In the past when I heard the word ‘surrender’ I envisaged white flags and lost battles. A part of me always felt that those who surrendered in war were simply willing to end the madness. I also noticed that for most people, surrender meant admitting defeat and handing yourself over to another.
Indeed the Oxford dictionary provides various definitions including: “Stop resisting to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority”(1). Dictionary definitions aside, an experience I had while going for a morning walk recently showed me that there can be great power in surrender.
I left my home early in the morning. The sun was shining sideways with a pale yellow glow and I was surprised and enchanted by seven colourful hot air balloons floating above me: it was a truly glorious morning. I felt deep appreciation for my decision to ‘walk myself’ and continued on towards the local shared bike and walking track.
The early morning sun belied the fact that it was very cold and I could feel myself bracing against the chilly air despite the fact that I was dressed in very warm clothing. I stepped up my pace, hoping that this would help me to warm up.
All the while I couldn’t help but notice that the people I shared the path with were wearing much less clothing than I was. I felt like I stood out in my puffy, furry jacket and decided that perhaps I was imagining it to be colder than it was. Even though I was still feeling chilled, I chose to leave my jacket open.
This particular path is very popular with families, walkers, joggers and cyclists and that morning it was very busy and bustling. Cyclists were ‘dinging’ their bells and joggers were pounding the track.
I enjoyed observing it all and felt the huge contrast of the natural beauty of the path and the activity of the humans on the track. I didn’t get very far before I noticed that my arms felt extremely hard and tense and my hands were balled into fists in my pockets. It felt awful. I decided it was time to zip up my jacket and pull up the hood. Fitting in was not worth sacrificing the beauty of my walk and the easy grace in my body.
As I walked I was enveloped by the word ’surrender’ and I allowed my arms to let go of the tension they held. I saw a stunning tree off the main track and allowed myself to walk towards it and admire its beauty for a few moments. All the while I asked my body to surrender and with each breath I could feel it let go of another layer of hardness and protection. I was now ready to take my hands from my pockets and my body had warmed up enough to allow this without interrupting my ability to surrender to me.
I felt such a grace and lightness in my body as I walked. The surrender I had allowed in my arms radiated through my whole body and I felt incredibly aware of every movement. Each time I felt tension in my body I allowed it to release.
After 10 minutes or so I began to appreciate how still and supportive my walk had become. The path was still extremely busy but the quality of everyone around me had changed. Several bikes whizzed past but incredibly not a single cyclist chose to ring their bell or yell ‘passing!’ as almost all of them had done just moments before. It was as though the path had become sacred and there was a trust and a knowing between us that transcended the need to yell or ‘ding’ a bell.
This extraordinary ordinary walk left me in no doubt of the power of true surrender. I could feel that this surrender is not a giving up or a giving away. I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.
Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.I can now see that disregarding my body and the way I feel makes it impossible to surrender to myself. How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?
I have felt just how powerful surrender is and my walk has inspired me to keep choosing wisely.
- Oxford Dictionaries: Language Matters, retrieved from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/surrender
by Leonne Sharkey, Melbourne
Further Reading:
Choices and the Power of Now
The Mirror Never Lies – The Power of reflection
I loved how you pointed out the different versions of surrender, the white flag and the version that has a lasting effect on our bodies. Most people will also think that surrender is also a giving up, but when we feel the quality of it, it is so much different to this.
The true surrender allows you to connect, feel what is going on and then allows you that realisation that you are more than this, and more is and can be given or offered to you.
“And with each breath I could feel it let go of another layer of hardness and protection”, is a great reminder that it is simple to settle into our bodies and allow each moment to unfold. It is a matter of letting go more that whatever we are feeling can pass through us.
A simple walk can reveal so much about ourselves and that simple walk could be as we walk to work, or to the shops and a great check in to see where we are in ourselves and our bodies.
It is so important to include how we move is not just in our walk to anywhere, it is in everywhere and everything we do and be. We are just more than our movements of our arms or legs, the rippling effect goes further than the eyes and mind can see…
Thank you Leonne – I have just re-read your blog and enjoyed reflecting on the fact that the real question we should be asking is ‘What are we surrendering to?’ Perhaps we are surrendering to the pull of having a beer or alcoholic beverage? Or surrendering to pounding our feet on the pavement to go for a run to deal with the stress we are feeling….Or are we surrendering to the true beauty and quality that we hold deep within, the steadiness and the warmth which at times can be challenging to feel? I am having fun with this, but the truth is that there are different things we can ‘surrender’ to which will each make our body feel very different…hence why it is worth asking what we are actually surrendering to.
I like your comment Henrietta, what are we surrendering too? One will give us the tightness and pain, the other will not. There is only two types we give our power away to, it is that simple.
Surrendering is powerful, ‘How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?’
When we surrender to the power within, then we really do feel the difference in the body. The body cannot be in fight mode to surrender to the power within, hence letting go and embracing what we know to be true remodels our body and our movements.
The most powerful surrender that we can give ourselves permission for is the surrender to the grandness within each one of us.
Interesting to realise that the word surrender has been bastardised to mean something it is not. Surrender only means surrendering to something we know to be true and never to something that holds an imposition on you.
That dictionary definition stood out today, namely the ‘enemy or opponent’ part. The Soul is not the enemy or an opponent. It takes the honesty of the body to show us that. Surrender is access to settlement and joy, not subjugation, we have enough of that already.
Listening to and honouring our bodies supports us to surrender, ‘This extraordinary ordinary walk left me in no doubt of the power of true surrender. I could feel that this surrender is not a giving up or a giving away. I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.’
“surrender is not a giving up or a giving away” it is “to surrender to my own divine essence” Surrender, like many words has lost its meaning or been bastardised. We have to re-claim the true meaning of words as you have done here Leonne. Instead of something to withdraw from, surrendering to our own exquisite essence is to be embraced,
“Fitting in was not worth sacrificing the beauty of my walk and the easy grace in my body” – I totally agree, and this reminds me of how often we hear people say ‘happy to go with a flow’ to mean that they would agree with the majority’s opinion, as if to say that we have no resistance and are surrendering, but the question is to what are we saying we are happy to go along with? We do not realise what we are in-truth resisting when we do that.
So, surrendering is to stop resisting, and to resist, it is the enemy, the opponent that we are facing. How fascinating is that we are able to make that shift from holding something as an enemy and then as an authority, and we do that with ourselves, and it really makes sense that we have to be separate from ourselves to be fighting with ourselves and in that posture there cannot be truth.
Surrendering is to connect to our essence and the energy of love is in every move we make.
Connecting to our essence, our divineness, supports us to surrender, ‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.I can now see that disregarding my body and the way I feel makes it impossible to surrender to myself.’
“I can now see that disregarding my body and the way I feel makes it impossible to surrender to myself. How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?” So true Leonne. Truly listening to what our body wants and honouring that doesn’t then allow for disregard.
‘I could feel that this surrender is not a giving up or a giving away. I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.’ There is a huge difference between giving up or giving in and connecting to our divine essence. We can be co-creators in life, co-creators with our soul, with God.
I agree, this blog asks us to go there ourselves and feel the potential of living with awareness of the impact of our energy field. It calls for more responsibility but also a reminder of the support that is waiting for us if we surrender to the wisdom and flow of our own bodies.
I was really shocked to read how negative the dictionary depicted surrender and realise that this is clearly why we have such a negative opinion of it and clearly resist it! Yes surrendering to the relationship with our own body and the rhythm and flow of us in the space around us, well surely that would feel amazing not a danger? My body relaxed some more as I contemplated the potential.
Spot on Lucy, the dictionary defines surrender as a weakness and a giving up and giving your power away to someone or something outside of you – so no wonder people are not wanting to do that kind of surrender and continue to fight. I love how Leonne has helped bring back the true meaning of surrender.
I love this Leonne “Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.” I have noticed this more and more lately, when I trust I am divine, magic and miracles naturally happen.
We could see surrender as submitting to our own authority – the authority of love.
‘In the past when I heard the word ‘surrender’ I envisaged white flags and lost battles.’ Yes, I have associated surrender with loss, remorse and having to give up something I prized. In all it was about grief and pain. I’ve been coming to understand that actually surrender is about letting down the barriers to then receive what is there waiting for us from our Soul and God. I’m fighting it less now I understand this more and am willing to see responsibility of beholding what is given is a joy not a chore.
This exposes so clearly the evil and corruption in thinking that surrender in general is a giving of our power away as in truth it is in true surrender to our Divinity that our true power is lived in the full glory of love representing everything that we are and are from. Granted that we have a choice of what energy we surrender ourselves to be governed by, but in true surrender we are no less that the grandness and power of the Livingness of God.
Surrendering to the equal-ness of God – in this sense a surrender grows us and expands us and all.
Choosing wisely is when you trust from your heart and start to move your body accordingly.
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.” A great reminder that reminds me of Esoteric Yoga and how it’s the little details, like zipping up your coat, that can make a huge difference to our ability to surrender.
That is so true Leigh, I find the little details I attend to in my Esoteric Yoga sessions make a huge difference to my ability to surrender into my self, it may be a slight adjustment of my body or my clothing but it offers enormous support back, all I need to do is respond to how I truly feel.
It has been fascinating for me to see how many words “been re-configured to make sure we never get its true meaning.”, and surrender is definitely one of those. It just goes to show, that there are some who have never wanted the truth of divine words to be revealed to the world so set out to make sure that never happened. And what better way than to convince people that they mean something else, a meaning which separates humanity from who they truly are.
I went for a walk around the local walking track the other morning and for the first few laps it was me and a person with a dog. It was a beautiful morning and very peaceful. But at the end of lap three that all changed when a fitness instructor brought her students into the park, along with her very loud music. The pounding of the pavement began and women were using the park benches for their stepping exercises, and there was lots of accompanying loud voices. I could have left right then, but chose not to and did exactly what you did and surrendered, feeling my body and my feet lightly touching the walking path, still feeling the beauty of the morning. It didn’t take long for the mayhem to settle into the background and I was able to walk with me until it was time to finish. I love the feeling of surrender in my body and my being.
I agree, I love the feeling of surrender in my body.
‘How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?’ It is asking us to be the truth of our body, the divinity that we are and to let go of our ideas and beliefs of being only human.
Yes, I have felt that truth that we are more than human in an Esoteric Yoga session but bringing that into movement and into our walk would mean it was lived as a truth rather than stayed as part of a special program.
Yes, Esoteric Yoga is an amazing support for everyday living, when we take it out into our day. Life then becomes living yoga rather than keeping it to a weekly class – multidimensionality and the physical lived as one.
How beautiful to rediscover what true surrender is.
Yes agreed Esther and deeply empowering and activating of true purpose.
Rather than giving up or giving over of power as the word surrender has been used it can instead mean a deepening into our true power, into our essence, as you offer here, how beautiful is that and what if we realised we have this opportunity in every moment to deepen no matter what we are faced with…
Beautifully said. The word power has so many connotations in todays world. Deepening into our essence – what could be more amazing – and not only for ourselves but for everyone we meet as we go about our day.
Surrender at first seems such an impossible feat if you have lived with control for most of your life, learning to surrender is one of the greatest gifts we can offer ourselves.
This shows the power we have simply through our presence and the quality we choose to be in
I agree, there is a lot worth appreciating in that and the effect it has on all around us.
Yes Leonne, thank you. It is for us to choose wisely what we do with our enormous strength. Do we spend it wisely? Or choose to ignore and give away?
What captured my eyes when reading this was: ‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine’.
We should give more attention to our own loveliness and beauty in presence.
In our surrender to love, the love we are within, we surrender to a flow that moves us all equally as such we are moved by a quality that represents us all, harmoniously. I used to think surrender meant to give your power away but now I know and have experienced how surrendering to love is where our true power is as we are move by a quality of energy that is greater than anything in this world, extending and encompassing the universe and beyond. In surrendering to being moved by love we are essentially are surrendering to being moved by God, the light of who we are in essence. It is when we resist that we give our power away and live less that all that we are in essence here to live and reflect.
What you share here illustrates how to move surrendered to the natural flow of our body, reminds us of our connection to a greater whole and that we never move in isolation to that greater whole. It is both an incredible support and a divine responsibility.
Our body is our instrument of truth and without feeling and honouring it we cut ourselves off from our truth, our soul, and it’s simply a matter in each moment of just allowing ourselves to feel and choosing what is required to honour that feeling.
‘I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body’ This reminds me of Esoteric Yoga as brought through by Serge Benahyon. A modality that allows us to listen and support our own bodies and to feel the effects this has as we choose to allow our focus to be more inward and our movements more honouring of our body and beingness.
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine. I can now see that disregarding my body and the way I feel makes it impossible to surrender to myself. How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?” Surrendering to oneself is so empowering.
I am learning that surrender is not about giving up but about opening ourselves to something grander within ourselves.
Surrendering is saying yes to ourselves.
Yes absolutely Elizabeth – surrendering is saying ‘yes’ to being the divine light of God that we are in essence and live our Godliness, the vibration that represents that truth of all that we are and are here for.
When you truly surrender, white is not the color and it is not a lost battle, but a move that helps us to be closer to home.
Whenever I allow myself to truly surrender I sleep far better, what If I, therefore, lived in a state of true surrender for a greater and greater amount of time during the day. How different would I feel? I’ll consider that a mini experiment!
We have turned truth upside down and made it our own reality version. As we can see it almost sounds strange that surrender comes from within as we have lived in the deception of the falsity of what we have imagined surrender to be. How powerful to become aware of this fact so that we can come back to truth – what is really there.
‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine’ magical words that brings me to the truth of who we really are, thank you Leonne
If we resist we can’t possibly surrender. Accepting and appreciating who I am in my true nature allows surrender, to let go and just be.
Reading how you surrendered and let go of tensions I could feel you almost merge into a harmony with your surrounds and the influence that had on everyone else. Yes there is a huge power in surrender.
While reading I could see that when we don’t feel so good we have to allow ourselves to be and support us in the way we need it like for you zipping up your coat instead of fitting in. So we can surrender and then we naturally feel better and more ourselves again.
Surrender is not a white flag, it is the ability to open the window to our Soul and let all our divinity shine out.
wow that’s gorgeous!
Your blog Leonne is a reminder of how powerful it is to surrender to our own beauty and divinity.
The problem is we have been sold the idea that surrender is a form of weakness and not a form of strength. Hence why we walk around in fortresses made of flesh in the tension of living in separation to each other and not with our hearts wide open so all can see the exquisite beauty and divinity that lives within us all.
What a gorgeous example of doing what is right for us irrespective of how we might look to others.
How beautiful true surrender is and how much we are being offered of our truth when we make the choice to surrender.
‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness…..’ This is beautiful and so true Leonne. When we deeply accept and appreciate ourselves a lot of tension can dissipate and we can let go and just be who we naturally are.
This is just wonderful. Even just reading your words, I could feel the tension and the hardness began to come up to the surface of my awareness, and my body adjusting, allowing itself to be supported more by the gravity. Such an amazing feeling of resonance. My body knows exactly what you are talking about. Thank you, Leonne.
Surrendering is ending the madness of the mind being in identification to whatever is not being surrendered to.
‘I can now see that disregarding my body and the way I feel makes it impossible to surrender to myself.’ I understand this and can see how disregard is so harming but to simply be willing to feel where one is at unlocks the warmth of being who we are and opens the door to surrendering to oneself. It’s not a giving away to anyone or thing, surrendering is not a loss but a gaining of who we are.
In the esoteric teachings of the The Ageless Wisdom as presented by Universal Medicine, there is the message given that every person has the light of God within them. And as such, it is each person’s journey to re-discover this light and to live and express it in full. Part of this process for me has been to learn about the word surrender in relation to this Godly light, and how it is never about being dominated, it simply is about knowing and understanding and putting in to practise the fact that we belong to and are a part of a greater whole which can be expressed as the soul. And so with humbleness I give myself to its wisdom, its teachings, its mastery – knowing that at every step it will want for everyone to be held as equal – without exception.
“How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?” Yes, it is a surrender to our natural self that is in harmony with all there is. So it is in a way stopping the war, the war within, and letting go of the fight, the tension, the expectations and allow ourselves to be.
Spot on Leonne, there is great power felt when we allow ourselves to surrender, no drive, no push just an acceptance of the beautiful flow and simplicity available to us.
One of the things I really love about this blog is the practical guidance of how to surrender to one self.
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.” When we surrender in this way we do not submit to the power another, instead it is to our own divine essence, the essence of God, that we are surrendering.
Very wise sharing, there is a huge beauty and flow in a body that can be moved with the tenderness and grace of our inner most selves. Surrender in this way is not about sacrifice or giving ourselves away, it is about trusting what we are inside with an absoluteness.
I agree that surrender is our natural way of being.
Sometimes we misinterpret words and as I read your blog Leone I am wondering if we all too often mistake giving up and withdrawing as surrender instead of in its true sense which is to knock out the trying and simply be ourselves in full.
It is great to read this again Leonne for two reasons to see the unconscious negative connotations of the word surrender and then to see how powerful it is when we do surrender for the whole world.
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness” a great point to see how we can be surrendered in all we do and in life by being fully accepting of our loveliness as the basis of everything.
Our loveliness as the basis of everything is a pretty awesome recipe for love and a foundation transparency can be based on.
Surrender in the accepted ‘normal’ usage of the word has a negative sense in its meaning – a giving up and letting another have power over people. In its true meaning there is a freedom in dropping deeper into the body and surrendering to the stillness within – from this true expression is possible.
Beautiful description of surrender as an active process: feeling the tension in your body, and making the choice to let it go. To stop resisting the natural flow and gentleness of the body is all that we have to do to return to it, and start to live from there.
In surrendering we meet who we truly are.
Surrender is so simple when we stop trying and allow it to just be.
This is beautiful to read Leonne – I can feel my body surrendering to the truth you have shared here – a surrender to the divine essence that we are,
” I could feel that this surrender is not a giving up or a giving away. I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.”
We hurtle through life saying we are fine, we stop, we go to sleep but our cells never truly release. It seems we exist in a subtle but permanent state of fight or flight. You show beautifully Leonne that it is simply our own beauty we are resisting – how crazy.
Surrender provides a clear case of an action that cannot be identified with/by a word as defined in the dictionary. So, what is about the dictionary that makes more difficult for us to conceive the possibility of an action because there is no name for it?
” Fitting in was not worth sacrificing the beauty of my walk and the easy grace in my body. ”
Truly fitting in is worth nothing not a single breath.
There is so many times in the day where we can be checking into our levels of surrender and often we think we are but our body is sending a different message.
True surrender is so powerful.. we realise that we can simply be.
I love the ripple effect of you walking there in a quality of stillness and surrender, no more bells dinging or cyclists shouting ‘passing’ the change of this path into a sacred path.
That’s beautiful Leonne. It really shows the choice we have to do what everybody does or to claim our divinity and therefore creating an environment that is deeply healing for everyone, offering an opportunity to experience a different way of being.
‘Surrender to soul’, I’ve know the words for a while, but not lived it, until now, me.
It is a beautiful and empowering revelation to come to, that more we move in surrender to our connection to Soul, the more are actually free to be all that we are in essence.
Thank you Leonne, it is always a very supportive read. Even I felt pulled to my stillness simply by reading of your experience in surrendering, and I feel that everyone around you was also held by your essence and it’s stillness transforming the energy between you all. One of my favourite lines “I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.” There is such practicality to living connected to ones divinity, no ascetic practices needed or sitting for hours in a cold cave meditating!
‘Fitting in was not worth sacrificing the beauty of my walk and the easy grace in my body.’ Thank you Leonne for your sharing about surrender and true ‘fitting in’ is never worth leaving ourselves behind/less, it is something to remind myself of every time I feel I go into this old pattern of fitting in.
‘Fitting in’ is like living inside of a suit of armour, cold, hard, contracted and in separation from the harmony and flow of our natural divine essence.
When we surrender to and honour our inner sacredness, all else becomes sacred.
Beautiful wisdom shared Kehinde, of how our experience of life is a reflection of whatever quality of energy we align to.
Thank you I am feeling how important it is to surrender and let be all that I am feeling and all that I am being given by the love of our divinity.
” surrender ” I have heard this said by many people and it never made sense to me , what do I surrender too.
People used to say God , the universe , to your spirit, your Soul and so on , but it never made sense to me , it always sounded like I was to give my power away.
It was not until I met Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that I knew what surrender was , for this man Serge Benhayon was totally surrendered I could feel it , no protection , no shield up, no weapon to cut me down to size . But he has not surrendered to anyone but himself , he has surrendered to the truth of who he is. It was then I knew what surrender truly means. ” Stop fighting who you are in truth , ” surrender ” to the truth of who you are and live from there “
That is the exact fight we need to give up so we can allow ourselves to be all that we are.
No white flags needed when we surrender to the wisdom of our body and our essence – it is after all a homecoming and our truth.
Just saying the word surrender and already my body appreciates this word or this quality as it knows in the quality of surrender, so much is given and received and all is taken care of.
The word surrender, in its true meaning, is such a beautiful word. To surrender signifies coming home to a place deep within ourselves that has always been there, simply waiting for us to surrender to it.
‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness,’ in fact as I accept my own loveliness I cannot help but surrender…and then my movements begin to flow and there is grace in my body, so gorgeous to feel. Thank you for the reminder to connect in with this as I go about my day.
