawn-out sad story and I end up missing the whole point of this post, let me get right to it. The day was amazing, but the sailing was very physically hard. We were capsizing and righting our boats multiple times and it was very difficult. It requires a lot of upper body strength and over the winter (and over the years) I’ve lost plenty of that. I did the best I could. I hurled my body onto the boat, the daggerboard, the hull, over the sides, under the sides, you name it. And I had a great time. After all was said and done it was time to bike home. I was exhausted. I knew I was going to be feeling it in my muscles the next day. And I slowly headed home.

Which brings me to my point. For the last couple of days I have been feeling really uncomfortable -  in pain – good pain: sore muscles kind of pain. Besides that I developed some pretty nasty bruises all over my arms and legs. I bruise fairly easily so they look horrible and feel tender. We all experience this uncomfortable feeling in our bodies, some more than others. I’m fortunate to be a generally healthy person and usually quite free of pain so I’m doing my best to take a lesson from this now. Because it will pass before I know it.

The thing that always happens when pain comes up is my mind focuses on it. I hear my thoughts telling me, “this hurts, that looks horrible, it’s swollen, etc”. Dr. Hawkins says that we actually only ever experience (feel) that which we resist. And boy, am I resisting, and hurting.

So, I am trying to cut off the resistance at the pass. I simply surrender my constant evaluations regarding how it looks, how it feels, when it might get better or how it might affect the day. I let it all go. I decide to let my body be in pain and sit with that reality without any judgment or labelling or evaluating.

Instantly I felt better, euphoric almost. Not all the time, mind you. The feeling of being uncomfortable inevitably returns just as strong as ever. But, once again I surrender and I feel fine again. I’m not sure if I’m expressing this experience in a way that makes sense to others, but, every time I successfully surrender the pain I felt a gain in confidence that I can do it again. And not only do it for muscle pain and tender tissue, but tiredness, lethargy, or apathy of work and tasks that need to be done. Even writing this post has its own level of discomfort. My mind wants to complain, quit, take a nap, watch TV, do something else, anything else. However, the exact same process of surrender that I achieve for my pain I can also achieve with writing. Anything, really: negative thinking, judgment, anger, sadness, things like that. Like the pain, it feels uncomfortable. And the relief is amazing. Sometimes it facilitates a joyous feeling and other times it simply takes me to a place of neutrality. Which frankly, feels amazing relative to the pain.

A really important part of my path right now is to pay attention to what my mind is doing. And what I’ve noticed is when I’m feeling uncomfortable, in my head I’m telling a story to someone about how bad I feel – complaining, basically. Even though I might never tell people or maybe just one person who’s close to me, my mind is constantly having this conversation with various people. So I assigned a short-hand for that one, too.

“Story. Surrender.”

That’s it. That’s all it takes. I see it for what it is: just a thought about how badly I’m feeling in the form of a story I’m sharing with someone I know, which amplifies my feelings and gives a certain reality to my pain (even though the story is all still in my head). Luckily for us we get plenty of opportunities to feel physical pain. Use those times to see what your mind does. Who are you talking to in your mind? What are you saying? Are you amplifying the pain with your thoughts? Try telling a different story or better yet, no story at all. Objectively, your body is free to be broken and in pain and experiencing whatever is going on with it. But, your mind can say otherwise. Pay attention. Surrender.