Surrendering is a beautiful thing.
Yet, it’s one of the hardest things to experience until life forces us.
I know from experience. Several years ago, I was struggling a lot with everything around me. Work. Family. Goals. I kept pushing and pushing and pushing in an effort to control every outcome that I could.
My husband would tell me on a daily basis to just let go.
My friends would tell me on a daily basis to just let go.
My coach would tell me on a daily basis to just let go.
My response to each of them was: BUT HOW? How do you let go when you want something so badly?
When I heard those words: LET GO, I didn’t understand what they meant. To me, it sounded like giving up. Put your hands up in the air, stop taking action and give up on your dream for a better future, better family relationships, better friendships and better job satisfaction. Live in the muck of life and not do anything about it.
It wasn’t until I went through infertility for two years that it finally landed for me.
The first year and a half of treatments was the start of practicing letting go of control, but I was still incredibly tied to the outcome. My husband and I wanted a baby. I had always wanted children. It was never a doubt in my mind.
When month after month you ride the roller coaster of hope and then disappointment, it can be difficult to let go of control. You want to find out every little detail to make the next try a success. I realized early in our journey that there were certain things that would not serve me to know. Our doctor always gave us my hormone levels, which normally I would have put straight into excel and created charts. I would have looked month over month to see what the pattern was and googled everything under the sun around it. This time I choose to trust our doctor and her interpretation of the numbers. I choose to not dig into the weeds.
It didn’t help though. I might have let go of the details and going deep, but I didn’t let go of the deep desire for the outcome to be a baby. I was tied to that outcome.
After our first round of IVF treatments was when it started to shift for me. I had been working with a few coaches for quite some time prior to our first round. We saw the need for me to connect with trust and surrender. Every session we found areas for me to practice and find ways to see them in a different light. It wasn’t until the weeks leading up to our second round of IVF that I found myself fully embracing it. I leaned into trusting my doctor, trusting my body and trusting the universe.
The closer we got to the embryo transfer the more I relaxed into surrender. Every night I asked the universe to teach me to surrender. To show me how to be comfortable with whatever outcome occurred. Every night, the sense of relaxation and peace I felt got stronger and stronger. My heart was open to all the possible outcomes. I was open to knowing that there was something for me to find with each path forward.
I continued to practice surrender and trust through us finding out we were pregnant, through the first trimester and all the way through delivering my baby. I am grateful for having the outcome be what we wanted.
This doesn’t happen every time we surrender. It’s a gift when it does, but what surrender gives us is the openness to see that all outcomes are a gift. We might not know what the gift is right away, but it will come.
When we choose to surrender, we are choosing a state of flowing with the unknown while still taking actions towards our goal. It allows us to move through whatever comes our way and be open to the opportunity it gives us. It’s about embracing and trusting the universe to guide you on your journey. The outcome might be different than you hoped, but surrender allows you to know it is exactly what you need.
So, what are you holding on tight too and not willing to let go of control? Maybe it’s time to LET GO and lean into surrendering.
(Originally posted on Medium)