True surrender is not a giving up or giving way as you say Leonne, true surrender includes allowing and accepting.
When I walk and I can feel tension in certain areas of my body such as my shoulders, rather than question why, I allow myself to surrender and go deeper into my body, and invariable this is enough to release the tension. I did this today on my way to work and even though I was carrying a small ruck sack the walk felt amazing and this continued for the rest of the day. Surrender definitely has nothing to do with giving in or giving up
Thank you Leonne for your sharing. Life is so much easier when we allow it to flow or surrender and not hold back in sharing our love with others.
Beautifully said Roslyn. Surrender is such a lovely way to connect us to the flow of the universe, to people and to ourselves making life a joy. I agree, life certainly is so much easier when we choose to surrender because fighting it hasn’t worked as far as I can see.
Realising that surrendering is not giving up or giving in is huge. Surrendering is just about seeing what is truly going on, accepting it and then allowing what needs to happen. There is a great beauty in this.
“I could feel that this surrender is not a giving up or a giving away. I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.” Great article on surrender thank you Leonne this is the answer to resistance.
Yes.. This is so beautiful, so needed to discuss what truly surrendering is and what is offers us.
Allowing yourself to be truly you, no matter what, and be prepared to go beyond , not staying safe (comfort). Which is not at all healthy.
‘Fitting in was not worth sacrificing the beauty of my walk and the easy grace in my body.’ Very well said Leonne. After all true surrender is us with our bodies first.
It always feels so lovely when we allow ourselves to surrender, ‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.I can now see that disregarding my body and the way I feel makes it impossible to surrender to myself.’
It’s amazing just how much there is to learn and become aware of in the simple activities of life. This line made so much sense to me “I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.” I notice how much tension I feel when I didn’t attend to caring for my body. Self care is a great foundation for surrendering to and being in connection to our essence. It also then makes sense that for some people who resist self care and live in various forms of disregard, that they may be avoiding living from their essence so as to avoid the reactions of others.
Shedding a light on what true surrender is.. Makes us now feel and see , by the unmasked superiority, what true surrender is..
Thank you for sharing this with us.
We spend a lot of time fighting what the body is communicating to us – all that time could be spent enjoying it and refining the way we move and the energy that is moving through us constantly.
Questioning that fight we have with ourselves is so vital for our wellbeing, we may feel we have legitimate reasons to do it but the attack we make on ourselves is much more harmful than another’s attack on us. Living who we are is true well-being.
If one person surrendering into themselves can make that much difference to a busy cycling path then just imagine the power we hold within us to transmute any environment we are in. Gosh we are powerful.
Truly surrendering to all that life presents can be a challenge. I have recently felt the pull for me to open more to what is on offer, at work, in my personal life, relationships, everywhere. But I just realised recently, that I wasn’t surrendering to it all, but fighting it, going into judgement of others, going into hardness, instead of embracing all that i could feel. I have had more awareness of what I was doing, but now feel I have the opportunity to move in a way that is totally different.
Surrender is something we can deeply ponder on .. to truly feel, not know by our mind (head) what it is.. To connect to your body and feel what this means for you, to no longer wait for someone or proof, but that the surrender is in yourself – so that answer of what it then means for you – is there equally so.
Your morning walk felt very lovely and honouring, ‘I felt such a grace and lightness in my body as I walked. The surrender I had allowed in my arms radiated through my whole body and I felt incredibly aware of every movement. Each time I felt tension in my body I allowed it to release.’ Beautiful.
Every movement we make has an impact on the body that is either healing or harming… it is easy to find the movements that are healing as they are instantly registered by the body in a way we can recognise. This is a great example Leonne, of the body’s response to your gesture to listen and adjust yourself accordingly, and the flow on affect this has on all around you.
How many words have been put to the sword so as to keep us from the true meaning and surrender is just one simple example.
Today at work I had to learn to surrender and simply breathe my own breath despite the total chaos that was all around. This required me to simply breath my own breath and not get caught up in things.
Surrender is an incredibly powerful word. For quite some time now I have had the words ‘surrender into the arms of God’ playing over in my mind. Every time I hear these words there is a deepening within and remembering of the divine being I am. My breath starts to breathe with the all.
Thank you. I realise I can go to a disempowered view when I hear the word surrender so this shows me how I have not fully embraced the true meaning of this word or rather I am not always fully with myself when I hear this word for I do know the beauty and grace in true surrender and the deepening connection this brings.
I will admit the word surrender still holds a picture of white flags and giving up while I also relate to what this article is saying in that surrender is simple allowing yourself to feel something. I can see from a true surrender how powerful it is given that because you are feeling everything there is, then you have the knowledge and the wisdom to answer back in the same fullness. As the article is presenting surrender has nothing to do with the picture of white flags and in fact you don’t need to do anything. It’s more the letting go of everything and allowing yourself to truly feel what you are already feeling.
To come to truly understand what it is to surrender has been the most wonderful feeling. I can feel that when I am able to let go of control, of expectation and the tension that is keeping my body in contraction I can feel myself falling into me. It is like a huge warm embrace and in that moment there is a deep stillness, a feeling of coming home.
The day the penny dropped for me and I realised that in surrendering I was simply surrendering into my body, was the day I let myself feel the warmth, love and support of God’s embrace deep within me.
It is interesting that nearly every word that takes us towards divinity has been bastardised and changed in some way. Leonne you have shown that surrender is one such word and when we surrender to the beauty and sacredness there is a power that is felt within, I know when i do my whole body expands and I feel taller as a weight is lifted from my shoulders and I can feel an authority and purpose in my walk.
‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness.’ This is a wonderful place to start Leonne.
Thank you Leonne, that is so true. By surrendering to you, you make the whole world rich of that which you bring to your place – the world.
I have experienced so much power and healing when I have surrendered and let go of my inner battle with life and the things I kept hanging onto; old ways of moving and being ( behaviours and patterns). Surrendering for me at that time was a letting go of control and not trusting in myself. This blog is a timely reminder, to stop, take stock and feel if there is anything we are still hanging onto that does not support our evolution and our next steps.
Beautiful Leonne, being able to surrender is key in our ability to continue evolving. Without it we become stagnant, stuck in the motion of life without it’s balancing surrender into stillness.
This is beautiful Leonne and a great reminder to surrender to our beauty within, a sacredness and settlement that can only come from surrendering to the wisdom of our body
To discover that true surrender is to surrender to oneself is a glorious awakening.
‘Surrender to oneself is a glorious awakening’, yes it is, and as our path of surrender unfolds there can be so much expansion and so much support available.
This is so true and I find it quite ironic that this is the case when the commonly accepted meaning of the word ‘surrender’ is to give up.
‘Fitting in was not worth sacrificing the beauty of my walk and the easy grace in my body’. There’s a blog just in this one line. Many movements are made for another that stop all that we are from being expressed.
In true surrender we allow sacredness to be our way. What an awesome reflection Leonne, thank you.
So absolutely true, we cannot surrender if we ignore and do not honour our bodies, The body is the key, and in surrendering we allow ourselves to go deeper and truly feel our connection to the all around us.
It marks the level of surrender we can drop to that is not holding any tension or need to be anything else but what we are.
I would say this is a start of a new dictionary, that explains a word in its true and lived meaning.
I agree, Esther. A word comes after an experience. In trying to put a meaning to a word without livingness, we have created much misunderstanding and misinterpretation that has led to separation, and eventually a loss of the absolute truth.
There is one! The Unimedipedia – true definitions of words we have bastardised to suit our irresponsibility.
Yes, there is! Thank you for pointing this out, Lucy.
This is beautiful Leonne – “I could feel that this surrender is not a giving up or a giving away. I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.” – what we are surrendering to makes all the difference…
So true Fiona, we are not surrendering out to anyone else – no white flag or giving up – but a deep commitment to ourselves and our natural essence – who we truly are and thus the knock-on effect will be felt by others.
So true Sue, truly surrendering to oneself is not a giving up, instead it is the deepest commitment we can make.
Beautiful Leonne, one thing I’m rediscovering is the power of surrender. It’s the moment when we stop and feel the divinity of everything we are, and in that moment offer ourselves the choice to walk that divinity.
The healing that is on offer when we truly surrender is magic in action. The levels of vulnerability that we need to go to are huge yet the body is offered an opportunity to rebuild and express in a different way that doesn’t hold back what each and everyone of us has to live and enjoy.
In reading this again this morning Leonne, I felt the dictionary interpretation was pretty accurate if we apply it to ourselves and not another, “Stop resisting to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority”(1).
That is if we stop resisting all that is not true,’ the enemy’, our own opponents, and surrender to our authority within the greater universal order life simply flows.
Lovely to read this and connect to the surrender in my body. An immense warmth radiates out, instantly inviting me to go deeper. Thank you Leonne
When we are not surrendered we are something else and whatever that is was reflected to you through the way everyone around you were. This is so powerful in showing how making a simple self-loving choice can influence others – it proves how we are all connected.
‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.’ I love this Leonne, it can be so draining living in protection and hardening up against life, learning to surrender has been an absolute game changer for me and the more I embrace this quality the more I feel the joy and true power that this choice can bring.
‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness,’ There is no power in surrender in the way that this term is usually used however when we accept our own loveliness and our own Divinity and surrender to that there is all the power in the world.
It takes a a lot of unnecessary effort and energy to resist our nature to simply be.
Beautiful Leonne, surrender is one of my favourite words… a quality of allowing oneself to be in their truest essence, the letting go of everything other that has got in the way of that flow.
Thank you Leonne, we often don’t give respect to the body more so to the intellect, so it may be with some humility that we eventually “submit to the authority” of our own body. It is an amazing way to live cherishing and listening to the body and the surrender to the love within this allows. It’s an ongoing learning process for me but is a beautiful and simple way to live taking loving care of myself everyday.
Such a simple but powerful gesture Leonne, and one we can apply to every situation and aspect of life pretty much.
I know the feeling of surrendering through letting go of the tension in the upper arms. It feels amazing when I do it, and it brings me straight back into my body. So often we charge our way through life without being aware of the hardness we create for whatever reason. The body absolutely loves this when we let it go.
How wise Elizabeth, and in the obedience, is when life truly flows….
I love when I easily surrender to the communication/wisdom that comes from my body – life is beautifully simple, and at those times when the simplicity is not there, I know I have gone into my head!
‘Fitting in was not worth sacrificing the beauty of my walk and the easy grace in. my body.’ Fitting in is such an illusion as there is no end in trying to belong to someone or a group of people to get recognition. You end up being a chameleon instead of living in the beauty and the grace of who you truly are.
What’s felt in our surrender of our bodies, is the deep connection to the all and you get to feel the flow and rhythm of the world around us when we move in this quality. Absolute magic thank you Leonne.
This blog confirms again that what is reflected from outside of ourselves is also what is within, the connection of all things – nature, people, choices. Whilst choosing our movements may feel to be a small thing the rippling effect of these choices is very powerful.
What a gorgeous blog Leonne, I particularly love this line “Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness” not going with the oxford dictionary version, that we have to bow down to an enemy or someone else, but to feel our own loveliness.
Beautiful Leonne, when we surrender to all that we are, we allow the divine to flow through us and stop the battle that we engage with within.
I love the times when I have been in such stillness, such surrender, that all around me has quietened too. Such magic! There’s clearly a ripple effect in surrender, that can be conveyed to and felt by all, whether they are conscious of it or not. Though I often find in the stillness people will often become aware of the change and sometimes remark on how calm it feels. It demonstrates too that if surrender can be felt by others, living in agitation of any kind will be as well, as any and all qualities we are in will be equally felt. Agitation and tension in ourselves is therefore not helpful in terms of others – in terms of humanity.
‘I can now see that disregarding my body and the way I feel makes it impossible to surrender to myself.’ Yes – the disregard creates a tension, which is the antithesis of (and makes it impossible to) surrender.
What a great question to start the blog Leonne. What is the meaning of surrender? I realise that in the past I have thought that it was giving up or giving in, which is saying I am giving away my power and my rights. As I read on, the understanding you have brought to the activity of walking and surrendering to your own body feels so empowering and honouring. We so often brace ourselves against what our body is asking for and harden because often the opposite force is coming at us from the world around us. Claiming the wisdom of the body, is claiming the best and most informed friend – one who always holds self love at its core.
The white flag version of surrender is the image many of us receive when we hear this word. But the true meaning of this word is actually very powerful, supportive and healing.
It seems we put up barriers against totally surrendering, yet I have found that not surrendering to how I truly feel is actually harming, and when I allow myself to fully surrender to what my body needs there is a powerful flow that follows.
Very true Sally, and what we also offer others when we surrender is powerful too.
Surrendering to that divinity within is in fact a return to who we naturally are but have walked away from from young as we were told to be different, to a way that was acceptable to ur society. We all have done that but also all have to return to this way of being again, until such times that we do not tell our young anymore to be different but support them stay in their surrendered state of being they naturally are born with.
Surrender is definitely the body’s natural way of being, it’s when we drop all fight and just let things and people be and choose what they want to choose, there is nothing to fight if we just observe the world and what we see, feel and hear without wanting to change anything.
It is true that we have come to accept that surrender means ‘admitting defeat and handing yourself over to another’, but this is not what surrender truly means. Surrender is a letting go of all that has come to stand in the way of our true self and our expression of this, which is love. True surrender is never a giving up but always a process through which we unfold more of the essence of who we truly are, for all the world to see. Thus the key to surrender is found in transparency, our ability to give up the fight whereby we hide or try to blend in and simply allow ourselves to walk the fullness of us in every single step.
Thank you Liane, its a very powerful comment on surrender including “Surrender is a letting go of all that has come to stand in the way of our true self and our expression of this, which is love.”
To surrender is not giving up at all, except giving up the illusion of being separate. It is to allow ourselves to be held in love, to return to oneness and flow in life rather than struggling, fighting, controlling. In the moments when I surrender, I could not feel any grander, more loved or complete. It feels like our natural state, which takes a lot of energy to fight returning to.
The word “surrender” has been so bastardised, I can recognise that for me it’s meant also to not give up, to keep struggling and fighting life to not submit to what’s challenging me. I have learned a lot about surrender in Esoteric Yoga sessions, it’s given me a dedicated space to experience the true meaning of surrender and to realise I’m not here to “conquer” what comes my way, but instead to surrender to my own essence and the true qualities of who I am – which has required letting go of a lot of tension and reactions!
“I asked my body to surrender and with each breath I could feel it let go of another layer of hardness and protection. ” lts in the letting go of pictures of how we should be and in this surrender comes the vulnerability and here we come to feel who we truly are.
Could surrender be simply being fully part of the world but not holding onto any attachments or pictures or ideals of how we’d like it to be? Could it be not fighting, or protecting ourselves, but instead choosing a loving and open way of being, and knowing that no matter what we are fully equipped to deal with everything in front of us.
Surrendering to the wisdom within our own bodies is very powerful I agree. “How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?” The body feels and registers everything and in letting go we allow more space for us to be.
I’m often amazed at watching babies or young children playing or going about their day – they don’t hold on to anything nor hold back. They live their little lives surrendered to their bodies. It’s only as we grow up that we begin to put on the armour and protection to help us feel seemingly safe.
There was a time when our little one would be absolutely exhausted and ready to sleep – if it was me I’d be out like a light. But he would fight and struggle and cry when all he needed to do was to surrender to himself and to sleep. You’re so right, there is something so wonderful about surrendering to yourself.
Wonderful to re-read this and be reminded of the magic and grace true surrender brings, a drop’s ripple effect echoing out stillness.
We always think of surrender as a stopping of something, but it is also the beginning of a way of being from our Souls.
In a way surrender is the laying down of arms with ourselves…all that we carry in opposition to the love we are. True surrender opens us to the expansiveness we are, and are from.
A great comment Victoria “In a way surrender is the laying down of arms with ourselves…all that we carry in opposition to the love we are.” We stop resisting all we are and all that our body asks of us in terms of care and love.
Our body is continuously connected to the all that is surrounding us and when we allow ourselves to surrender to our body, we become one with this surrounding and in turn are a physical earthly reflection for that divinity that we all do come from and belong to.
“I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.” the key is to listen to our body and not ignore the signs, how body talks loud, if we honour and support it, it becomes easier to surrender to our divine essence. This has been my experience as I have honoured my body the deeper I have been able to surrender.
Beautiful Leonne. Just how much judgement is there at play for most of us everyday? This day is bad this person good, I like this place, but hate this food. It all seems to revolve around the idea that we can choose, like a deli bar pick the bits we like. This is not what I have found but that in fact we always receive and experience everything in life. So what an absurd thing to think we can avoid and fight what’s real. Let’s surrender.
For me there is a massive surrender when I accept, or remember, that life isn’t about me and that I’m part of a much bigger and grander and magnificent whole, I simply have to play my part.
It makes sense that surrendering to a body that we are disregarding is difficult if not impossible for who would want to feel the awfulness of what we are choosing. It is gorgeous however to recognise that the body has a natural way of being and an authority in knowing what is true and so to be able to connect and surrender to that is deeply beautiful…. and the gateway to feeling and living our divine essence.
You could describe surrender as: letting go of our attachment to human life and embracing the fact that we are so much more than our eyes could ever conceive.
” All the while I asked my body to surrender and with each breath I could feel it let go of another layer of hardness and protection. ” Choosing to surrender brings us so much that I ask myself why I spend so much time resisting what it has to offer.
What if by surrendering it actually allows us to relinquish the struggles created within us and in the world around us so we can feel exactly what is going on and where we are all at.
It is gorgeous, we are always able to connect to the deep beauty that we are. This is surrender allowing ourself to feel what is there to feel, the grandness that we are.
‘I can now see that disregarding my body and the way I feel makes it impossible to surrender to myself.’ So true. In order to surrender we have to be present with ourselves, in our bodies and the more we are the more surrender takes place.
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine” . . . Beautiful Leonne I am going to take this into my day.
Surrender takes us away from fight and flight to flow
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.” When we truly surrender we can be in the natural flow of life simply being ourselves.
Surrendering to the intelligence of the body help me enormous to let go the wayward thoughts of my mind which are constantly trying to move my body in a way that is not naturally for it. For instance when I think of something I have to do tomorrow, or in a few hours, then I am not anymore with my body in this moment and makes me feel anxious and brings tension in my body that I can feel by hardening certain parts of it. To me this was a normal way of living life as I was never been told that it is not a good way to think about something else than that what I am doing or where my body is at. Thanks to the the presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I am now learning to be more with my body again and I must say it surely is worth considering to go this way.
It is important to be clear about and to understand what it means to surrender, and to be astute in hearing the message of this blog that through a surrender to your body you can re-connect with your essence.
True surrender is an opening up of the body to feel and accept what is there to be felt. The fight and need to control what we feel disappears, and thus we are opened up to a world of feeling in that moment that in itself creates the bridge-way to understanding.
Dear Leonne,
A beautiful article. How truly simple it is to surrender. As you share, first recognizing that there is tension in our bodies and then choosing to let that tension go. What you share is so powerful. I feel deeply this way of living is a way that could support chronic sufferers of pain. Imaging learning how to release tension from the body by supporting our bodies however they need support, so the tension can be released. So much in what you share Leonne.
This is such a relatable blog Leonne. Its when we come from our innermost and body that the truth is lived. I often walk on a track near my home and sometimes it is quite busy, which I used to resent, until I remind myself that we are all equal brothers and to connect to one another with a nod or a smile opens up our day to accepting this. Surrendering to the way it is.
I agree Roslyn, when we are bothered and resentful of people we’ve lost connection with ourselves, and hence all others.
‘ How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body? ‘ I totally agree Leonne, the body offers so much wisdom if it is not over ridden, walking is such a great way to come back to this. How distant the current definition of surrender is when truly it is so powerful as you have shown from your walk. Thank you.
I could feel the stillness and surrender of your walk as I read it and could feel how live flows when we live and move in this space, how as you stepped into this space all around you re-orientated themselves to it’s flow and there was less jarring (the bells) and more rhythm in how everyone was with each other. And I can now understand the power of stillness on a whole other level, how it facilitates us to be and move with each other in true harmony.
I love how your choice to surrender has affected the others around you. We get influenced by others’ choices and often that is to go against what our body wants or what we actually feel would like to, in order to fit in. What an amazing opportunity then to be affected to be pulled towards our natural way of being. You are an inspiration, Leonne.
I used to wonder when people spoke about surrender what in fact they were actually surrendering to as it always felt like we had to surrender to something. These days I realize that we surrender to the love that we actually are.
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.” This is beautiful. I have become more aware of connecting more deeply with myself through surrender. There was a time when I had no idea what surrender truly was and lived in a very controlled way that was harming to my body. Now the more I allow my self to surrender, the more my body is opening up and letting go of the hardness and control.
How lovely, and what powerful simplicity you have expressed here from the experience of your walk. I hadn’t really pieced together disregard as opposing surrender but it makes absolute sense, because I am opposing my own self love. Very supportive, thankyou Leonne.
Surrendering allows us to feel our true power… the exact opposite to the way l’ve grown up thinking ‘power’ would be. There is no effort, no tension and no striving to be something for or over another. The simplicity of allowing ourselves to be all we are is a letting go… how beautiful is that!
