Episode #13. Surrender: pathway to health, success and happiness

It is time for women to honor their uniqueness. As women we have physiological, mental and emotional needs different from those of men. Plowing through a job, family obligations, motherhood and life with a sense of pushing, doing and achieving is outdated, unhelpful and unhealthy. In a way, pushing is no longer an option if we don’t want to sacrifice our body.

The ability to surrender plays a central role in creating the kind of feminine leadership we need in order to affect positive change in our families, communities and the planet as a whole.

Suzanne shifted from a brick and mortar business to an online business in her mid 50s. She tried to do it through hard work, focus and goal setting but found that that approach was neither sustainable nor effective.  Her life circumstances had put her in a place of extreme intensity with four elderly family members needing her attention and caregiving. Plus, given her age, she no longer could lean on the good gig of youthful energy. This led her to the only choice she had, surrender into what was meant to happen. And that, against all expectation, led to great success in her business venture.

In a way, Suzanne turned her back on the old paradigm of “sweat it and achieve it” out of despair and ended up finding the blessing of surrender in it.

What you get from tuning in:

• The understanding how important surrender is as we move into our 50s and beyond
• The permission to rest and rejuvenate
• Practices and mindsets that lead to surrender
• Surrender has power and we have the opportunity to tap into it at any moment
• What happens if you don’t let go
• Surrender does not mean inaction. What is does mean is directed action
• The understanding that meditation and pausing leads to more creativity, productivity and efficiency.
• The red flags that tell us “Baby, it’s time to surrender”

Practices that lead to surrender:

• Pausing and listening
• Meditation
• Honoring your needs
• Radical acceptance

Others not mentioned: yoga nidra, the practice of shavasana, yogic breathing techniques, yoga asana practice, intermittent fasting, The 10 daily habits

Great memes

• Resistance to what is, prevents us from surrendering
• Choosing to surrender creates an easeful relationship to life
• Surrendering has nothing to do with failure
• Surrender is like leaning back into your wisdom seat, from which you can respond rather than react.
• Stressors will never go away, but distress will.
• Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional

“Swimming up the river current is action without surrender. Swimming with the river current is pure surrender. Deciding which side of the river to be on while going with the current is surrendered action.”