A little post on surrender
This podcast from the wonderful and Tony Smith inspired me to write a short post about surrender. Feel free to watch this 14-minute video before reading my words, or you can watch it after reading, itâs up to you.
Michael Singer wrote a whole book on it, but what is it?
To me, surrender is the act of refraining from trying to control life and making it go your way.
This is very different from being passive and indecisive which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. Surrender is courageous, bold, vulnerable and trusting. What Iâm going to share today is one particular life event that I surrendered to. Itâs a big oneâŚ
Buying our first home
âTheyâ say buying a house, or moving house, is one of those big life events that are at the top of the âmost stressfulâ list. My wife and I have been decisive in renting houses in the past, both times weâve rented we have viewed 2 houses before making our minds up. When we work on things together, we make a great team. A side note: We organised our wedding together and it was a breeze despite the popular opinion that it’s stressful.
Overwhelmingly gratefully, we got to the stage where we could buy our first home. In my previous life, anxiety-fuelled irresponsibility drove me into debt by buying things that I thought would make me feel better and signing up for numerous money-making business courses (which were crap in hindsight). After watching part of my friendship group buy homes many years ago, and buying their 2nd and 3rd investment homes made me feel deeply inadequate. Saving a deposit and getting a mortgage was a moment to be celebrated! A huge personal achievement!
We proceeded to view homes, we looked at a couple of houses in the local neighbourhood but they were a little run down for our liking. If we had the skills, it wouldnât been too much work, but with a baby daughter, we wanted to move somewhere that didnât need any work. That said, I found myself getting very attached to one of those homes in particular, I felt anxious, I felt attached, and I wanted that house, despite it needing work. I was reading Florence Scovel Shinn at the time and she was talking about letting things go, I think the phrase was âI shall leave it in Godâs hands, under grace in a perfect wayâ. Iâm not religious but I am a spiritual person, so I just mentally and physically let go of the outcome of finding our first home to buy. I like the phrase âleaving it to the windâ, a slightly different context but the meaning for me is the same.
Soon after I let go of a particular outcome, my wife shared an apartment for sale, we love having a garden, albeit a small one, so we decided to view this place as a wild card option because it had no private garden, and then thought nothing else of it. The Saturday we went to view the house, we both had an overwhelming pull towards it, it was a light, airy, high-ceilinged duplex, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms within a stunning Victorian-listed building. Beautiful art was strewn across the living room wall, the widows beamed in the natural light that filled the whole apartment. I saw a photo of the couple living there and instantly recognised her, it was a fellow artist and studio member! It was a short walk from my wifeâs workplace and close to my art studio. The âcoincidencesâ really made us feel like this was meant to be, without us forcing our will to find the right place. Although there is no private garden, there is a beautiful shared garden and space to plant herbs and flowers. Plus, a lovely park 2 minutes walk from the apartment.
We left the viewing feeling excited and both knew this was the right home for us, so we put in an offer straight away, at the asking price. It didnât feel right to reduce the price, maybe itâs bad negotiating, but we just knew, it felt like the right thing to do!
This was only the 4th home we viewed.
Love to you all,
Letâs chat in the comments
Where have you found yourself surrendering? You may have used different terminology, you may have said âOh well, I canât control this, letâs see what happensâ.
Where do you feel stuck? âŚand do you feel that letting go would help?
What stood out for you in Bethâs podcast?