Surrender begins when we start to build a connection and trust with our own bodies, which comes from consistency – consistently listening and honouring what our body needs, consistently making loving choices and consistently nurturing it. Why is surrendering to the wisdom of our own bodies important? Because we cannot continuously override the body’s messages without consequences: if we ignore the body, it will eventually let us know through illness and disease.
Thank you Leonne for sharing this powerful revelation of the fact that surrender is not a giving away of our power in any way, but rather an embrace of all that we already Divinely are within, our inner-most essence, the light of our Soul through which our power is known and lived with grace for all.
My new understanding of surrender is that it is the opposite of giving up my power in any situation but rather embracing and allowing the power of truly surrendering to my body’s wisdom to shine through and guide me on my way through life.
I am learning a new level of surrendering to my body and allowing its wisdom to guide my movements. It feels so divine when I allow this and walking is a perfect confirmation of it.
Lovely to read this again Leonne and be reminded of the potential for connection when we walk. Honouring ourselves and what we need is an essential part of being able to do this…
To me surrendering to that grander order we belong to, brings the divinity we all are and belong to down to earth and with that we make heaven on earth and life becomes about evolution in which we choose to live in brotherhood and in precious harmony together.
I love morning walks and how walking in surrender seem to change our environment, it feels as If everything around aligns to the same flow. What a truly beautiful way to walk through life.
Thank you Leonne. Your article gave me pause to ponder. I have always associate the word ‘Surrender’ to being behind the battlements keeping the invaders at bay and then realising it was a lost cause and giving in. This is very much how I have always kept people out from getting too close to me and having a sort of brick wall to hide behind. So now I have the opportunity to understand ‘surrender’ to mean dropping the defences and allowing people in to see and know me for all that I am. And discovering and appreciating that we are, once the barricades are down, all the same.
Thank you Leonne for a beautiful blog on surrender, it is amazing the changes that take place not only within us but all around us when we surrender to the wisdom of the body, held by our own divine essence.
Being able to surrender to what is happening in our lives is the most wonderful experience. I am still learning how to surrender more and more, to what presents in my life, but I have been building it into how I move and live.
So timely as i read your blog today “How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?”. Just what I needed to read, stop resisting my natural way of being. I know I have been resisting and causing my body to go into anxiousness.
This is a great angle to the benefits of body awareness, not taking on the tension that we can often feel when there are a lot of people around. How much of the build up of tension we feel towards the end is there in our bodies that is not actually ours? Being aware through the day of how I am feeling, I have noticed it is a natural choice to let it go rather than hold onto it, wherever it comes from.
It’s actually fascinating to start being aware of all the times I am tense in my body. It shows I have built up to live in a way that is quite rigid and protected. The more I give myself the space to check in with where my body is at, the more I can choose to let go and surrender.
Letting go and being prepared to feel and accept what is present in the moment is what I am learning about surrender. To take responsibility for what presents the next step.
Yesterday I walked with someone where we both let go of the need to be something or have somewhere to go. As we held hands and walked and felt the love flow through our hands, heard the birds sing and the frogs croak, there was nothing in me that wanted to escape but just basked in our love like a dog in the sun. Few words were exchanged except to say, ‘wow what a beautiful day’. Now I know I can surrender this way and how wonderful it feels, I can sense I can bring this quality and way of being to every thing not just this picturesque scene. Thank you Leonne for presenting surrendering in such a beautiful way.
“Stop resisting to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority”
Reading this definition of surrender I felt it to be quite accurate. We are usually our own worse enemy, well I know I can be, so really, what I hear is that to surrender is to stop resisting your true and divine self. Submit or accept the authority of the universe and where we are from and stop the fight of individuality.
Beautiful Blog Leonne, it is difficult to surrender when we don’t understand what it is, ‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.’ thank you for sharing this inspiring blog with us. When we truly surrender we allow our love to be expressed and allow love to flow in and out of our body like in the rhythm of God’s breath.
Your words Leonne Sharkey remind me just how we can be enchanted with ourselves, feel the beauty of our breath and the quality of our grace. We can walk and move, dinging our own bell, except unlike a cyclist, what emanates out to passers-by is the warmth of our heart. We are all on this passage in life, so why not share this Love?
That’s right, ‘why not share this love?’ is a great question. When we allow ourselves to surrender, it is impossible to not share love, it naturally emanates outwards towards humanity without any trying, it simply happens through our choice to surrender and trust.
True Surrender is an allowing and never a doing and something to achieve.
Your story of your walk in the park and surrendering your body could be applied to our walk through life. Simply gorgeous.
Beautiful Leonne. Unless we walk, move and live with an openess that knows no bounds, and a love that flows in each step we make on the ground, it is us who is actually in a state of anarchy, us who is divided and at war, internally. So surrender is absolutely the right word and a much needed thing for us all in this world, whatever state or place we may be in.
Stunning Leonne, I have previously thought of surrender as just a physical letting go of tension, but as you say, it is more than this… ‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.”
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.” Wow Leonne, imagine if this was understood by us all worldwide. We would all put our arms, weapons and driven agendas down and just settle into being the gorgeous beings that we are. How crazy that we were never fighting an evil enemy at all so much as our own beauty.
Like you Leone when I have thought of the word surrender what comes to mind is the picture of the white flags but this I realise is very short sighted. In times of battles or wars be that from person to person or country to country when we ‘surrendered’ the white flag analogy means the fighting has just stopped, it does not necessarily mean that the cause of the fighting has been resolved at all or that true harmony occurred.
Leonne I love how you have touched upon the authority of our body. I hear this word being used a lot, and like many it can be misinterpreted and therefore misunderstood. When you linked it with the body something started to make sense for me. When I feel authority it is because the person first honours the authority of their own body. Without this there is no real authority, and instead is often what we usually term as a mis-use or even abuse of power, usually tied into ‘positions of power’.
The more appreciation and acceptance of who we are and our own unique qualities the easier it is to surrender to what is divine and let go of the constraints we have been holding as a form of safety and security in life.
Your blog illustrates Leonne that there is a whole new depth to the word surrender than meets the eye than we are used to and that it is not only about the wars of the world or a fight between two or more people coming to an end but a quality that we can surrender to within that stops the war from within our own bodies and mind.
Beautifully put Leonne. The path we walk in life is sacred in every way when we surrender to the Love we can feel in our body. We don’t need a course or a magical healer, just to make a choice to deeply cherish and enjoy ourselves in this world. It can be as simple as putting one foot in front of another.
Staying with the body to build consistent connection and presence has been made into a disciplined struggle, rather than something natural and simple. Leonne has given an example of how true connection can occur and this can lead to understand there is a purpose to it. The purpose is to bring stillness to the world.
It is amazing, how with simple connection and surrender, my awareness deepens, my body relaxes and expands, everything re-aligns, and presence and power can be felt.
I find the Oxford dictionary definition of surrender very narrow – “stop resisting to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority”. The only authority that any of us need to submit to is to the authority of our own soul, by knowing and accepting that we are divine sparks of God.
I love your comment Elizabeth, I agree that definition is a long way from hitting the mark. You could cut out a few words and redefine it as “Stop resisting and submit to your own authority.”
‘I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.’ Listening to the body is the key to amazing experiences such as the example in this blog. I still resist, but I am finally really understanding that our bodies are our gateway to true wisdom.
“How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?
I have felt just how powerful surrender is and my walk has inspired me to keep choosing wisely.”
This is great to read Leonne. It makes it clear for me that surrender is not a head decision or any other dictionary meaning. There is simply the decision to allow ourselves to keep staying tuned in with the nature of our bodies. This is an ongoing learning how to do this around others and tasks where my attention has been to date on the outer and not with me as I speak and be with others. As well it shows how I have made the ‘doing’ of a task more important than the quality of my bodily movements, and allowing me to just be as I go about in the world. Acceptance of myself as I am feels like a big one which allows surrender. But as I write, I see equally the simplicity of my focus, letting myself be the natural quality of delicateness in my every move creates acceptance of self too.
Leonne, this touched me very deeply today, and brought an understanding of why I often fight my body, it’s a great way to avoid surrender, and I hadn’t quite realised that I have had an idea that to surrender is to give up or give over to another. Yet as you show here, that is not true surrender at all, it’s a surrender to ourselves, our bodies and the divinity we are – and reading your line today ‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.’ has crystallised this very sharply. I am holding back on myself when I refuse to surrender and I willingly self sabotage when I refuse to surrender. This is a great package to be unlocked here, so thank you for this blog.
The power of your surrendering is evidenced by the shift in all those around you Leonne. A great example that what we do and how we are affects everything around us and highlights the responsibility we have.
It’s interesting how the word surrender can be used to imply a giving away of one’s power or authority, a ‘giving up’ of sorts.. Whereas in true surrender we are stepping into our real power and authority and letting go of any resistance to that!
Yes Fiona, the words are bastardised from their true meaning, making it even more difficult to find our way back to the power we all have with us all the time.
“A part of me always felt that those who surrendered in war were simply willing to end the madness.” This is a beautiful understanding of surrender, to stop the fight as this has nothing to do with our natural harmonious state of being.
Surrender is not a giving up it is the opposite it is a flow with what is there.
“Surrender is a flow with what is there”, thank you Ester.
We never have to hand ourselves over to others- true surrender does not involve that. True surrender is that we accept what is going on and don’t need it to be different.
The interpretation of surrender often does seem to come with the connotation that it is ‘handing yourself over to another’ but what if true surrender is a deep acceptance and allowing of who we truly are… Well for me I can say that I agree with you Leonne, it is in fact a ‘coming home’ rather than a loss.
S u r r e n d e r.
Even the word allows a certain ‘letting go’. The more we surrender the more we give ourselves permission to truly feel.
Simply checking in with our bodies to see if we are holding any tension is very simple and quite profound. We often don’t realise how tense we are until we bring focus to our body. It’s really quite an important exercise, and the more it’s practiced the more aware we are and the less likely we will hold tension.
Pretty powerful Leonne. Amazing what a simple choice can make to everything around us, although boy do we love to complicate things for a looooong time before we finally make the choice. And I speak for myself here first and foremost. the internal tug of war that I play when it comes to making an honouring decision is relentless…only to find that when I do finally make the choice, I realise how simple it was and everything following that choice becomes simple too. Ahhh the games we play with ourselves!
So beautiful to read again Leonne, the power of true surrender.” I could feel that this surrender is not a giving up or a giving away. I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.” Thank you.
This is a beautiful exploration of surrender, how simple it is and what power it brings.
What is true surrender, is it “those who surrendered in war were simply willing to end the madness” or “admitting defeat and handing yourself over to another”? To me it is actually non of those but surrendering is adhering to something much bigger. It is surrendering to a bigger whole, something we come from and belong to, a constellation of stars and planets we cal the universe, a greater order we are inextricable part of. While we think our lives here on earth are independent from any order and we belief that WE think and make our own choices, we have to consider the fact that why we continue to make a mess of the way we live with one another in our societies and fail to improve that from the ideals and beliefs we develop and adhere to. To me this is because we have lost our connection with that grander order because we want to feel ourselves independent and having free will. Although we have free will that does not mean that we may choose our lives to be whatever we want because we have to consider the fact that our choices do affect the people we live with and far beyond, just have a look at the status of our societies today. I cannot say that these are healthy or taking care of each member equally. I am slowly learning that surrendering is actually returning to that grander order, to let my life being impulsed and guided by Soul and with that i will do whatever is needed to release the tension we have build in our societies because of us living in separation of that grander order we inescapably belong to.
Beautiful Leonne. I know this surrendering to the body and allowing the sacredness of who we are to be felt and yet I so often go back to the old worn paths of unaware and disconnected behaviour. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to appreciate the all loving way of being that you have shared and to deepen my commitment to living it.
Isn’t it interesting how surrender has been synonymous with the notion of defeat, giving up, waving the white flag and succumbing to someone else’s will… whereas in truth surrender is one of the most beautiful words I can feel, and there isn’t an ounce of defeat or weakness in the act of surrender, and yet all the glory we could ever seek – falling into ourselves, letting go of the illusion that keeps us separate from who we truly are and all of our brothers.
Leonne the last paragraph of this gorgeous blog says so much… surrender is the accepting deeply of who we are, letting go of the trying and of course the fighting. It’s the letting go of everything we’ve put in the way to avoid feeling the exquisiteness that we are.
Leonne, great subject you wrote about surrender. I have had mixed interpretations of the meaning of this and you have expanded and clarified this beautifully. The experience of surrender in its true form is when I am within my presence, life is able to flow with me,from me and to me. There is no impositions. But the grace of allowing. Equaling for all.
This is a great topic of discussion, Leonne. Surrender. As you have shared this word has been quite drastically misinterpreted, as seen by the dictionary definition. For me, true surrender is about sinking more deeply into my body, into my heart, into Me. There is no giving away of myself, there is only a gaining of myself, which is then in turn naturally shared with others. True surrender is Universal. It is for All.
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine” this is gold Leonne, the more we accept the divinity within ourselves the easier it is to surrender what is and everything is constellated accordingly to the good of all.
I like it Leonne, surrendering to the fact we are on our way back to ourselves and to god
Surrender in the past to me would have meant to capitulate and be taken over with all loss of control and control is something I’ve very much endeavoured to have in life. Whereas with true surrender there’s an allowing for ourselves and others to simply be.
It is the weirdest thing ever to observe myself at times react or get racy or anxious or express any form of emotion whilst being aware that there is an all knowing, vast, stillness and loving magnificence within that is ALWAYS there. That divine essence is available to all of us whenever we simply surrender to it. How strange that we choose to live any other way.
As you described Leonne, surrendering to the divinity we are is not giving up or giving ourselves away but it is to connect and allow ourselves to be guided and held by the grander whole we are part of. We will be amazed indeed with the power that it brings and what that will do, not only to ourselves but also to all people we are with – like the stillness you brought on the path you were walking.
I can feel the power of surrender in your writing Leonne, it is a beautiful experience to connect to what you are writing. Why would we not choose surrendering in life and how come we have made this natural way of being something so seemingly hard to achieve? This last sentence is a true game changing question: ‘How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?’
It just feels how connected we all are when one person truly connects to the love within and around them, it can change everything for everyone. How glorious and powerful is that? There is so much hope for the world when we realise how just being ourselves makes a huge difference. There is nothing to prove and everything to gain.
The stillness you describe Leonne is so powerful as it made all other people with you on that track also become more with themselves and less racy. As stillness is an aspect of love, the love that has powers beyond my imagination. When I bring love in whatever I do or where I am, I am stil amazed every time I experience this, by the diverse power it has on people I am with and situations I am in. Surrendering to this love is the greatest gift I can give to myself as it brings me back to who I truly am, to the roots of my origins.
Indeed Leonne, surrendering is not about a giving our self away but a claiming of where we belong to and are part of, the grander whole, the universe. We are not individuals that can do what ever they like without having an influence on the whole. We are part of the grander whole and each of us plays an important role in that. Surrendering to this fact that is where we all have to come to and will change how we will live as human beings enormously.
When we surrender to our own divine nature we let go of any need for others to behave as we would like them to but the amazing thing is that surrender actually inspires harmony all around us.
How doggedly we pursue and hang on to a vision of who we are, that just is not true. The layers in your story of warm jackets and walking Leonne, are beautifully metaphors to me, because, as you show deep beneath the padding lies a deeply divine super-powerful human being absolutely different to the tough and fierce yet weak creature we have made ourselves out to be.
The word surrendering is indeed bastardised as it is explained in the dictionaries. No way that surrendering is admitting to the opposing force, instead it is an allowing and accepting of the love we are from to be the guide in our lives and a saying no to the invasive and abusive way of living that the opposing force dictates to us.
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine”.
What a true and powerful explanation for Surrender Leonie, thank you.
It’s so interesting as I sit here eyes as heavy as sandbags and tired as anything. I realised towards the end of the article that my arms were tight, shoulders up and there was a real tension across my upper back. Taking note of it, and choosing to drop and allow my body to settle has really helped in loosening it all. I’m still just as tired as before, don’t get me wrong, but my shoulders and do not feel as rigid and tense.
Love this post Leonne! More evidence of what’s possible when we let go!
Relating to surrender as an action of accepting a grandness within us rather than placing ourselves in a position of being lesser completely flips everything on it’s head. Recently I have been more aware of when I am tense there is something I don’t want to feel and am bracing against. So often is the thoughts of ‘your bracing against your ill choices and everything that is bad’ but what if the first tension was that my loveliness wanting to come out and express and choosing to not accept it?Thank you Leonne.
For me it is often surrendering the image that i am holding onto to allow me to feel and experience all that is there. When I look back at some of the choices i have made I can see how easily I turned a blind eye to crucial information that was there that I did not want to see, because it interfered with the image i was holding onto.
I loved reading how your arms went into surrender – as the arms for me feel like in constant engagement and it is hard to let go of the tension completely. It has given me a moment to flip over my point of view – from being in the head to being in the body. Thank you, Leonne.
The power of being from who we truly are, is far greater than ‘fitting in’ every day. This is not to say we are trying to be different, but by naturally being who we are, natural waves are made, and they ripple and grace all.
Beautiful to read Leonne, the amazing power of surrender and its effects on those around us.
When we surrender, we are saying yes to Love.
I love how you start the blog Leonne, I know if I had heard the word surrender 5 or 6 years ago I would have thought the same, white flags and lost battles and a giving up, where as surrender is none of those things. It is a a letting go of the tension we hold in our body and a deepening within ourselves. I am learning how powerful surrendering to the body is and how much people can feel this.
Beautiful Leonne. To surrender does seem to be about giving up or giving over to others, but I realise that this is not the case either. To surrender to the moment and all that comes with this , is quite a different thing as well as being liberating and joyful.
I loved reading how the surrender in you Leonne, seemed to change the world around and support others too. It is crazy that in a rampant desire to control life, we cut out and miss our true power. You show beautifully how this power lives inside of us all just waiting for us to let go and trust it.
I chose to take the dictionary definition of the word surrender given in this blog a little differently this read: “Stop resisting to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority” If there is a body of divine love we are part of, yet we choose to separate and make resistance to love part of our lives, we may see that loving essence as an enemy and may choose to be shy of it as a source of wisdom and authority. Then when we suffer because of choices made from resistance, we may make the ultimate irresponsible choice to blame the enemy. Our world has conflict which may actually be a product of the falseness of how we live and how we project the cause of our suffering to be the fault of others. Then surrender becomes unthinkable. Yet it may be so far away from the truth, which could be that when we come under the authority of love, we come under a choice less way to live but one which we find offers all we have been seeking in separation to it.
‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine’ – What a gorgeous reminder to take into my day Leonne, I agree we are all divine, I am not claiming this in full on a consistent basis but know the time has come to embrace this quality and live this more and more.
Reading this blog had a very healing affect in my body and when I came to the line “Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness”, it opened up the relationship between acceptance and surrender and how important going deeper with acceptance was at this time for me.
Thank you Leonne, of late I have been experiencing the power of surrendering and the more let go of the tension and allow myself to feel and let others in the more love I can let out and this is felt by others and inspires them to do the same.
Leonne, this blog has really given me a moment to reflect on what I have been feeling about surrender. I have been feeling like a battle or fight has to precede surrender, and that it definitely involves ‘giving up’ and losing a fight. All very dramatic sounding. But actually surrendering is feeling our natural way of being, feeling what is true for us and being ourselves. There is nothing that feels more natural than this.
I was talking to a friend yesterday about surrender and relationships, and how when we meet someone new we can be quite guarded in fear of getting hurt, which can apply to everything in life really. But when we are in protection, we are not allowing our true selves out, or the other person in to really see and feel who you are. When we surrender and let the love flow in and out, a truer connection is formed and the other person is also inspired to not hold back. Surrounding in every moment possible to the love and the divine that is within allows a person to bring their ‘all’ to every situation.
I am feeling into the way I surrender and how amazing this is and I realize that there is a risk of going solo within this wonderful feeling. We might be sharing the beauty and importance of what we discovered but without really connecting to each other, to everybody. Thank you Leonne for your inspiring words.
When I read the translation “Stop resisting to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority” I immediately felt the way I am fighting myself and how wonderful it is to stop trying to become something and fully surrender to just being present.
there is indeed a lightness in the word surrender, and with surrender comes trust, and with trust comes reconnection, and with reconnection, we start to know who we truly are, when we start to know who we truly are, we are with God.
Beautifully said cjames2012, surrendering allows me to reconnect to the divinity within myself, I can feel how I am interconnected with the all.
Surrender – meant a white flag, and disarming – letting go of weapons, and I am realising that the biggest weapon that I have been using was the protection, the guardedness.
‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.’ These are words that immediately invite me to surrender Leonne! A beautiful moment you share here. Thank you.
Yes Leonne, we can live ‘calm and collected’ on the surface, yet still be in state of fight or flight with life underneath. Surrender and accepting removes this tension and lets us feel the full beauty of us and life.
I got something when reading this definition of surrender; “Stop resisting to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority”.
How often do we look at our own body as the enemy? When it lets us down and gets sick before a party or our period comes before a date? We often blame our body for disturbing our life with it’s immortality and seemingly warning-less upsets. So this definition made sense to me by way of stop resisting what we think is the enemy (our body) and submit or surrender to the authority within. Our body tell’s us so much about what is going on, do we listen and surrender or resist and blame?
In true surrender there is a natural expansiveness and it allows us to feel more of who we are. I loved reading this blog again today, thank you Leonne
yes surrendering is an ever unfolding deepening, as we discard all that is in the way of feeling the fullness we naturally are.
‘We don’t even have to settle for some surrendering we can deepen it every minute.’ Amazing to feel into this undisputed truth.
What a blessing for all those on the walking track Leonne when you made the choice surrender to how you were feeling rather than be swept up in the energy of those around you.
“I felt such a grace and lightness in my body as I walked. The surrender I had allowed in my arms radiated through my whole body and I felt incredibly aware of every movement. Each time I felt tension in my body I allowed it to release”.
How gorgeous Leonie; I can feel and see you walking in such grace and beauty down the path. Thank you for the inspiration.
A beautiful point Brendan – when we make the choice to observe life from the loveliness of our body and heart then we allow others to feel that potential of living too.
‘Each time I felt tension in my body I allowed it to release.’
The simplicity here is inspiring as I feel my body let go just with reading it.
A lovely way to reconnect and check in with how the body is holding throughout the day.
This confirms once again the power of Gods communication. As I read this beautiful blog I felt the healing transformation as I fully received what was being shared. We are all connected and as one of us makes the choice to connect to the truth and hold that in their movement, in their livingness then so it is for all. Thank you Leonne
When I surrender in the presence of another , it allows me to let go of the protection and survival instinct in my body bringing a deeper level of intimacy with myself and those around me.
Well said Francisco – it’s a great marker to feel the bracing or holding on when we are with another. Are we hard and protected and if so, how does that feel for the other person and what influence is that having on the conversation or exchange? Surrender feels like the way to be to allow what is true and what is love to freely be expressed.
Reading your experience made me question how often does this happen in my day and I don’t even notice. How often have I caught myself feeling like I needed to change something to fit in or not ruffle feathers.
As I am sitting reading this, I realise how I am holding myself in the tension of yesterday. It seems wiser to surrender to this moment and not to the memory of how yesterday was. As this is the wiser choice this is what I will do.
Thank you Leonne for a very beautiful and powerful blog, in a very gentle way. I loved what you shared “Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.”
I really loved your line
“Fitting in was not worth sacrificing the beauty of my walk and the easy grace in my body”
This for me says so much about how we walk in everyday life and how much we are constantly noticing and changing out body and posture to ‘fit’ in or suit others we are with and around. How truly freeing your walk must have been when you were feeling the easy grace and beauty of your walk and rhythm.
The fear of losing control holds us back from opening up to fully surrender. But once we surrender to life instead of trying to control it, we will realize how much simpler this is. Suddenly we just have to be who we are.
Spot on Michael – I want this on my wall at work. I vote for simplicity in my day as control seems futile in the face of surrender.
What you have written here toward the end of your blog is very revealing for me personally, ‘I can now see that disregarding my body and the way I feel makes it impossible to surrender to myself.’ For many years I had blatantly self-disregarding behaviour and am still discovering and learning about the more subtle forms of this in my life. It’s amazing to feel that as I change the choices I make to be more regarding of myself and my body I am also able to surrender more deeply to myself. Thank you Leonne.
Such a great sharing Leonne, it just proves how powerful we are and how much we can affect not only ourselves, but all that surrounds us by the energy we are in.
I totally agree kevmchardy as the energy we are in and moving with in any given moment is felt by all and without doubt affects everyone around us.
Wonderful Leonne that was a very inspiring blog for me to read today. Especially following sentence: “Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.” That is a powerful expression Leonne and I can feel that this is true. For me that was a needed reminder – it is so easy for me to forget that I am in fact divine.
A beautiful sharing Leonie, thank you
I loved the way you slowly, gently and tenderly surrendered to your true self. What you have written is very powerful and wise.
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine”.
“This extraordinary ordinary walk left me in no doubt of the power of true surrender. I could feel that this surrender is not a giving up or a giving away. I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.” This statement really stood out for me Leonne. I relate deeply to your experience having felt the amazing quality true surrender brings, and I can confirm, the ordinary does truly become extraordinary. Each moment seems touched with Gods divine magic.
You have given a gorgeous picture and a true example of what surrender means Leonne, it is not submitting to an enemy here. It is lovely to feel your surrender to the authority of your own body, your divinity and your loveliness. I am enjoying feeling this too while resting on a cold evening.
“The surrender I had allowed in my arms radiated through my whole body and I felt incredibly aware of every movement.” this is powerful sharing Leonne, I too have experienced that in my body when I have dropped my guard in the presence of others and have truly let them in it is exquisite.
It amazes me how much time we spend fighting our own bodies, going against the innate tenderness and lovliness that lies within. And surrender is the key, it takes us to our essence and shows that in there lies no tension or anxiety, we create this externally and ingest it. Beautiful, graceful surrendered walk Leonie, allowing what you felt in your body and surrendering to your natural grace and love gave you the most divine experience.
That is indeed the great paradox: what lies within contains no tension, nor anxiety, just tenderness. Still we resist it. We just seem to have forgotten that we are this tenderness.
Yes Caroline, it seems so crazy that we would resist the tenderness we are, but the times when we are not living surrendered and feeling everything, are the times that there is tension. When I really surrender I feel all ideals and beliefs I have drop away and I can just be and feel the Love that I am.
I love reading about surrender because it enables me to connect to it immediately and feel the amazing love that I am whenever I have forgotten.
Great to read this again today. The idea of surrender being submitting to another’s authority feels very imposing, as opposed to surrendering to the truth within ourselves and the essence of love that is always there. True surrender feels like an equality, not one being in authority and another lesser to that. I hope the dictionary definition will change in time too!
As Sarah Rayne Baldwin commented earlier the line that stopped me was “Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine”. I too have yet to touch on the depth of what this means in terms of the way I live my life. Without surrender life is a battle, and it is against ourselves before we take it out into the world.
‘Without surrender life is a battle, and it is against ourselves before we take it out into the world.’ This is so true Dr Rachel Mascord… In the attempt to control life and what we need from others or ourselves to fit in we can enter into a life long battle that resists the natural flow of who we are. I know resistance well and it takes the Joy out of living and puts the drag into existing. Surrender to our bodies and the wisdom they house invites Love back into ours lives, this I am learning.
Yes Rachael, I feel in resisting surrender, there is a hardening that happens that shuts down what we are feeling and our relationship with ourselves and others.
I have been deepening my walk on a daily basis and the way you describe your surrendering feels familiar to me, it also feels gorgeous and divine 😍
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine” This is such a gorgeous quote Leonne. Accepting who we are and our divinity is the key to truly living and the antidote to seeking outside of ourselves for recognition.
There are two things that I feel you have highlighted so beautifully in this blog. One is that you need to have a body and be aware of and honouring of how it feels to be able to surrender. The other ( which you also need a body for) is to be really honest about what you are feeling. So much fight and tension goes into avoiding feeling what is there to be felt. When I let go of the fight and holding, surrender is there.
I agree Fiona, we put so much fight and tension into avoiding feeling what is there to be felt, whereas surrendering to what the body is clearly telling us is actually deeply beautiful by its essence, even when it feels somewhat physically uncomfortable.
Leonne, wow. to ‘submit to the authority of my own body’ is just beautiful. I loved reading this as it shows me I can surrender to my own divinity anywhere and it makes ripples others can feel and respond to. Miracle walking!
Amazing how influenced we allow ourselves to be by our peers. I’ve been in that position many times, wondering if I’ve misread the weather because of what others have chosen to wear, rather than accept that I know if I’m cold or hot and also know what to do should I need to cool down or warm up. GIving our power away through doubting our own knowing is the craziest of crazy.
It is beautiful to read your blog as it gives a deeper reflection of what surrendering is truly about. It has nothing to do with defeat or giving in, but actually realizing that we are part of something big, something beyond words, a oneness that can be felt in every moment, if we surrender to this. Surrendering then has nothing to do with self, but with all.
Beautiful comment Mariette.
Wonderful Mariette I agree that surrendering has nothing to do with giving up – this is really a wrong understanding of surrender. I wonder why it is so common to believe such a thing. With that kind of thinking the surrender lost all what it is about – to recognize that we are all “part of something big, something beyond words.”
Thank you Leonne, your sharing has made me stop and feel my level of surrender as I go about my daily activities. I can feel that surrender is possible in everything I do. In fact it brings ‘being’ into the doing as you have so beautifully expressed here! I can surrender to completing this sentence…consciously connecting to my experience.
I too have stopped to feel the tension in my arms, hands and shoulders while typing away. It really can be as simple as recognising it and then just trusting that it’s ok to let go.
Feels to me Elodie that the letting go creates space and a natural unfolding that is not possible when we tighten up and attempt to control things. There is a natural order of the universe that we are intrinsically part of.
When we bring God into the picture, the true value of the act of surrendering comes up. It is definitely not about people fighting each other (one side loosing and the other winning). It is about stop fighting yourself as a divine being, and feel how your body start feeling the true you and enjoying the amazing beauty you are.
Well said Eduardo, the only fight is the one that is fought against our own divine state of Being, which requires no effort.
The line of the blog for me was ‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.’
I am still yet to master this but your words inspire me.
Yes Sarah, I love this line too. It invites me back to the truth of my origins which is my divinity. There is no push or achievement or an iota of self. Surrender is my natural state that then allows the fullness of life to emanate and expand through me as part of the all. A work in progress but truly felt.
I can relate to it being a work in progress, as although it is natural to surrender, its also not something that I am use to and certainly an area where I need support. Blogs like this support me to remember that its okay to just let go.
Letting go is akin to trusting that I am totally supported and that I don’t have to hold it all together alone. Stopping, and allowing myself to connect again to the truth that I come from love, know it and feel it as my ‘true home’ is what brings me back when I stray – acting like I am somehow on my own…
Beautiful Bernadette.
Our willingness to let go and trust that the vastness of the love we are from will always hold us, reminding me by surrendering to my own natural way of being and honouring the wisdom of my body that allows me to feel the harmony with others and everything around me.
I love this blog Leonne, the power of surrender, you break down all those dictionary definitions of surrender in such an elegant and simple example.
Surrender is giving up all the false creations we have made in life to stay safe or play whatever game we are familiar with. It is giving in to me and the love that is already there. Giving up the individual control and surrendering to the big plan.
Yes Fiona, ‘individual control’ brings such a tension into the body and it’s all about setting ourselves up so we are not hurt. We don’t realise though how much we are hurting ourselves by doing that and how it disconnects us from the very love that we so long for.
Dear Sandra thats true “individual control” brings tension into the body and it is good that you mentioned it because in the beginning surrendering was a big thing for me because of the fear of getting hurt. To be aware of it helped me to let go of this fear.
That is indeed the irony, we try to avoid getting hurt and hurt ourselves in the very process.
Some days some blogs stand out for me more than others and today this is one of those blogs. I could felt he power of surrender in your words but at the same time feel my own tension. Thank you for the reminder.
Just you pointing out your own tension Julie, has made me notice my own. My face feels tense, my jaw a little tight. So interesting to allow myself to feel how my body actually is.
And when we are fully aware of the tension the body naturally surrenders as it is so unnatural to hold on to tension and it takes a lot of effort just like when you grip your fist.
“I felt such a grace and lightness in my body as I walked”
How gorgeous to read your blog Leonie and to feel you walking with you in your puffer jacket.
Reading your expression is a beautiful reminder to tenderly and lovingly walk with your self; to surrender to our loveliness.
I absolutly love walking with the fullness of me, and feeling how my body feels when doing this.
‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.’ Beautifully expressed Leonne, a gift to bring into my day.
Thank you Anne, I agree, it is very plain and simple and most if not all gifts that bring a deeper awareness are extremely simple!
What an awesome experience to learn and unfold from. Those tangible moments where we see our choices and how they can play out to harm or to support the body and what constellates around us within these moments. A great opportunity to see the power of surrender.
Such great reminders to have Tracy. We really underestimate our power.
Accepting and allowing are two key words for me related to surrendering. Accepting myself, my body, all around me, what is happening now. Allowing all – everything and everyone – in brings surrender. Just what you write an ordinary walk becomes extraordinary, just like this ‘ordinary’ writing of this comment becomes an extraordinary experience,
I have found that I too need to accept myself in my fullness, and surrender, otherwise I feel the tension in my shoulders getting tighter, almost as if I am anticipating something happening. When I do surrender it feels wonderful to feel the oneness with everything.
Wow! Leonne, what an amazing blog; to let go and surrender to a walk in the way you describe, would be absolute magic!
I agree Greg. I am just about to put on my walking shoes and head out the door!
Yes na, I have just returned from my daily walk to just feel me!
To ‘surrender’ yes I would also think of the little white flag being waved in the air – as a sign of giving up. Previously I would always struggle with surrendering to the truth of how I was feeling and what was being presented to me. Constantly numbing out with all the ‘to do’ lists. Now with an understanding that to truly surrender it gives me a space and a choice to really feel within and work with other possibilities to bring about a true healing. Thank you Leonne a lovely sharing with us all.
Thank you Marion. I surrendered more just reading your comment as I have been feeling the pressure of a big day of ‘to do lists’ ahead. You have given me the opportunity to assess again and feel what is true.
Golly, those ‘to do lists’ that keep taking us away from ourselves. I surrendered to a vacuum this morning, staying with my body and being loving to the task, and it felt so true – I left a floor full of love behind me. Then I got distracted, and went in to doing, my body hardened and it felt awful.Yet another opportunity to re assess how I am with myself.
It’s true the word surrender is synonomous with the little white flag – and comes with that feeling that someone or people were defeated. Another bastardised word when true surrender is such a gorgeous and loving activity that brings us back to our essence and who we are. Wonderful to be re-defining words back to their true energetic meaning.
What you say is so true ‘true surrender is such a gorgeous and loving activity that brings us back to our essence and who we are’ and even feeling the truth of us is the beginning of an openness to begin to truly surrender. I also felt it was a one off occurrence – that I would surrender and then life would become simple, but what I am learning is that it is all part of the ongoing unfoldment of evolving back to our divine essence.
Thank you Leonie and Jo, I agree, so many words have been taken down the garden path or led astray, until the presentations of Serge Benhayon, which share that from our essence we can discern and feel the truth of what words mean!
I agree Jo. It’s been a real eye opener coming to realise how many words we’ve chosen to twist the meaning of.
I used to think surrender was giving up, giving my power away. Now I feel when I surrender It is about feeling all that is there to feel and letting my body feel open. When I allow this I feel my connection to God.
Leonie, for most of my life I also held the perception that “surrender meant admitting defeat and handing yourself over to another”. However, since meeting Serge Benhayon and attending his presentations I have become increasingly aware to listen to my own body, not just listening but as you say, allowing “myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body”. Like you I discovered that “there can be great power” in true surrender and we can forever deepen the level of surrender we are prepared to allow. Thank you for the inspiration to never forget this, not just when walking but in every moment of the day.
I have discovered the same Anne, in true surrender, which is ever deepening there is absolutely nothing lost rather a deeper connection and spaciousness felt within the body and the possibility to access more of the natural wisdom we are.
I agree with all you say Victoria. I have always felt that surrender = big loss. But there is no loss, there is only more connection and spaciousness to be felt within the body. Surrendering is when we live our natural wisdom, and absolutely everyone has this equally in their body if they choose to live it.
That is such a great awareness Brendon… often we do something simple with way more tension than is required. As I understand it the level of tension can be carried over from something not quite resolved, pushed down a bit but yet continues to run my thoughts. None of this would have anything to do with my next task or conversation yet it is laced with the same energy because I’m still with that past moment and only partly present with the now. To stop and just connect with the task at hand is the most powerful gift I can give everyone and myself. A gift that then keeps on giving.
Accepting who I am.
Allowing myself to just observe where I harden up or react and why. The just put my arm around myself lovingly and support me to work on the root cause.
Healing can be that simple.
Feeling hard and tense is no fun and that is just how the body can feel sometimes when the temperature is low and its cold likewise being hot can make us irritable and restless. . Living in England means that we can have high temperatures and hot days and then suddenly it’s cold and wet. People often catch colds and get ill because of following what the outside world seems to be dictating eg the sun’s shining lets put on a t-shirt, without really checking how the body feels and what it is asking for underneath the great ideas we think we have. Going to bed in July, in the middle of summer in England, with a hot water bottle is not mad if your body is contracting from the cold.
Leonne, perfect timing to read this blog and know that it’s about accepting my loveliness, something I’ve struggled with today and that surrender is really to that loveliness. And in that I impact everyone around and allow space. No striving just letting go.
I’m only just beginning to see the depths of control we employ in our movement, that control is there every time we hold back or force ourselves to move in a particular way, or move in any way that is not natural to our bodies. Beginning to see how big this topic is has made me appreciate surrender more than ever, so when I notice this control creep in I can begin to let my body go and shake it off – so to speak!
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine,” this sentence sums it all for me as I feel it is the connection to the divinity within me that allows me to drop the shield and let others in .
I have found that when I am walking it can really magnify how I have been feeling in my body. It is also a really great stop and reset, it is really clear when i am walking in anger or frustration or hurt. I can also walk until I feel a stillness return to my body, reconnecting to myself.
There is so much to expose just in going for a walk. How we hold ourselves, what are our thoughts, how we hold our bodies. With awareness of conscious presence much can be revealed if we choose to feel and see. Thank you Leonne a great insight into your awareness on your walk.
Surrendering is so powerful. I have noticed that I hold a lot of protection in my shoulders – it is as though I create a wall of armour around me when I enter into conversation with people. By being aware of my shoulders and making slight movements to let go of the tension, open my heart and yes, surrender to my inner-heart – I can feel myself open more to who I am speaking with and allow them to see more of who I truly am. Surrendering to myself and the whole interaction changes. It is amazing. I am looking forward to taking this surrender into my walk – thank you for the inspiration Leonne.
I am so inspired by your walk Leonne. I love the way you have described the process of letting go of what other people might think. It was like you were connected and in tune with nature – and then you unzipped your jacket and got lost for a bit – listened to your body, did up your jacket and became part of the greater world again – including yourself, nature and humanity. Quite a revelation! I also enjoyed this pondering: “How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?” From what you’ve written and from what I have experienced, it can be absolutely, show-stoppingly, game-changingly amazing !!!
It is wonderful when we stop enough to feel our body and the way we are holding it and let it relax back to its natural way of being. How lovely it feels to then walk appreciating who you are. What a beautiful way to start the day.
Leonne I love what you expressed about …“Fitting in was not worth sacrificing the beauty of my walk and the easy grace in my body.” I have spent all of my life trying to fit in until I came across Universal Medicine and once you feel that Grace in the body, its like coming home.
Just this morning I went for a walk and could feel tension held in my shoulders and neck – the moment I felt this I had to ‘shake it off’ but this came from a wanting to be free of uncomfortable feeling of the tension and not accepting that I might allow it and feel it in full to understand its roots. In this manner I can now feel that all I achieved was to mask it thinking it had cleared during the walk, but I sit here typing and can feel it return so this time I will surrender to the fact that I feel it and simply allow it to be there, that I might get to feel it in full.
Thank you for writing this blog that I could have the opportunity to connect with it in the moment that I was ready to accept its message.
I love this following line from your blog Leonne. “Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.” It is choosing to trust the divine within that allows everything to fall into place, it is so amazing yet it is our natural state of being that when we connect with the All, that the All all flows together in our lives.
Surrendering is such an amazing thing to choose for ourselves and when I am totally surrendered it doesn’t matter what is going on around me I don’t let the tension of the world come in and affect me. This is an on going process as there is quiet a few situations where I forget about my surrendered state of being and slip into the chaos of the world around me and this has an immediate affect on how I feel in my body. I feel contracted and start to harden and get up tight in certain area’s of my body. These are sure signs to me that I have stopped surrendering to my natural tender, sweet, delicate Woman that I am. The choice is always there to keep returning to the Glory of who I am.
Well said Natalie, I used to think surrender was like raising the white flag up and saying… “ok you win!”, but to the contrary I feel the act of surrendering actually gives me more options to choose from. The more I let go and empty my cup, the more choices I can make where all the external things don’t affect me leaving me to truly support myself.
What you have written here Leonie is very inspiring.
I can feel and imagine you walking along a busy path, with your puffer jacket fully zipped up) in your full divinity, glory and power; what an awesome sight.
This Winter I’ve noticed that I haven’t felt the cold as much. Your blog Leonne had me pondering, is this because I’m surrendering to my body and how gracefully it moves more consistently since Universal Medicine? I could feel how my body would also tense and brace for the cold and how now, more often than not, I notice this happening and surrender.
I was drawn to reread this again as I adore the word surrender. I paid more attention this time to your process of surrender Leonne and how making sure you were physically warm was key to the process. I find my body gets physically quite tense if I am cold and like you would tighten and brace through my arms and as much as I might like to surrender at these times until I am warm I find it difficult to surrender too. The more and more I enjoy the feeling of surrender, the more and more attention to detail I pay to staying warm. There are so many practical ways to support myself to be warm and because it is for me an essential element to surrender it is a joy to discover ways to do this rather than a chore. It’s in the little things too- like making sure I have bath slippers ready when I get out of the shower so I don’t have to walk across cold tiles and heating the room in winter while I get dressed.
Quite amazing to hear how your surrender changed how others interacted with you. Observing the impact our quality has on our interactions is one of my favourite things to observe. Whilst working in hospitality I noticed it felt natural to be polite to guests that were polite and seemingly easier to crack a joke with guests that were humorous. This also explains why people that were rude and or mean were so challenging to serve.
The word surrender is a very powerful word. To trust and truly surrender has been a long process for me after associating the word surrender with weakness.
Surrendering to the messages from my body is a learning for me after spending most of my life living from my head. It’s a completely different experience when I listen to and honour what my body feels to do. It takes me in a different direction and my head sometimes wants to fight against the feeling, thinking how odd that is, but it’s getting used to going with the flow. And it’s starting to accept that the feeling is so often better than the thinking. I wonder how many people noticed how snug and dressed up you were and thought to themselves, what a great idea that was?
I can so relate to this Leonne, on my early morning walks I am dressed very warm, I even wear gloves ! So many people pass me wearing T-shirts etcetera! Thank you for sharing.
I used to make surrendering so complicated thinking I had to surrender to something outside me, but the penny dropped last year when I realised that all I have to do to surrender is surrender to myself. The difference was instant and profound. Internal battles still occur but the war that I’d been waging against myself for eons has ended.
This really is extraordinary Lucy. In the past I subconsciously acquainted surrender with giving my power away to something else outside of me. I have felt my relationship with surrender change since writing this blog as this is a new relationship after all. I have been experiencing exactly what you describe here and find I still have to remind myself that I am surrendering to me.
This such a gorgeously expressed blog. ‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.’ – beautiful, powerful and inspiring Leonne. Thank you for sharing your profound walk with us. Surrendering to our divinity through being guided naturally by our bodies, what a glorious and harmonious way to live. And I love that it feels like there is no end to the depth that we can surrender to this divine love that we are.
So well said Carola – and I feel there certainly is “no end to the depth that we can surrender to this divine love that we are”. I can feel my shoulders fall away and heart open just reading these words. A huge expansion in my body – thank you.
Reading your great article again Leone I could feel how lovely and spacious our bodies become when we surrender into our own loveliness. It provides a wonderful moment where I can imagine all our particles have space to stretch out and communicate with each other. This is in complete contrast to when we hold our bodies tense and in protection.
Your writing reminds me of a song Leonne and a graceful way of singing and swaying through your days. Its very lovely to feel how much surrendering has seen you drop to a deeper appreciation of life itself and the strength of your body. My body finds it very liberating and freeing to walk with my heart open and I like to remind myself to surrender, surrender, surrender. I tend to appreciate life so much more when I do so.
I could also hear the song in Leonne’s words – and your comment has added another verse Natasha. A beautiful sharing – thank you.
“Trust the fact that I am divine’. This part stands out for me today. Hearing that I am divine and then truly feeling the divine within took a little while to accept again. I’ve had conversations with myself about this, like a parent talks to a child to remind them of different things, I too reminded myself that this until it became a truth that was fully felt, understood and lived.
This is beautiful, Matthew. Taking the time to come to terms with and accept your divinity feels like the most important thing in the world.
Absolutely Janet. It is as if at some point this knowing was buried beneath the influences and ideals the world has created. In this disconnection, we bounce from belief to belief in search of ‘it’ but the worldly created belief never is the truth.
Letting go of the need to of protection in my body and trusting that the best form of protection is to be the love that I am allows me to fully surrender and let others in full deepening the level in intimacy in my relationships.
“How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?” I can so relate to this comment Leonne…resistance creates a great deal of tension and takes a lot of energy to sustain, whereas surrendering to the wisdom of the body is so simple if we allow this.
Our body has been on the receiving end of all our choices and therefore has great authority in knowing what it needs and what it doesn’t.
So many people fight and resist their body, and when it becomes sick they feel as though it has failed them – without looking at how they have treated it over the years.
This feels amazing to read “…there can be great power in surrender.” It feels this way for me because this article expresses something that I have experienced. True surrender, is deeply empowering. There is so much there waiting to be expressed and lived if we allow ourselves to feel it rather than over ride it and have our bodies become hard and rigid. Surrender for me relates to that lived experience of feeling what there is to feel and not attempting to deny it, always knowing that my true essence is divine.
I know I am not alone in getting the meaning of ‘surrender’ a bit mixed up. I have tended to view it in relation to there being something outside of me that I need to protect myself from and not give in to. What I realised reading your blog Leonne is that when you realised that you were holding your body in tension you kept allowing yourself to feel and be aware of everything around you and you allowed your feelings to guide you in each moment. As a result your expanded presence had a big impact on everything around you. This is actually occurring in every moment for all of us but the fight or battle is an internal one that we are having ridiculously to try to hold at bay the enormous flow of awareness and feelings and intuition that we have naturally available in each moment. So I am now understanding surrender to really be about stopping the fight against ourselves.
Leonie, thank you for sharing your realisation about “the power we all have when we claim our presence”. When we take responsibility for being present in every moment and as you say, when we “stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body” life can be amazing and that amazingness is reflected to others and inspires others to also claim their presence as your walk clearly showed you. What a loving foundation to take into the rest of the day.
This is such a beautiful way to illustrate the power of surrender. It is a word that we have been denied true access to because its meaning is so closely associated with giving in, giving up and giving our power to another. You, in the simple act of zipping your jacket up in honour of your body have shown that surrender is powerful because it is real. It feels what is and says “yes” to it. It accepts what our body is feeling in this moment and responds accordingly.
This is surrender.
And when we do not do this, we simply sustain the battle that life can be when every moment is a fight against truth.
I love this Leone and am finding that truly surrendering is a forever deepening process and the greatest gift we can give ourselves. It comes first from accepting ourselves and the love and loveiness we are. This is a beautiful sharing and journey into surrender that feels so real and alive in my body too,Thank you.
I love this phrase, Leonne – “submitting to the authority of my own body”. This speaks volumes to me, of the perpetual choice to return to the source of love from which we originate, that lives within us.
For so many years as I grew up, the meaning of surrender I grown up with was giving up, and I never wanted to give up, so I had created such a drive to never give up. In this drive my body became so hard. It was not until I started to understand the true meaning of surrender from Serge Benhayon, and through many healing sessions, I started to experience it in my body. I was only then able to accept what it truly felt to surrender. Surrender is so powerful and supportive to the body in its true meaning.
This blog confirms to me so much I have learnt from Universal Medicine. Why give up a natural way of being for a hardness when surrender is all that is required. The word itself has been redefined here. My take on it in the past would be something born out of pride, with with me screaming “We shall not surrender!” at the top of my lungs just before being blown apart. Not a very manly word or one I that I would even consider to be in my vocabulary but this take on it here makes the word and it’s meaning truly beautiful.
So true, kevmchardy. There is a conditioned soldier-like bravura that is hammered into men when it comes to the word ‘surrender’. It is as if we have been deliberately fed a false meaning of it in order to prevent us from connecting to the truth and power of surrendering to that which is greater than us, but at the same time encompasses us all.
Surrendering to the loveliness that we are is truly beautiful, we can do it anytime and anywhere.
It feels like, when we let the mind take over and make decisions based on what we see everyone else doing or what we think we should do based on information, we go into anxiousness because nothing else supports that and we have to fight a natural way of being to stay where we are. When we go with what we are feeling and really support ourselves there is no fight and no anxiousness because we are supporting ourselves. This is harmony.
I love this blog Leone. I would like to remind myself of it every day.
I love your blog Leonne and I am going to copy and paste your last paragraph “Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.I can now see that disregarding my body and the way I feel makes it impossible to surrender to myself. How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?” into my ‘Read Daily List’.
Yes, surrender begins and is only possible when we listen to what our bodies speaks. Surrender means to let my being expand in my body, to feel it to the tips of my fingers and toes. And the more I care and love my body, the deeper my surrendering can be.
Leone and Sonja, I wholeheartedly agree. Surrender can only take place when we love and appreciate ourselves. This lesson is very supportive for me. Thank you Leonne.
Lovely how you express…to let my being expand in my body. I will take that into my walk this evening.
“….there was a trust and a knowing between us…”. Reading your blog Leonne, reminded me that by surrendering to my own natural way of being and honouring the wisdom of my body, that I automatically feel more harmony and flow with all others and everything around me.
What a lovely story-teller you are, Leonne, I was walking with you and surrendering too, thank you :))
Yes- Leonne you animate and bring an expansive space for the reader to be present with your experience. Your writing here and in other blogs is delightful and light hearted, this does not reduce the truth in your writing – it beautifies it.
It is totally fascinating to explore and appreciate that the more you Surrender the you realise that there is a deeper level that is possible. This endless depth in letting go and surrendering to the absolute Love that we are is truly a beautiful journey – the best I have ever explored.
Hi Natalie – I absolutely agree. You have allowed me to appreciate just how amazing it is that there is no limit to our ability to surrender.
The depth of our surrender is dependant on our willingness to go there, our willingness to let go and trust that the vastness of the love we are from will always hold us. I so agree Natalie, it is the most beautiful journey I have ever explored!
That is beautiful expressed Sara. “…our willingness to let go and trust that the vastness of the love we are from will always hold us.”
It’s funny, i have experienced lots of journeys in life trying to achieve more things by looking for better outcomes, higher respect from others and greater comforts in life. Yet the only one thing that has ever made me feel truly loved and content within myself is what I have felt inside when I have surrendered to who I am. Now that may sound a little ‘new agey’ to the everyday reader but I mean it most sincerely that there is a place in all of us that is so warm and so true that once we connect with that all else seems to be a pale imposter.
I find the word surrender to be really powerful. It is amazing just by saying a word how it can change how I hold my body. I am found this an amazing thing to practice in exercise but I can also see how important it is to take a stop and surrender at all times in the day. When I do I can feel how much tension I allow my body to be held in, it is a bit like being on constant fight or flight mode except with no need to run. Imagine how much energy can be saved by surrendering all the time and how much more body awareness this way of being brings.
This is such a great point Stephen. I can feel how draining and disharmonious it is to hold tension in my body. It is little wonder I have struggled with exhaustion my entire life. Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have presented truth that has allowed me to begin to surrender and develop a connection with my body. I have a long way to go but the changes in my vitality and lifestyle are already a miracle.
The energy required to keep ourself from surrendering to what is so natural to us is indeed exhausting! It is natural for us to let go and allow our bodies to receive and then to act based upon what we receive. Our eyes constantly receive light (except maybe when we are sleeping), our bodies receive sensations through our skin, our ears and nose receive messages from our environment always. But we have made an art out of resisting the messages that we receive, of trying to create our own reality instead of listening to what our lives are telling us and following the wisdom that we innately have.
I’m with you on that Leonne. The difference in my body is worlds away from where I was before Universal Medicine and I am so very thankful for that!
Definitely. It is amazing how saying, writing or reading the word ‘surrender’ can be felt as a physical letting go. This is the very reason why this word resonates with me as it is so bodily, once my body lets go, even just a little, it is then possible to surrender in other ways too. The surrender of expectations covers a lot as these can come in so many forms and guises.
When I allow myself to stop during my day and feel what is going on in my body it is surprising how much tension I can accumulate. The constant battle within is exhausting and definitely not needed. When I choose to live in a way that, through awareness, I am able to allow myself to surrender to me, my whole day changes. The tension does not accumulate, my body does not tire and I feel alive and can truly enjoy my day.
So true Stephen. The momentum we build up inside our body is insane. Love your comment – ‘it is a bit like being on constant fight or flight mode except with no need to run’. In thankful contrast, living any other way, other than feeling surrender in your body, feels like a crazy person!
Indeed, a crazy person Sara, living that way without surrender but held in tension you can feel a bit demented, and it is no wonder then that the unloving choices come in, the decision to eat foods that are not supportive, or act in ways that are not caring. Surrender gives space to feel much more and accept ourselves much more too.
“Fitting in was not worth sacrificing the beauty of my walk and the easy grace in my body.” What a powerful and self honouring realisation Leonne. As I read this line I could feel how many times I have put effort into something that was causing my body pain and discomfort, as I was actually working against what my it was trying to tell me, what it naturally wanted to do. And then to feel the letting go of all that tension and the fight, to surrender, feels nothing like a weakness but a strength that comes through knowing that you always have the opportunity to make a different choice, in every moment. To me, it feels like I am surrendering to the wisdom that I have available to me in every moment.
I agree Ingrid and love what you have expressed here – absolute Gold!
This lovely sharing by Leonne reminded me as a child my brother and I would play fight at wrestling and the words used if we held another down by their shoulders was “Do you surrender yet?” “Do you submit?” and answering yes, meant you had won that particular bout! I would often just give in and say I did because of the pain. This awesome blog highlights how for years I carried that same ‘thinking’ that if I surrendered it meant a weakness or a giving up – which is so not what the flip side of this word actually means or feels like now. To truly surrender to what our body tells us or a given situation feels now that I am starting to feel/connect much deeper within and respond in a loving way as you beautifully share Leonne to a “natural way of being” and to “submit to the authority of my own body”.
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.” This line stood out for me on my first reading of this blog and since then I have found it very inspiring as I had not quite connected to ‘the Kingdom within’ as being myself. It has brought me to a deeper awareness of how I have still being looking outside of myself for acceptance.
I find it so fascinating, that my relationship to surrendering I can forever deepen it – I can let go much more, I can become more still and I can feel more of the love I am and everybody around me.
Alexander, what you say is worth pondering. Surrender is an ever deepening let go into the stillness and love that is already there. And once we let go a bit we see more to let go of and it perhaps is something that will ‘forever deepen’. Yet if we already are that deep profundity why do we hold ourselves up as if we do not want to immerse ourselves in a deep pool of water? Are we afraid we might drown? That we might lose our independence and individuality and disappear into the ocean of oneness? Surrender must therefore involve letting go of everything we identify with and this becomes more and more subtle the more that is rooted out and it does perhaps go on forever, or does there come a time when we are free of it and just allow ourselves to merge in the ocean?
Thanks Leonie, -“Fitting in was not worth sacrificing the beauty of my walk and the easy grace in my body.” – It is amazing that when we try to fit in, we are actually changing and denying ourselves in the process…so we don’t actually fit, because it is only the shell that gets included.
I love this glorious reminder of letting go and going with our natural flow. And I love how everyone naturally feels, and is reminded that this is in them by the way it was respected by others on the path. I wonder how many surrendered a bit too, if they were holding tight somewhere?
It really is amazing that the way we are with our bodies can impact on others even though we don’t make physical contact with them. It shows that energy is always at play.
“I felt such a grace and lightness in my body as I walked. The surrender I had allowed in my arms radiated through my whole body and I felt incredibly aware of every movement. Each time I felt tension in my body I allowed it to release”.
Leonne, how you have expressed this is so, so beautiful, I feel myself walking there with you. The word surrender is so important to me, something that I have found hard to really do. Your writing of your experience of this walk helps me enormously, I can feel myself surrendering more and more as I read. I will take it into my lakeside walk tomorrow morning with a friend, but will also do that walk more on my own, there is a lovely seat looking over the lake, among the mangroves, a beautiful spot to just be with me. Thank you.
That sounds gorgeous Beverley. I love being reminded to surrender too and this is exactly what your comment inspires me to do right now.
A lovely slow smile crept up on my face when I read this line “How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?”. Thank you.
I can feel that smile 🙂 thank you for sharing Sarah.
Since I read your blog the first time a week ago ‘surrender’ is in my awareness, I am checking in with me to feel where I am at in regard to either holding onto tension or feeling surrendered. It just takes a moment and then a choice to let go and surrender again or deeper and it is already a very available and constantly developing marker (clear feeling) in my body. Thank you for the inspiration.
Surrender has been in my awareness for quite some time, but not always choosing this, so this blog is a lovely reminder that when I am feeling a little unsure or undecided, all i have do to is surrender to what is in front of me, and I will know my next step….
There are quite a lot of steps ahead of me right now as I have discovered that a big job requires urgent attention. I love that you shared this comment here at this time. I felt my level of anxiousness drop as I read your words of wisdom.
Likewise Alex – I feel very supported and inspired by your coment.
The word surrender in the past for me had connotations with submission and giving up and i resisted it for a long time as a sign of weakness and vulnerability believing myself to become easy prey if i let my guard down i would surely get hurt.
I now know that it was my guard and my beliefs that were hurting me and that allowing myself to be vulnerable and openly express me was a strength.
Surrender for me today is to live and let live and to let go of every part of me and of life that is not True.
Deborah, I can really relate to that, I also felt surrender was “submission and giving up”, which I did not in the past think was right. I was really great at building that hardness and guarding in my body against surrendering over much of my long life. As I am learning to surrender, I am starting to feel just how empowering doing that actually is, contrary to what I had always thought. The more I surrender, the more I am actually able to do, but it is done from a very different way than I used to do.
i love how you have made the word “surrender” magnificent and powerful.
‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.’ Beautiful.
I have a connotation to the word surrender that it means I am weak or a loser if I surrender. After reading this though Leonne, I can feel absolutely nothing weak or loser-ish about you after you chose to surrender to your body. I imagine the same would be true for me too, should I decide to deeply and truly surrender to the wisdom that I know my body holds. The outcome I see is actuall completely the opposite; there is a freedom, a clarity that comes from allowing things to just be as they should – I choose that for me 🙂
Thanks leonne for a super demonstration of ‘surrender’. I have struggled to understand just exactly what is meant by the word. I am now contemplating the various little ways I can bring ‘surrendering’ into my days.
“This extraordinary ordinary walk left me in no doubt of the power of true surrender. I could feel that this surrender is not a giving up or a giving away. I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.”Yes Leone, in my experience, surender is a ‘melting moment’ where the mind just ‘lets go’, personal armour, defence, and separateness (both internally and externally) dissolve making way for God’s magic, and miraculously, the ordinary becomes extraordinary! Nothing to lose…..everything to gain!
The power of truly surrending is the moment when we stop the ‘fight’, the fight with the world, the fight with others, the fight with ourselves…. surrending to what is in front of you, is a surrendering to what is within….our divinity…. a precious moment, a new direction, a new way to live, a new way to be, that brings so much truth that the love that was always there begins to be felt.
As you say Leonne surrendering is so powerful. Most of my life I didn’t live in a surrendered way, my body was very hard and contracted. The more I can surrender, the more I feel my divinity, my glory – awesome.
I love coming back to your blog Leonne, reminding me again that there is nothing I long for more than to surrender to myself, to life and the Divinity inside and around me.
Thank Leonnie beautiful written this blog. Whilst reading my body surrendered more and more and i could feel to surrender to our body is actually very natural. If we do we allow others also to let go of holding themselves in tension.
What a great take on surrender and how it can naturally and gracefully play out when the body is in charge and not the mind with its beliefs and ideals of how things should be.
In all that you described in your blog, Leonne, was for me a simple feeling of openness, letting down the guards and letting the world around you in. Beautiful, thank you.
Well said Anna and Leonne. To allow ourselves to love and be loved is a process that begins with surrender and ends with even more. The more we surrender, the more we deepen and thus there is no end to the depths that we can go.
Beautifully expressed Liane. A limitless ocean of possibility awaits.
‘The more we surrender, the more we deepen and thus there is no end to the depths that we can go.’
Isn´t it amazing what effect we have, if we choose to surrender? All the outside changed, like you shared- how powerful we are?!
I was struck by the impact that your surrendering had on your surroundings. that everything flowed and had a sacredness about it that others responded to. That’s massive!
Beautifully expressed Leonne – ‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.’ – Thank you for this gorgeous reminder.
Thank you Leonne for inspiring us to see the power in ‘surrendering’ to our own divine essence. Only then are we in the ‘being’ rather than the ‘doing’ and from ‘being’ our natural self, all else will flow, lovingly so! As you say, “how amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?” – this is the power of true surrender!
Surrounding is a truly powerful thing. And there is a connotation that surrendering is a weakness however as explained there is so much power in a surrounding. But more likely then not the body is in a tension and surrendering is the best medicine that you could ever give to your body.
I love this line, Leonnie, ” It was as though the path had become sacred and there was a trust and a knowing between us that transcended the need to yell or ‘ding’ a bell”. It is amazing the effect we can have on others when we surrender to our own essence, where we find we are all one. We are so connected to each other, how we are could be expected to have an effect on others.
This blog is a beautiful example of how powerful surrendering to our own delicateness and preciousness is and what an impact it has on our surroundings. Thank you Leonne for sharing this with us, it is a truth we cannot be reminded of enough.
What a beautiful piece of writing. My body is letting go.
What a swing from a mentally adopted definition of a word to the truth in expression of one. I have definitely perceived ‘surrender’ to be a giving up of power, a sign of weakness, and realise that that idea still hangs over in me. It was not until your last paragraph, Leonne, ‘submit to the authority of my own body?’ that I let the penny drop. Any resistance is the ‘power drainer’; surrender is the letting go of everything that gets in the way of my connection to me, God and love. And then the miracles happen, like the change in the way people behaved on the path you walked that morning. Thank you.
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine” To trust in the fact that I am divine and also appreciate me and my body in this energy, surrender to the fact that I am divine and take the needed steps to care for my body feels amazing. Thank you Leonnie.
Lovely Leonne! One day we will walk out as you do, and everyone will be so lovely and warm in their big puffy jackets. And when we walk on the path we will stop and be silly with total strangers because we will realise that it is just warmth and connection that we really want. Our plans and agendas will be out the window because there will be only one thing left to do and that is accept brotherhood.
Wow this is beautiful to read and share your walk with you Leonne. Surrender was summed up for me in that definition you found in a dictionary. I envisage that losing to another in this surrendering. I had not contemplated until now how much that prevents me from feeling me if there is a constant bracing against the world. As I sit here the choice to surrender is mine and what I am surrendering to is a deeper sense of me.
Yes Lee, all love asks is for us to surrender….. surrender and feel the love we were born with, the love we all are.
I love what you are pointing out here Lee, surrendering is not in protection towards another or something but simply to oneself, but there is no giving in or up it is simply feeling myself and accepting that that I am.
This has really inspired me to stop trying, stop holding on and just let go and surrender to the amazing delicate energy we are all made of.
Thank you Leonne for your sharing of simply taking a walk and the magic that can be felt when we take notice of what is happening within us. We can hold so much tension in our bodies if we ignore it, but how much grace and beauty can be revealed when we surrender to the wisdom of our body!
Awesome blog,
This is an amazing topic, to truly surrender, all one needs to do is to give into themselves (chose to be themselves)
So beautiful what you have shared here. I love the sentence: “How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?” With realizing that surrendering will reveal my natural way of being – I will go for a morning walk now and will be with what you have said. Thank you.
Lovely blog Leonne. There is so much power in surrendering.
After reading your blog last night I have woken up today with the the immediate ‘thought’ of surrender and letting go. So I allowed myself to let go of my body, any tension or holding while slowly waking up and preparing for getting out of bed. It was very lovely to start the day with surrender, a calm and tenderness was with me in all that I did, a quality that was very supportive in being me and not losing myself that easily in the doing throughout the day. I am already looking forward to deepen my experience tomorrow morning.
Surrendering as a foundation for our days – letting go to the knowing that ‘all thereafter is known’ – that is all our trust issues out of the way! Thank you, Alex.
Surrender as a foundation of our days, I love it and I am choosing it from this day forth.
Awesome Leonne – I sing myself a song sometimes – Surrender, so sweet and tender, let it go, let it go, let it go for my love.
Gorgeous words Amber Goodwin. I can feel a depth of surrender, sweetness and tenderness in my body from just reading them.
Truly surrounding is very powerful. When I allow myself to do it, I feel like my real self and feel that everything I had been holding on to was really insignificant compared to who I really am.
Thank you for sharing that Michelle, I feel that’s what I can tend to do in life – make other ‘stuff’ more important than me. Giving myself permission and allowing myself to surrender is so supportive.
So true, Michelle. Holding onto something suddenly becomes irrelevant in these moments, instead of clinging onto something there is a deep knowing that all we really need for life is the love and deep wisdom that already is there deep inside of us.
This is a beautiful blog about the power of true surrendering and its effect on ourselves and our surroundings.
And it shows that when I am in disregard to myself and do not accept who I am that I cannot truly surrender.
Thank you for sharing this Leonne.
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.”- I can feel the strength and power of surrender in my body through these words. Thank you.
Interesting you refer to surrender like a battle as I feel like I am actually fighting in a battle within my days and when I truly surrounded and let my guard down I realise that the battle is with myself. I am fighting against myself for perfection, for harmony, for ease of communication, for fear of getting things wrong.
But learning to surrender and become more and more tender I realise that the battle does not have to be fought. The battle that I am constantly fighting need not be a battle at all but more of a self loving, self supporting, self knowing understanding that all those things that need to happen within my day can and do happen effortlessly when I surrender.
Awesome Natasha, I love what you have come to here.
Thanks Lisa, I am in awe of just how beautiful life can be and just how simple life can be when we choose to surrender. It becomes effortless and easy and like life just glides along so beautifully.
Natasha that feeling of being in battle is something that I completely relate to. I’m amazed that when I surrender I get to feel just how in battle with myself I was and how the reality is there is only a battle if I create one.
Beautiful sharing Natasha and very timely for me to read. I have recently realised the battle and tension I have been running. striving for perfection and buying into a perceived way of being that on the outside gave a false impression of where I was at. I have recently connected to a much deeper level of honesty and letting go and surrendering to where I am at has released so much tension and pressure that I have been carrying.
It’s alarming isn’t it annemarie00, the intense pressure we hold ourselves under to do everything ‘right’ or ‘quickly’ or with the mentality of having ‘so much to do’ .. Great your deepening your level of honesty and surrender!
Me too Natasha, I resonate with every word you wrote.
I can very much relate to what you share here. We discover more and more of who we really are and how amazing we can actually feel by letting go of layer upon layer by surrendering to what is at the very core of us underneath all the veils.
“I could feel that this surrender is not a giving up or a giving away. I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.” How beautiful to read these words this morning, I am learning to do this more myself and feeling the beauty of the workings of my body and all around me when I do.
I too have felt the beauty and power that comes from surrendering to oneself. So I pondered on why can a word that can offer an understanding to how we can allow our inner beauty to shine to be so infected with only negative connotations. If were only to have the experience of the learned definition of surrender and no-one offer a true meaning of this word, we would miss out on the opportunity to explore what surrendering to ones own bodies rhythms felt like and the power and confidence this allows to blossom. I was blessed to meet Serge Benhayon who has offered me the possibility of exploring words and their true definitions, this is and has been a very powerful experience for me, Leonne you have offered this same experience, thank you.
Thank you Leonne this is so beautiful to feel and know ,true surrender is the real gift we can all give ourselves by how we live in our everyday lives. I can really feel how this can transform our bodies from the holding back and allows our true essence and divinity to be felt and claimed. Something so missing from life today for manty of us and this article lights the way joyfully.
Since my first read of this blog Leonne i’ve been noticing how different it feels to walk when I am surrendered in myself vs when I am on edge. To surrender and be present is certainly something I feel is worth building into my life – being aware of when I tense up and choosing to surrender again.
Same here. That is what I am focusing on now as well in my walk / my movements. It becomes so clear when I am on edge and when I am with me, totally present and conscious in my body. It feels like everything dissolves into just what I am doing in the moment. That dissolving is my surrender.
I love this line “surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine”. In the past when people spoke about surrender my reply was always “surrender to what”. Having re-connected to myself I know exactly what I am surrendering to and that is to my divine essence.
Yes, it is knowing what to surrender to – that is a choice – and therefore already knowing what will happen thereafter.
This line stood out for me, too, and your comment Elizabeth brings a profound understanding to what is expressed here. Thank you.
Yes I can relate to this in full. I now know the beauty of us all lies in surrender. It’s truely beautiful.
Surrendering as an evolution: to our own loveliness, to our divinity, to our unity and to the fact that everything thereafter is known. Looking forward to my walk this morning!
Beautiful comment Matildaclark. ‘Surrender is an evolution to our own loveliness and everything that is already known’ This brings in the truth that trust is an integral part of surrender. Trusting that we already know our divinity and the essence of who we are. This releases the tension and fear of being who we truly are.
Beautiful, Elizabeth, surrendering is so amazing actually, and it is so powerful too.
This feels so lovely, Elisabeth. I am learning to accept my own loveliness and the power that connecting to my essence has on those around me.
“surrender to what?”
This really made me laugh Elizabeth – how often I used this same sentence in the past. It felt like being asked the impossible – to fly to the moon with only a pair of carpet slippers to ‘get me there’.
Now I know there is nowhere to fly to, just to consistently be aware of the quality of my own breath and bring more conscious presence to everything I do, through connection with my body instead of living’ in my head’ and begin completely unaware of even having a physical body to feel through.
Surrendering unto my body is the greatest blessing and gift to myself to know the reality of this divine essence equally so in all.
Surrender when used in its true meaning is a very very powerfull and beautiful word. Almost feels like letting go and letting ourselves be naturally held by the Love we truly are.
Leonne it was so beautiful to read how true surrender comes from strength rooted in gentleness, not weakness,
Yes, and this gentleness in all its simplicity is such an inspirational strength that touches on the inside without any force, but with enormous power. The power of love.
I liked how you described this Catherine and Michael. I would like to add in vulnerability and this ability to be open and raw with your feelings. Not to shy away from all that is to be felt – surrendering.
And trusting, knowing that the divine qualities that we choose now are what is ahead in the future.
Indeed it was so poignent to feel how if we surrender to the fact that our strength comes our connection to our divinity we do not need to struggle against life.
There is an amazing strength in not holding onto everything, and just surrender to what is there. And trust that nothing will hurt you in this amazing presence.
Beautifully said, Joshua. I have been feeling the surrender in not following the expectations of others, but deeply connecting to what feels most supportive to me first and being impulsed from there. So liberating and joyful.
I agree, Joshua. When I surrender and trust in God the whole world opens up and I feel connected to everything. This is a powerful and joyful state of being, and the most important thing in life to keep coming back to.
Very beautifully said Janet. It feels very empowering to feel God with us.
As I learn to trust my body and in essence, trust the divine, I let go and surrender and life unfolds with so much more joy, grace and ease.
I concur Rob, the letting go of controlling life and surrendering to the grace and flow of love is by far a superior choice for our body and everyone around us!
‘It was as though the path had become sacred and there was a trust and a knowing between us that transcended the need to yell or ‘ding’ a bell.’ I captured all of your sharing in this sentence Leonne – the depth of connection with our sacredness is confirming of our true selves and allows us to observe the world from its stillness.
And observing it from this stillness is like taking off your sun glasses when coming home and suddenly seeing everything so much brighter and lighter.
That is a perfect description Michael.
Surrender to our sacredness and divinity?? That turns the conventional definition of the word on its head!
Absolutely Joshua, we are Divine and the more we know this the more the body knows that this divinity is not for us alone, but to be reflected in all our activities. We have a responsibility to naturally be ourselves in the world
This is well summed-up: “Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.”
Agree Oliver! And when we accept our own loveliness, our own divinity and our own beauty, we can not only see and appreciate the beauty, love and divinity in others, but naturally expand and allow others the opportunity to appreciate and feel these qualities within themselves also.
Yes it’s true Oliver. All of those words mean the same thing ! Divine = Awareness = Acceptance = Summed-up !
The power in surrender is amazing, opens up all senses and awareness, the body lets go and becomes open to receiving all there is to receive. In my surrender I can feel my stillness and my gentle breath, my body lets go of any tension or stress. It is a beautiful way to reconnect to my body.
Following on from yumminess I would agree that the letting go and expansion that follows surrender and how that feels so melting and spacious in my body is certainly delicious.
I have had the same experience johanna08smith – I feel as though there is no end point to the power of surrender.
When I ignore and override what my body is telling me, it is impossible for me to surrender. I often stay in a state of tension or anxiety, to block out what my body is telling me which is often not comfortable to feel. Yet when I do connect the opposite happens and I feel amazing, and joyful in my body.
It is great to read all the different comments and how widely the notion of surrender can apply in our lives so it seems this blog reflects a key element and no surprise it is presented very simply and straight to the point. The link to connection to our bodies appeals strongly, because if there is any resistance to anything (the opposite to surrender), I note it is very much held there in my body as a tension. So learning to be here in my body and let go is very important and highlights how in many circumstances in my life the consistency of that connection is all that is needed for surrender.
Its interesting how the word surrender can evoke the meaning , ‘to give up’ but what it actually feels like when you truly do this is the letting go of the tension, the holding of the body and allowing yourself to be more, to accept a grandness of everything you are. In this, there certainly is no giving up. It’s more like the complete opposite … accepting an expansion of you.
Hi Johannebrown17, the difference between giving up and and allowing is key.
I have found that with the tension is a hardness in my body and when I move to acceptance what I am accepting is the gentleness that is who we naturally are.
Thank you Leonne for such a beautifully inspiring blog, this is really what I needed to hear this morning as I have been discovering more of the hardness my body is carrying.
I love the words “surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.”
I love coming back to this blog and reading all the comments and wisdom on offer. Surrender is such a unifying subject that everyone can feel the power of (when we let go of the false ‘white flag’ ideal). Truly beautiful to read everyone’s experience with letting go and feeling their bodies and expansiveness that comes with that is so inspirational.
Leonie Sharkey you have just nailed the subject of my PhD – the authority of our own body. Like you, and many others who are students of Universal Medicine, I have learned that the authority of my own body is worth surrendering too and that if we all learn to do this then life will become very different – so that’s worth studying.
That is awesome Michelle Sheldrake. I agree – there should be whole departments within Universities investigating this.
Leonie, thank you for sharing your walk and showing us how “there can be great power in surrender” not just when we walk but in everything we do.
Love you comment Brendan. You have revealed the true meaning of the word and how so many words today have the opposite ‘true’ meaning. Surrendering is very powerful.
Your extraordinary ordinary walk has redefined surrender forever for me Leonne, surrendering to the wisdom of our bodies and our divinity, our delicateness and our love. Thank you.
“I felt such a grace and lightness in my body as I walked. The surrender I had allowed in my arms radiated through my whole body and I felt incredibly aware of every movement. Each time I felt tension in my body I allowed it to release,” A beautiful sharing Leonne – thankyou. I feel myself surrendering more as I re-read your blog.
Something so simple as going for a walk can bring about so much awareness in our bodies. As you so beautifully share Leonne “I felt such a grace and lightness in my body as I walked”. To surrender to those held tensions, releases and allow our body to move in a natural flow and rhythm.
I agree with you Leonne, since I have been taking care of my body and deepening this care I have been able to feel it’s guidance much more clearly and align to my essence, love, within. Surrender now has a completely different meaning to me.
Just reading your blog and all the comments Leonne, I can feel a new level of surrender in my body. I started to become aware of how I was holding my shoulders and have gently allowed then to drop. I am more aware of how I am holding my hands and using my fingers as I type this comment. This is a reminder that surrender is a way that I can choose to live, starting with just allowing myself to be and let go of that hardness I feel in my body when I pay attention to it.
Wow, Leonne, this is really inspiring. To surrender to your divine essence means that you don’t have to struggle or fight life any more, but instead have accepted the truth of who you are and the power that can bring to the world – a very different approach and way of being.
I agree Ariana – surrendering to ourselves makes a lot of sense, considering who knows you better than you?
I find that the more I allow myself to surrender in my body, the more still my body becomes. My clarity improves my awareness deepens and I feel a deep sense of love within.
I am currently doing an Esoteric Yoga course in which the theme is surrender. Reading your blog Leonne and participating in the Yoga Course is offering me an opportunity to look at where I am not surrendering and taking letting go to a whole different level.
This is true Brendan. A giving up is what is commonly associated with surrendering. It’s strange how the association is actually opposite to the true meaning of surrendering. I too see and feel it to be me surrendering to my deep divine love within and of course it is very powerful and strong.
Who would have thought that to let go and Surrender would be the key to going deeper with yourself! It makes complete sense because the energy you are using to be or attached to what you think you need to do, be or say can’t possible support you to be who you truly are. Surrender and accept that amazing beauty that we are and that is a recipe for living in your essence. Now that is what I am talking about.
Listening to and trusting in what my body tells me instead of always comparing and calibrating myself to others has been a massive change for me. It is so amazing how much I know and feel that I simply chose to override before.
So true Ariana, surrendering to all that is inside us feels so very beautiful and powerful – very different to the feeling I get when thinking about submitting to an outside power.
This is beautiful Leonne, it felt like I was right there walking with you, and I could feel myself surrender to that same feeling of loveliness inside me as I read. Thank you 🙂
Leonne, I so loved reading this blog; it’s such a lovely gift to receive; I have read it a few times and every time your words help me let go of another layer of tension that I hold in my body. When I go walking I do remember your blog and focus on being with me, to the best of my ability and to surrender, as much as possible. Thank you for such a loving inspiration!
I have been practicing surrendering when I am listening to people. Feeling my body letting go and I feel that it supports not just me as the listener but also the person who is talking. I am finding more and more that when I surrender whilst listening then I know what to say if indeed there is anything that needs saying.
Ariana when I read your comment just now about surrendering to the innermost it made me think about myself at work last night. I was, as is often the case, having a conversation in my head about how I wanted someone to work. I stepped outside to go into the back garden and was literally hit over the head by a massive full moon. In that moment my disgruntled thoughts of co workers vanished and I felt that all I needed to do was to surrender and accept others for how they are. Unfortunately when I went back in I found myself falling back into old thought patterns. Surrender and acceptance seem to go hand in hand.
Very true Alexis, we cannot surrender (fully) unless we accept (fully) what is, and I would supplement this with ‘through understanding’. Understanding leads to acceptance and the capacity to let go, and deeply surrender. What beauty and not white flag weakness, there is in surrender.
Thank you for sharing Alexis. This is a great example of surrendering to your own loveliness and a testament to the fact that we cannot help feel the divine essence of others when we do this.
For me surrendering is letting go of the need to control and in that I am blessed and, like you ‘accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine”.
I have learnt to reconnect with my divinity and I can feel this is through surrender “Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.” I had no idea I would find this place of connection within me, I have found it through a commitment to honour how I feel, it is incredible and feeling true surrender is very freeing.
So often we have a guard up or we put on a front so when I first heard the word surrender it felt at odds with the way I had been living up until that point – surrender at that point meant giving up or being weak. But as I trusted the feeling and let go of the tension I was holding in my body, I realise surrendering to myself is full of lovliness and stillness and so worth surrendering to.
The essence of what I have received from your writing Leonne is that when we surrender the protection in our bodies, it is felt, consciously or unconsciously by others and allows us to experience the brotherhood that is our natural way.
It is amazing how powerful we really are, but not through force, through awareness and presence.
Your blog answer a question that I had, not knowingly, been asking myself, being, is my new gym program too much for my body. The answer is ‘yes, some of it is’, because I can feel tension not surrender. I will now focus on surrendering during my gym session, and seeing if I can hold a quality like the one that I feel as I read your beautiful blog.
Great point Catherine, I too am observing where in my exercise routine do i tense and what it feels like to surrender more deeply to the tenderness in my body whilst still doing movements.
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine”. Leonie, thank you for sharing how you transformed your walk from harming to healing just by surrendering. This is inspirational and something to be aware of when I go for a morning walk today.
Beautifully put Anne, this blog has shown us how surrendering can actually be a healing.
It’s true I surrender, I surrender!
But seriously it’s an enormously healing thing to do: truly deeply surrender.
I feel similar to you Ariana. For me also surrender was not what I originally that it to be. Now I realise it’s a very natural and important part of living a truly successful life.
When I truly walk, and walk in connection, I seem to notice very little but feel everything. It’s not that I’m being non observant or ignorant to what’s around me because I see it all with my eyes. I can become distracted by what’s around me if I allow what I see to catch my attention and it can take me away from me.
This is so lovely Leonne, surrender is such a powerful word, that when I have used it I too have found that it allows me to go deeper to feel more of me and to let go of the many layers of hardness I too have held within. Surrender is beautiful as it exposes how we have chosen to hold ourselves away not only from others but ourselves, and the more I bring it into my day the more open and connected I feel to myself and those around me. It is actually a most exquisite and healing way to live and be.
When I drive in my car, I often catch myself hardening my arms, to grab the steering wheel as if I have to control and keep the crazy drivers at bay. As soon as I let go and surrender to be in the traffic with my grace, my stomach and my arms relax. Feeling lovely while driving……
It is true, driving can be a challenge to surrender especially when the traffic is very busy.
Thank you, Leonnie, for this inspirational blog.
Interesting isn’t it that we choose to resist our natural way of being – especially because, as your experience shares with us Leonne, surrendering to it is a wonderful way to be. To me it reveals how much pressure there is from outside of us to ‘fit in’ with the image our societies want to present. Yet in fitting in are we all walking around with constant tension in our bodies? Something well worth pondering I feel.
We could say that fitting in is as well a form of surrender (giving in or giving up). So it is the choice and the awareness of what we surrender to that makes all the difference.
Very true comment for me also Richard, the fact that I often hold myself in protection in a situation or in relationships as a way to control the situation, so that I don’t feel something, that I don’t create such an imbalance, disharmony, and difficulty with just being in my body and then everything else. Rather than simply put surrendering to an instance and allowing for it to unfold, I know when I act that way my body is a whole lot less tense!
Power of surrendering/listening to what your body is always communicating to you and then allowing that natural rhythm to follow feels so expansive. I was surrendering into my body while reading what you have written here Leonne. Simple yet so very powerful to surrender to your self. Thank you for your sharing.
Thankyou Leonne, amazing what is revealed to us when we surrender to and feel our bodies.You have inspired me to bring this presence and focus on my walk that I am now going to embark on with full surrender, thank you.
I love this blog Leonne, to surrender to the authority of your own body is not submissive it is actually empowering. Honoring the exquisite beauty and harmony within our bodies brings us back to our divine origins. I feel like I understand this on a deeper lever since pondering on what you have written.
Very powerful indeed- I like what you mention about surrendering to your own loveliness – your own essence.
Yes Gemma it’s the surrendering to our own loveliness and essence that I can feel the power of Leonnie’s sharing. There are times when I hear the word surrender that I resist … now I know why. Somewhere in my mind I had the definition of giving up to another. Now I have a re-claiming of me when I allow myself to be with me and all my loveliness.
Beautiful words, they are so deeply healing.
Wow you make a simple walk into a magic and deeply profound opportunity for healing in this gorgeous blog. And your descriptors were spot on. I knew the place you were talking about before I even clocked that you were writing it from Melbourne. I remember those balloons hanging silent in the crisp morning sky above the city sky line. What a great blog to wake up to.
As I have been walking this week, especially while doing yard duty at school- I have been checking in to see and ask ‘am I surrendered in my body’ or am I holding any tension as I walk. I have thought of your beautiful sharing. Thank you.
Wonderful to read Johanna, I experience as well the power of reading these blogs, like this one, and then bring it into your day. It just shows how inspiring we all are and how we can learn from each others experiences.
Feeling how ‘yard duty’ becomes a ‘yard joy’ in your surrender!
Yes Ariana….I too ‘equated it as submitting myself to an outside power’..i saw it as a weakness, giving my power away…and the old use of the word as define in the dictionary is like that… BUT the true use of the word surrender – is powerful.
I loved this blog as you present surrender, it brings such a beautiful quality to the word, you bring it’s true meaning, and how powerful it is, it’s almost like surrendering to our divine essence instead of the internal fight….
Your words ‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine’. Was felt very deeply and it is exactly what i can become more in how i live – surrendering!
Surrendering to the love and delicateness that we are is powerful as it allows us to connect and listen to our bodies and also let others in full, Thank you Leonne.
Adorable blog! It is very supportive and confirming to read it Leonne:
”All the while I asked my body to surrender and with each breath I could feel it let go of another layer of hardness and protection. I was now ready to take my hands (balled into fists!!!) from my pockets and my body had warmed up enough to allow this without interrupting my ability to surrender to me.”
No matter the specific context, weather or situation, what you beautifuly described as ‘surrender’, can be applied at any moment or situation in life, surrendering to our Love within that is warm and letting go of the cold hardness and the protection….
As you say, very ”still and supportive” in order to walk through life and constellate different things around. Thank you for sharing it.
Very True Luz, true surrender is a way of living. Absolute and ever evolving.
Great blog Leone, true surrender to what we truly are is very powerful, it supports our connection and there is no need to prove anything.
Wise words Benkt; ‘ true surrender to what we truly are is very powerful, it supports our connection and there is no need to prove anything’.
True Benkt. If I remind myself there is no need to prove anything my whole body lets go.
Great blog Leonne. As I was reading this I became aware of my tension and started allowing myself to surrender. It felt so good! An ease came about and my whole body relaxed with a simple yes. I think your on to something with this one..
Same for me Emily.
To read about surrendering in this true way I was connecting to it again and my body respond immediately. This is the power of reflection.
So beautifully written & described thank you Leone for your touching article here… I felt like I surrendered as I read it
Yes Leah, ‘i felt like i surrendered as i read it’….I also felt that and the deep yearning to keep surrendering to the divinity within me…it does not feel you do it once and that’s it, it becomes a way of life…and it deepens and deepens..and expands where more and more is felt within….
Great point Karoline, I am learning that it is never a ‘once off’ affair in surrendering to my body and being, it is not something that I can box tick and be done with – as you beautifully say ‘it becomes a way of life…and it deepens and deepens..and expands where more and more is felt within….’
What a beautiful relating of your experience Leonne. What strikes me the most, is that it was your commitment to listening to your body, and staying with you, that allowed the surrender to deepen. There is no abandoning of self, nor giving away of one’s ‘power’ in true surrender – only an expansion of all that we naturally are, as it is allowed to just be.
As I go to walk a few steps now, I will most surely be deeply with me, inspired by your words. Thank-you.
Yes Victoria, surrendering used to mean me giving away myself or my power to another. That is totally different to the surrender I now feel when I surrender to myself. In that letting go, I feel more of myself and more connected. It is a very powerful thing to allow and is well worth practicing.
It’s so important to debase the false meaning of ‘surrender’, isn’t it Debra… Just re-reading this now, I can see also how this applies to the relationships we have in our life, and what a learning ground about true surrender our relationships actually are.
We’ve been laden with so many ideals of what surrender means in a relationship, when in truth our learning and true growth here, is about surrendering to all that we truly are. There is no giving away of one’s self in letting another in, in full – but my, how we protect and shield ourselves as if there were…
Great point Victoria an Debra, it is all about surrendering to ouselves, e.g. listening to our body and stay with it. No outer movement at all.
I totally agree Debra, surrender is very powerful and the deeper the connection to within the more love I feel and then live from this.
I love your blog Leonne, your beauty and grace must have been apparent to all as you surrendered to it yourself. Sitting in my chair reading your blog, I could feel my body surrendering, it felt very loving. Thank you.
I can too feel the grace of her walk through her writing. I imagine that it caused a stilling feeling around her.
Beautiful to read your blog again Leonne and to be able to feel my body surrendering as I read your beautiful words. A wonderful and inspiring way to begin my day.
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.” This is huge. I feel I could re-read this sentence all day and in that I know I would be supported completely. Thanks Leonne.
There is not an ounce of weakness nor defeat in the delicate act of true surrender. Thank you Leonne for painting such an accurate and beautiful portrait of this power reclaimed.
Leonne your sharing on the power of true surrender debunks the myth that I and I am sure many others had that to surrender is to stop or give up in some way. In recent years I came to deepen my understanding of surrender and its a great reminder that you can be surrendered in everything you do.
‘Fitting in was not worth sacrificing the beauty of my walk and the easy grace in my body.’ This sentence really makes me stop and reflect on how much I compromise my quality of being to ‘fit in’ with others and will serve as a focus for today to be about my quality.Thank you.
This constant way of living that you share Leonne of connecting to your body and letting go of the tension and surrendering to our natural state of being is seriously inspiring. When we check-in and see how we are holding ourselves it is and interesting stop, connect and feel process that is vital in connecting to the true you.
“Fitting in was not worth sacrificing the beauty of my walk and the easy grace in my body.”
Nothing is worth sacrificing my inner essence.
What a powerful reminder, that just came to me at the right time.
Thank you Leonne.
Each and every day there is so much to appreciate for our bodies, it reflects to us all truth–and would never let us get away with feeling the love-liness that we are!
“For most people, surrender meant admitting defeat and handing yourself over to another “ I used to have such a relationship with the word ‘surrender and found it difficult to even consider going there. I have now started to introduce it into my life, and although I have a long way to go those tender and delicate moments are increasing. Cjames2012 says it well when he describes it as “letting go of the parts of us that are holding on, in fact holding us to ransom“. This is how my unfolding with surrender has felt like.
Leonne, this is beautiful sharing: thank you. I love the wisdom in your calling out of what is NOT true surrender, with all its false defeatist associations; and then how your simple act of responding to your body’s need for warmth allowed your gorgeous experience to unfold naturally and instantly. How powerful is that.
As you say, ” How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?”
Hence, disregard, anger, frustration, all of those emotions bar the way to us all experiencing the truth of our divinity because they are barriers to such a surrender.
This was great to read again. Whilst reading the comments, and allowing a moment of surrendering to my body and not giving the authority to my mind, the self-critique and busyness of my mind stopped.
Beautifully expressed, Leonne. I felt my arms releasing as I read this and I see that my body naturally lets go if I can allow myself to be with my body with whatever I may be doing. This is new to me as I always used to drum up a certain tension in my body to ‘get things done’ but then I would leave ‘my own loveliness’. Surrender is, as you say, ‘my natural way of being’ and then the authority of the body guides me as to what needs doing and everything does flow more easily and harmoniously, just as it did for you on the bike path.
I love how you said this Leonne – “This extraordinary ordinary walk left me in no doubt of the power of true surrender. I could feel that this surrender is not a giving up or a giving away.” I really get how powerful surrender in this way is, surrendering to what we know in our body to be true.
Thank you for sharing your experience of surrendering during your walk Leonne. I love the connection you have to your body and those around you as you walk. It is inspiring.
Thank you Leonne for sharing the impact we have when we walk in connection with ourselves and surrendered to our bodies.
It’s interesting how we ‘fight’ what our bodies are telling us so as to fit in or conform. I know for me, if I am cold, my body hardens and braces against the cold so it’s super important that I am warm, otherwise surrendering in my body isn’t possible as I feel a holding tension against the cold.
Leonne thank you for such a powerful and lovingly supportive truth: ‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine’. Hear hear to living every moment in surrender.
It was a beautiful blog to read, Leonne. I am just about to go for a walk and I feel inspired to surrender more deeply as I move. Thanks for sharing.
there is no part of us worth sacrificing ever.
A very good point Gyl – never should we sacrifice our own health or well-being because we are trying to please others or keep up with the ‘rat race’ of life. By surrendering to ourselves we develop a completely different relationship with ourselves.
I love this line Leonne: “Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.” I find too when I act on my awareness as you say, like having a rest when I feel to instead of pushing through, I can feel how beautiful I am so much more easily. And that is in the end all I truly want.
Hi Leonne, As I read your blog I could feel myself surrendering within my body, truly beautiful and now I’m off for a walk with me! Thank you
“Fitting in was not worth sacrificing ….” How true is this, fitting in is not worth sacrificing anything for, be it the beauty in our walk, the grace in our body, the love in our hearts, the truth that we are and bring, the power that is inside us all – being A Son of God.
This blog is so inspiring that I just had to do a second post. I thought of you today Leonne when I was out walking in my feather puffer jacket all rugged up. I found that the more I settled into my own rhythm, letting my body relax the more I began to understand that I can let my body release and let go like this throughout my whole day, just by being very present and in my rhythm, the same way I did in my walk! Thanks for the inspiration!
Gorgeous Danielle, ‘I found that the more I settled into my own rhythm, letting my body relax the more I began to understand that I can let my body release and let go like this throughout my whole day’, I’m checking in with my body a lot more in my day now, letting my shoulders drop and my body surrender, noticing more how Im walking, sitting, talking.
I know it’s so great to bring this into every part of our day!
There are times when we will not fully surrender, as we are afraid of showing our truth. Why are we afraid to show who we really are in this life. There is nothing to hide.
But lots to show in love, harmony and truth.
Gorgeous Leonne. The true meaning of surrender has become one of my favourite words when it comes to loving myself, and is key to the stillness I am able to experience when I do allow myself to surrender. For me there is always a deeper level that I can surrender to – and sharing your story about your walk offers a deep healing, and I will certainly be feeling it on my walk in the morning. Thank you.
It’s amazing to read how just by surrendering your body on your walk, you got the reflection back to you of your great choice.Very powerful indeed. A great reminder to be more aware of reflections in daily everyday life, like going for a walk. A great learning, thank you Leonne.
The aaahh ha moment you experienced Leonne is so significant as you say. When you look back on it and see that we are resisting our natural divine, harmonious way of being. To surrender to this is simple as we don’t have to do anything just let go of what is not us. The body I too have found is the best place to really feel what this hardness, tightness and tension does to me and then the choices and thoughts that I have from here. Surrendering always creates space and clarity along with power. I know which one I prefer.
It seems that most things in this world are designed for ‘anti-surrender’. I mean from the moment you switch the TV or radio on, read a magazine, use your laptop or mobile phone or buy something at a shop there’s usually this tension in the air to go, go, go, quick, next, hurry up, don’t be late, move it, there might not be enough if I don’t get there in time, and so on…
Yet to surrender as you describe it Leonne says no to all of these daily impositions – and I think here you have actually touched on one of the most precious things we can ever do for ourselves and another – let go and surrender to something grand but that lives naturally within… incredible really.
Great comment and great observation Dean. Yes, the world is so full of motion and stimulation – so many people are in frantic non-stop mode. Sometimes I feel the irony of this is that we are so caught up in our search for that ‘preciousness’ that we miss the fact that we already have it within.
I like what you shared about needing to fit in. It is amazing how strong this affects us with even the smallest of decisions if we are not aware of it – even something as simple as wearing a warm top can be a decision that is tainted by our want to need to be accepted.
I agree Adam. It never ceases to amaze me how scantily dressed a LOT of people are on very cold days and nights. I know for a fact that they aren’t always warm and they DO feel the cold, along with everyone else, as they complain about being cold, and yet this pattern gets repeated over and over again.
Beautifully expressed Leonne, that there is power and divine authority in surrendering to one’s inner knowing.
Surrender is something we forget how to do but is a practice that is truly self healing. Something that I am relearning; to trust and let go, to the divinity that is and always has been there.
Great comment you make Leonne about the “fitting in” and I can relate to that as I have in the past felt a bit odd when the sun is shining first thing and its cold so for me that means wrap up and stick my gloves on. I can recall a lady questioning me and I just said I feel the cold and she admitted she also does too. Why is it that we tend to go with the trend and not really tune in and check in to what our body wants in that moment – like wearing an extra layer as you feel the cold?
Could it be possible that you feel more because you are more connected to your body?
Could it be possible that you feel the cold more as you are more aware now than before?
In my case the answer is Yes to the above. I am no longer dis-connected and numb shivering and looking at my blotchy pale fingers. I laugh at myself taking a thin pair of gloves to work in the summer as its still a bit fresh and cold for me in the mornings. Acting super cool and going without socks or tights just to look the part is no longer me. I would rather have the inner yummy joy I feel instead of the hardness I feel in my body when I am cold.
Knowing what surrender really means has been so empowering. Just listening or reading the word surrender and my body drops and I release what ever tension I am holding onto. Every day I am learning to surrender knowing that it does not mean weak or dis-empowering …it is actually a very powerful and loving way of being.
“Fitting in was not worth sacrificing the beauty of my walk and the easy grace in my body.” This is so beautiful Leonne. Surrendering to who we truly are – our natural way of being – makes so much sense. I feel amazing when I do.
This is beautiful Leonne and is such a gift to share the real meaning of surrendering that we can all feel and know inside as where we lovingly can choose to live from and the divineness that we are. Thank you.
“How amazing life can be If I stop resisting my natural way of being” It is so lovely to trust/surrender to what our bodies constantly reveal to us. A beautiful sharing to read first thing this morning before I go for my daily walk – thank you Leonne.
I enjoyed reading your blog Leonne, as I read through I felt myself surrender deeper into my body with you. It is so simple, yet profound how we can make changes by having the awareness to be in union with our bodies and let go. I know what you mean about clenching fists, I find myself doing this too when I feel anxious, and letting go of this means letting go of the hardness and sinking deeper and deeper into myself.
You were indeed in union with your body so therefore were you not in the Yoga of Walking? (yoga meaning union).
This is powerful because of how simple true surrender is. This can definitely be felt in the gorgeous way you present your experience Leonne.
It sure can and in many ways it is really that simple. Working on deepening this and seeing where it can be taken deeper it a great exercise also.
What a great additional definition for surrender. It is such a simple way to come back to us and shine for all to see.
While reading your experience with surrendering Leonne, I could feel all the parts of my body that are hard and any tight and started allowing myself to surrender. It just shows how powerful it is when even one person shows another way.
I agree with your words Aimee – “It just shows how powerful it is when even one person shows another way.” – and that is what I initially found when I met Serge Benhayon – he showed me that there is another way, and we do not need to continue to choose the way that we have initially been travelling – that seems to be ‘the way it is’ – great title for a book that!!
I can agree with that Aimee. I too could feel the surrendering in my body while reading this blog. It is a great gift to each other to share our experiences in our lives.
Beautiful, beautiful blog Leonne. It’s a timely blog for me to read as I have felt this tension in my arms and even my entire body due to increased work load and responsibilities. Your blog is extremely inspiring and awesome reminder for me to surrender and listen to my body. Thankyou.
Hi Leonne, for me walking has always been a meditation, a letting go and allowing my body to return to its natural rhythm. I like the beach, especially when there is space between the people, then my dog follows just behind me and on the side away from the sea and allows me to be and I am in flow.
lovely to read about a whole new take on the word surrender… Turning the whole word around so that it is in essence of letting go into oneself… Surrendering all letting go of the parts of us that are holding on, in fact holding us to ransom… Surrendering into trust, out of suspicion and hardness, surrendering the separation and feeling the ones, surrendering the what is not for the what is… Is a great word and a great experience
Leonie you have given us a gentle reminder of the power of surrendering and the authority this delivers … I love it and I will be embodying this on my walk this morning
I love this Leonne – thank you for sharing your experience of how “surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness”, this is amazing – it is then actually an empowering experience instead of a giving up. I read another blog today about how the word delicateness had similarly been misrepresented, it is so interesting to see how the true meaning of words, which empower us, are changed to favour a dis-empowering version which is in no way similar
Jessica I agree. I am amazed at how many words I’ve misinterpreted and through these blogs am coming to an awareness of what they feel in reality to live. I’m discovering the issues I thought I had with these words were actually issues I had with their mis-interpretations. I am now much more open to discovering and experiencing their true meanings.
It is not just interesting Jessica how words have been misrepresented like tenderess, preciousness and fragility, it is absolutely fascinating to see how we have deliberately set it up so we reject these words as signs of weakness and vulnerability to be avoided at all costs! We definitely need to reclaim the real meaning of words and live them again!
So True Vanessa, I grew up thinking that tenderness and fragility were a sign of weakness for a man so I went out of my way to reject that within myself, I had to push myself to the limit to prove that I was tough and could handle anything ! This has changed over the last few years since I met Serge Benhayon as I can feel how powerful it is for me as man to embrace my own tenderness and delicateness so innate within me and how this allows other men to do the same by way of reflection.
Jessica I have found new freedom and joy in reclaiming the true meaning of words like delicateness, fragility, surrender, preciousness, loveliness. Surrendering to the quality each brings, rather than resisting or condemning has opened up a whole new way of being.
Very true Jessica. When we reconnect with the true essence of a word it is very revealing. Very often they have a deeper, more truthful root than we have come to know. Language has a richness that is joy to rediscover.
I loved reading your article. As you described the steps of you noticing the tenseness in your body and choosing to surrender further and further to yourself, I found myself also noticing my own body more, surrendering and the tenseness turning more and more to tenderness. Quite exquisite. I completely understand how you noticed a change in the cyclists and others around you when you chose a deeper surrender. Just like I could feel my body respond by reading what you wrote, they must have also felt it by you just walking on the same path.
Amazing Golnaz – I am reading your beautiful comment on the train and feel my body surrender in turn as I read. Surrender is contagious.
Yes, Golnaz. I felt the same reading Leonne’s piece here – beautiful… And what a powerful reflection of the activity around her changing as she did – as though Leonne was a part of nature that called everyone to be more still…
Thank you, Leonne. True surrender is one of the most empowering and amazing things you can do for the body, very humbling too.
Yes, I have experienced this but sometimes lose my connect to allow myself to surrender. I love these gentle and loving reminders.
I agree Ben. An aspect that I find at times makes true surrendering challenging and difficult to accept is that it requires acknowledging and taking responsibility for where I am in the present moment. In that moment it may require accepting full responsibility for the choices I have made that have resulted in consequences that are unpleasant. However, through the surrendering to the truth and accepting responsibility one can deal with consequences and move. That is humbling but empowering too.
“surrender is not a giving up or a giving away”….just to surrender to what is naturally there, loving and patiently waiting for us all the time. Our loveliness and our divinity.
Beautifully said Sarah. Through Universal Medicine I’ve learnt that Divinity is not something we must obtain or go to, it is here with us all along.
Beautiful Leonne, I am learning to surrender more and more to love and all the divinity that surrounds us at all times, it is profound when I do!
I agree Vanessa. The moments when I do manage to surrender are absolutely beautiful and profound.
‘Walking me’ is such a lovely way to describe and feel an activity we often undertake in a very pedestrian (pun intended!) way. No longer does it connote just ‘getting from A to B’ but the gorgeous connection we can have with ourselves while we walk. When I ‘walk me’ I feel yummy rather than simply efficient.
The tension you describe, Leonne, that arose from trying to fit in is a great thing to share.
The way our bodies are constantly communicating with us is so amazing and beautiful. We just have to make the space and connection to hear.
‘It was as though the path had become sacred and there was a trust and a knowing between us that transcended the need to yell or ‘ding’ a bell.’ I love this observation Leonne – there’s a recipe for the whole of life here. It illustrates just how easy and fluid things can become if we just let go.
I love the way you have described the act of surrender as a choice Leonne. A simple choice to let go to yourself.
“It was as though the path had become sacred and there was a trust and a knowing between us that transcended the need to yell or ‘ding’ a bell”.
This is the true power when we are willing to let our bodies tell us what it wants rather than using our heads to think. Inspiring blog Leonne, thank you.
Simple yet profound sharing Leonne. Why do we resist ourselves so? I know I still struggle with this one. I have realised that by simply bringing awareness to the fact that I’m in resistance is really powerful and enough to change my energy and therefore my stance. It’s a constant unfolding and a letting go of what stands in the way of our divinity.
‘bringing awareness to the fact that I’m in resistance is really powerful and enough to change my energy’ – thank you Katechorley for the reminder to feel the resistance. I often feel as though I get stuck with surrendering, so this will be useful to try.
Yes Julie, I have found its just about being open to feeling and observing without judgement.
Beautiful Leonne. What a lovely blog to read and a great way to feel what surrendering truly is. I can so relate and have to felt when you surrender to that still place inside you that it offers that same grace for others around you – that is power. Also, proves the fact how much all our choices effect each other.
And the choice to surrender to the love we are is one of the greatest gifts we can give to ourselves and to all others around us. Just surrendering to the full tenderness, still place inside me makes me feel so at home, appreciated and equal to all others that I cannot be anything else but joyful – and playful about it. Being there I feel that life is about expression and evolving and nothing else.
I agree Sue,and just to add – surrendering allows us to be really with ourselves and solid in our body. It allows us to be more of who we truly are.
I was with you on the walk as I read the blog. It feels that there is much power and claiming of who we are when we surrender. Its not hard but all it takes is for us to stop and feel how we are in our bodies in the moment as you beautifully described in your blog! Thank you Leonne.
Beautiful Leonne; even as I read this and feel myself surrender I too can feel life around me being also affected as happened with you on your walk. So not only does it make us feel incredible to surrender but the effect on life around us is quite miraculous and worth considering and taking responsibility for. Thank you Leonne – I shall surrender nicely to sleep now.
Thank you Leonne, this is incredible, and a warm feeling has opened up in my chest. “How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?”… Surrendering to surrender, what a powerful thing.
Yes Ariannekasi, What exactly are we ‘fighting’ when we don’t surrender to our own bodies?
I love it Leonne, you’ve inspired me for my walk tomorrow… thanks 😉
I loved reading this inspiring blog giving me a clearer picture on what it means to surrender in my every day life.
It was lovely to read and really feel the depth of your new found understanding of the word surrender. Nothing to do with the Oxford Dictionary definition but something you can feel in your heart.
This is such a beautifully simple and practical example of how we can surrender Leonne. Having been asked to surrender by many a therapist and body worker, I never could understand what surrender meant, I used to ask “to what?” and “to whom?” and come away puzzled. Now, having listened to Serge Benhayon and worked with Universal Medicine Practitioners I understand that I surrender my body to me and my fiery essence within. In that deep connection I can let go of protection and hardness and my body and all around me becomes alive.
Yes, we are units of expression and when we express in full our surroundings change dramatically. Well put, Leonne.
Leonne, I felt every step you took and as I was reading I felt my body start to surrender. How wonderful is it when you feel it in your body and are able to express it so lovingly and simply, and that this allows another person to pick up on your energy and have the same expression in their body.
A great turnaround from unzipping your jacket because nobody else was dressed warmly to aligning with how it really felt from the body and surrendering to that – and everything else around then graciously aligned, even the dings via their absence.
Yes Gabriele, it is amazing when we align to what we are truly feeling and surrender to what the body needs, how it is confirmed by what aligns around us – in this case the dings. Walking in the field of God 🙂
That is fantasticly summed up Gabriele Conrad. That to me is true power.
It is interesting that the word ‘surrender’ to most people, currently, would imply the notion of giving in, handing yourself over …… when in fact it is the exact opposite. To surrender to yourself is immensely powerful. You are not handing yourself over, but choosing to allow yourself to be yourself in full. In so doing you are actually claiming yourself, there is no weakness here, you are a ‘beautiful’ force to be reckoned with.
Well said, Alison. By surrendering more deeply into ourselves we are in fact claiming ourselves back.
That is exactly what I feel too Alison. It is so powerful to surrender to all of yourself.
Dear Leonne thank You for sharing this with us. It inspired me to chose today for me to truly surrender to the authority of my body.
Surrendering to your devine essence is evolutionary and what we are all here to do. Thankyou Leonne for illustrating the amazingness of surrendering to the natural impulse of the soul
Surrender is amazing and nothing like the dictionary meaning, in fact it very well could be the exact opposite! I have been working with the true energy of surrendering and I agree with you Leonne, it “…begins when I accept my own loveliness…” and sink deeper into who I am. That is the surrender. Sinking deeper into who we naturally are, into the Love, into the Joy and into the known Truth that lives within.
This has been an inspiring read for me this morning Leonne – thank you. A beautifully simple example of how I can develop more moments of surrender in my day and the power this brings.
Beautiful blog which left me surrender more and more as I read through it. What says it all for me is: “Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.” Great inspiration, – thank you.
Reading your blog again whilst sitting on a busy ferry I’m inspired to surrender and just be still amidst all the movement and noises and feel the loveliness within me. I am getting a lot of smiles and looks from people passing by. Writing that, I realise that this stillness is known in all of us and even though not all people know what they recognise there is mostly a positive response from within.
Yes, I’ve noticed this happening too Carolien whenever I really connect with people – others feel it too and can’t help but look. Many smile, others do not, perhaps feeling challenged by what they feel and see. And that’s OK too!
That is so cool Carolien. It is amazing to feel the ripple effects of the choice to surrender across the globe!
A lovely example Leonne of taking care of ourselves even when the result is that we feel we don’t fit in. And your surrender changed the energy of the track, so the people you felt were going to judge you actually got a blessing. Just beautiful.
I love both your points here Rebecca. Thank you for highlighting them.
So beautifully said Rebecca. We have the potential to be that blessing every moment of every day. How cool is that! I’ll remind myself of that when I find it difficult to get out of bed in the morning 🙂
This is a powerful comment Rebecca. I have recently experienced ‘not fitting in’ because I felt to speak up about what could be seen as a sensitive subject and I knew when I did it was the ‘unpopular’ thing to do, but geez my body told me it was the right decision. I didn’t realise until afterwards how I was carrying a heaviness in my body by not speaking up so when I did I no longer had to hold onto this experience/information. It is very freeing to ‘not fit in’ and to honour ourselves so deeply.
Yes I agree Rebecca, what Leonne presented on how looking after our bodies is actually more important than fitting in, is incredible.
Your story just goes to show that listening to yourself is the most powerful tool we have.
Absolutely Rebecca.
Agree Rebecca, everything is already within us, it is just a matter of ‘surrendering’. : )
Absolutely, well said Rebecca. No words to add to that!
This shows me the misuse of words 🙂
It is very clear that we allow a definition to set what we think a word means rather than feel what it truly could mean.
Yes I certainly saw surrender as a weakness – and not a letting go of who I was not.
So lovely to read this again Leonne. This time the sentence ‘How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?’ really stands out for me as I realise just how exhausted I am from resisting my own natural way of being. How beautiful to take this opportunity to surrender out into my morning walk and into my day.
Me too. The phrase ‘the authority of my own body’ is a corker. I’d never linked the two concepts (‘authority’ and ‘body’) in quite this way before. Revelatory Leonne, thank you.
I agree jane176, resistance is a killer and creates such exhaustion. When it is put like this it makes me wonder what the point of resistance really is???
jane176 I am looking forward to finding out the answer to that question!
Thank you Leonie, reading your blog has made me connect more to the word ‘surrender’ and what this actually means and feels like. What a great word … saying it, simply makes me relax my shoulders and come more deeply onto my body, into feeling a presence of myself. What a great word to assist in letting go of tension and to reconnect.
Gorgeous Leonne, ‘All the while I asked my body to surrender and with each breath I could feel it let go of another layer of hardness and protection’, it is great to feel how simple it can be to surrender and let go of the hardness and tension, it is simply a choice, I also can feel how powerful the word surrender is in its true meaning.
The word surrender was almost a ‘rude’ word in my vocablary in the past, it had connotations of giving. up power, looking weak, not sticking up for myself….I felt I would notsurrender to anything….However I have found a meaning of the word surrender that feels more true and I can relate to it deeply through connecting with it and my body “Surrender begins when you accept your loveliness” There is deep power found and lived when we conect with our ‘loveliness’.
‘The word surrender was almost a ‘rude’ word in my vocablary in the past,’ Well said Samantha, for me in the past it was too, I saw it as weakness, being defeated. Nowadays, having felt the power of it, I strive more and more to surrender to myself and stop the fight and struggle.
I agree that often we think of surrender as losing something but if we surrender to our own divinity we are gaining much more than we would ever lose.
So true Andrew. Just the word surrender is so inviting, asking us to let go of a way of being and living that is limiting us in some way.
Hi Vicky and Andrew, my opinion is I am surrendering to my own body, letting it take over and walk it’s self with the mind in stillness. Ahhhh!
I think that, that is a great way of putting it Andrew! What we are actually yielding to is our inner-selves, not some conquering tyrant.
This is very true Andrew. The more we surrender to what we are, the less we will have to be what we are not. Otherwise stated as: the more we surrender what we are not, the more we are left to be what we are.
This is beautiful Leonne. I chose to read this blog because of the title and wondering if it may help me with where I’m at right now. I’m feeling very resistant to surrendering to the exhaustion that I’m feeling at the moment as well as feeling very frustrated and wanting to “get on with life” however my body is saying otherwise. So in reading your words I’m allowing the tension and the expectation to drift away.
I understand what you’re saying here Deborah, about ‘wanting to “get on with life”’ despite what my body might be telling me. Learning to go gently is the way and I know I need to also surrender to this truth and the truth of my body… despite being aware of all there is to do – not for me, but for humanity. I find that a struggle.
I love what you both have shared here, Deborah and Victoria. The age old struggle with time and the illusion of ‘getting on with it’. Bringing the gorgeousness of surrender into the equation allows us to feel the natural flow of life (and ourselves within life), how all tasks have their time as well as their own unfolding and rhythm. I have come to realise that by choosing to surrender more and more deeply, all has already been divinely calculated so there is no need to ‘work things out’ or ‘get on with it’ as it is as simple as me committing to the natural flow I feel from within.
This is interesting to read Deborah, ‘I’m feeling very resistant to surrendering to the exhaustion that I’m feeling at the moment’, it makes me aware that I can also resist surrendering to the tiredness I feel sometimes, I convince myself I shouldn’t be feeling tired and so I override it and carry on.
I too Deborah am also very attracted to reading a blog on the word surrender, for I know that being able to do this will allow me to live with less tension and more energy. Surrender most definitely isn’t a giving up but actually an allowing for more to come, more of life to be lived and enjoyed. I am finding that practising surrender in the evening is necessary to allow me to sleep more deeply, something that has a huge knock on effect on the day that follows.
Thank you, Leonne – “I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.” These are true words to live by.
Well noted Janetwilliams06. Surrender – body – divinity. Now there’s a true holy trinity.
Beautifully said and a gorgeous reminder to Surrender to my body when i walk.
Hear hear Angelo, I agree – Leonne’s blog really presents a gentle reminder to surrender to the body, and not be influenced or affected by what is going on around it at any given moment.
I have not felt to ask my body to surrender in my walk before, however I am so inspired to do this when next I walk. I can feel how my body tenses up during my walk if I let my mind lead the way.This article reminds me to stay close to my body as I walk, and feel each part of it, honoring it and letting go…and this in turn will enable me to let go of the worry thoughts that can often plague my precious walk time.
Thank you Leonne.
I am going to try this tomorrow when I walk too Irena… I found myself leaning forward today when I was walking, like being pushed from behind to keep going. I can feel how much surrendering would change this and then allow myself to feel what is really going on.
Rereading your blog this morning Leonne and all the beautiful comments I am appreciating a deeper level of surrendering in my body and it feels so gorgeous. I was struck by how your surrendering to yourself allowed you to be there on the busy path with an openness between you and others that needed no external confirmation ‘It was as though the path had become sacred and there was a trust and a knowing between us that transcended the need to yell or ‘ding’ a bell.’
Yes Helen this experience left me awestruck and was truly magical. There is a great lesson in this.
So very simply expressed: listen to your body and do what it tells. Respect, honour and love it as it knows what you may strip away with your head. Continuing this consistently means surrendering to you and this opens up a really magical but natural world where you live with the nature and all around you.
The word surrender can have connotations, one being of weakness, but what you have described here is one of power, strength and freedom. Surrender in the true sense.
Absolutely Michelle another example of how we have grown up with a bastardised version of the word when as Leonne has shared in Surrender can be power and true strength.
That is so true, thank you for the beautiful summary: surrender as power, strength and freedom. The real thing.
Absolutely, Michelle. True surrender is a far far cry from the idea of giving up. It is submission, but to yourself. It is the ultimate form of allowing your power, strength and freedom to be felt by you first, so that it may then be felt by others.
So true Michelle, the word surrender is often associated with weakness, it feels so good to shake this off and claim the true power, strength, freedom and (one more to add) ‘trust’ that this word truly holds.
Isn’t it interesting, Michelle, that a word that has the power to open us up to who we truly are, should have ended up as being defined as weakness? I have just been considering the word “vulnerability” as being in the same misconstrued position also. When, why and how did these false misconstructions and misleading definitions of such powerful words arise and from whom?
I loved re-reading this again Leonne and it is a great reminder to surrender any hardness that may come in during the day. Very inspiring.
Thank you Leonne for sharing your walk. The beauty of surrendering and letting go of the tension in my body so that I can feel the tender me has given me a deep understanding of the meaning of surrender.
Yes Mary, me too. Not so long ago the word surrender would conjure up, as Leonne said, white flags and battlefields, but today the word means something totally different for me. It has such an allowing effect within my body and brings about a ceasefire of the battle I have started on my own accord.
So well said, lizkhalu, that the battle we cease in surrendering, is the one we started by ourselves. Truly awesome: thank you!
Thank you Leonne for this. While reading, I was with you on your walk and it felt lovely to do this. It is amazing to connect to the potential we all have within, just through surrender.
It is beautiful to realise that my learned or perceived knowledge can give way to an inner knowing that naturally feels what is wise for the body and if I surrender to that wisdom I am then in tune with my own rhythm and the rhythms around me.
Thanks for the free healing session Leonne while surrendering into my body as I read your post. It feels very loving to release tension that I didn’t realise I was holding.
Note to self: Bring surrender into my daily routine.
A great reminder that I can surrender in every moment Rod. Thank you.
Totally rodharvey, I felt the surrender in my own body also as I was reading Leonne’s words. I notice how easy it can be to surrender when in the presence of another’s surrender and as I pass people on my walk in the morning I feel the light-ening up from their bodies as they respond to my presence and allow themselves to let go of the tension also.
Leonne, on reading your beautiful blog I feel inspired to give my local walking/cyclist track another go. I found in reading your article, so beautifully expressed that It seems that I had allowed the harshness of what I was feeling around my body a while back to dictate a reaction to ‘not go that path again’ during those ‘popular’ times – however, I can see on reflection I was in resistance to all that was occurring instead of surrendering to the beauty of the elements of nature and the natural love within me. So thank you.
Leonne, I love what you have shared about surrender. What I have noticed for myself is that when I surrender I only go so far. I won’t allow myself to really let go and feel the absolute beauty of me that I know is there to feel. Not necessarily because of what I will find, but because I have to feel all that I have chosen to delay me from connecting to the absolute divinity within myself.
It is also hard to admit that we have missed being with and living from the depth of who we are. Instead we have kept ourselves separate from what is always there – willing and available – anytime we choose it.
Wow Jennifer, I love what you have shared here and I too can relate. I only feel that I have begun to touch the surface of what truly surrendering is. I have moments of experiencing it but there is a whole lot more that I could bring into my day to day life. A sign that I often feel in my body when I know I am far from surrendering is when I feel tension in my forearms.
It feels to me that you know that you know that surrendering to you means feeling exactly how incredible and powerful you are Jennifer. Is it possible you are actually avoiding full surrender because of the responsibility this awareness brings? I know this is certainly something that comes up for me.
Awesome observation, Jennifer. Within myself, I have, at times, felt a fear around surrendering completely which made no sense until I connected with a sense of suppression around being a woman. I felt that stemmed from my own disregard earlier in this life, but also from the accumulation of heavy sexual energies and aggressive energies out there in the world. I’m working on discarding the effects of both so that I can truly surrender without fear and then live life purely observing and not absorbing what is harmful to us all.
This is amazing Leonne. This shows the true ripple effect that we can have.
Whether a cold morning, a stormy sea, or a violent storm my tendency is to battle it out, hunker down but never surrender. Yet I can see the absolute strength in this approach – to allow what is going on around us no matter what, but respect ourselves in what ever way we can in that moment… to ‘zip our jacket up’. In that we do not shut ourselves off and can learn to appreciate beauty in every situation.
Leonne I love how the true surrender you descibe here is actually to the innate wisdom we each have within our own bodies and not instead giving power away to an outside ‘authority’.
This is beautiful Leonne to surrender to your amazing self and the effects this has on people around you. I became aware of this through Esoteric Yoga where I could feel how tight, tense and hard my body was and when I let go/surrendered there was the gorgeous stillness underneath. Being aware of how we are holding our bodies is the key to returning to our natural selves.
And it takes SO SO SO much energy to hold ourselves in resistance state. I know because I do it daily with so much protection (well much less these days but still very present). There is such simplicity when I surrender and allow myself to feel my loveliness and stillness. Which is always there waiting.I love that. But it is a work in progress for sure.
I have been playing around with the concept of surrendering for quite awhile now and it feels great when I do. Throughout my day, I will stop and feel if I am holding my shoulders or my fists.. they are my tell tale areas and usually reveal a lot. I simply either open my fists or just move my shoulders a bit and bring my awareness there and more often than not, there is tension, but I am now able to let it go quite quickly once I am aware that I am the one actually creating and holding it.
Great words Jinya, same for me, surrendering is also about letting go and letting in. Taking away all these protections we have and to just go out in the world unguarded.
Love what you share Rosie, shoulders and fists. They are great markers during the day. Sometimes I notice that my shoulders are quite ‘up’ or that one of my hands is completely closed when I walk. Wonderful to be aware of that, and to just make the choice in that moment to let go…..and surrender.
I have also struggled with the word ‘surrendering’ for a long time, thinking it was something I had ‘to do’ or ‘make an effort’. Nowadays I am experiencing that surrendering has no doing in it. It is actually realizing that there is not much to do, but to actually be in every moment.
Surrendering to myself allows me to feel that deep inside of me there is stillness and joy. This feels so much more natural than the hustle and bustle our modern lives are so often about.
“Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness, and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.” How beautiful it is to truly surrender.
Leonne, I really enjoyed your description of your walk before, during and after letting go to the naturalness and rhythm of your walk. ‘Surrender’ is well re-defined here and, as you illustrated, it is a beautifully healing state to choose.
Leonne – I am enjoying the most amazing walk ‘with you’ as I read this blog – what an inspiration you bring with this writing. I love how the path felt it became sacred as you surrendered deeper unto yourself.
“This extraordinary ordinary walk left me in no doubt of the power of true surrender. I could feel that this surrender is not a giving up or a giving away. I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body”.
Lovely to read this Leonne. I was struck by the immense power of your words here… as I read how you surrendered to your own loveliness, I too became aware of a tension I was holding in my arms and could let it go. Amazing. Great to also be reminded of the immense power of reflection. When in a situation of tension, to always bring it back to my own connection first. Thank you.
Amazing Leonne, how you have redefined the word surrender. Interesting too, as just the other day while on my daily walk I noticed how much tightness I had in my forearms after a challenging day, and when I allowed myself to relax them more and more, it actually changed my stride and I felt more of a flow in my step. There is a real power in surrendering because it brings us all back to our true selves and away from an emotional roller-coaster of existence.
Beautiful description of true surrender Leonne. It is great to be reminded that something so simple can be so powerful. Powerful enough to change the way we are with the world and how the world is with us.
The word ‘surrender’ has always been a constant companion of mine, it was one of my favorite words that kept crossing my path.. like a soulful reminder of all that I would meet if I allowed myself to feel the truth of what it meant. It has taken many years to understand that in a true surrender I am meeting a place of infinite wisdom and depth that has always been there under the thin veneer of protection. Contrary to the thought that I might lose something in surrendering I have actually met an exquisite expansiveness and depth of being.
There is such a vastness with what you have shared Victoria. The vastness of who we are and deeply accepting this. Thank you so much for what you have shared and the reminder that the protection we use is nothing compared with who we are.
I love this Victoria, yes, in truly surrendering, we allow and open up to the ALL that we belong to – an ‘infinite wisdom’ that is so much greater than the limited version we hold onto so tightly.
So true Kylie, and a great opportunity to consider
why we may hold on to such a limited version of ourselves when we are such grandness.
Thank you Victoria I can relate to feeling I might lose something in surrendering and love your description of meeting ‘an exquisite expansiveness and depth of being.’
How lovely Leonne, surrendering to ALL that we are
This is great Leonne. Thank you for sharing. This is a brilliant reminder that it does not pay to try and fit in at the expense of our body and what we really feel. It can be so easy to look out and around at everyone else and then compare what we’re doing to what they’re doing. It really is not needed. This is something I am not yet in the full acceptance of, as old patterns of trying to fit in can be stubborn to break, but with writings such as this, and any instances where we do honour and respect ourselves, they go a long way towards breaking the pattern.
I’m learning that surrendering is also letting go and letting in. Letting myself into and connecting to my body and my inner heart. In the connection there is me. Presence.
Exactly Jinya, when I connect and surrender to my body, suddenly all the stress is gone and there is stillness, ease and joy.
Great words Jinya, same for me, surrendering is also about letting go and letting in. Taking away all these protections we have and to just go out in the world unguarded.
I have been having very tensed shoulders and neck lately and your words on surrender are perfect for me. So this morning when I was walking I was able to let my shoulders relax and my arms swing and my whole upper body started to loosen up quite a bit. Thank you Leonne, it does wonders when we read words form a person that truly lives these words.
Hi Leonne, I went for a walk this morning and I remembered your blog. I felt my body and felt the quality of surrender and tenderness. It WAS AMAZING! The difference in how I saw everything around me as well as how I felt in my body was beautiful… truly beautiful. Thank you for supporting this within me.
I loved reading your blog Leonne, I felt that I was there with you on the path on that freezing cold morning. As your body let go within the article I could feel my own body surrender. Thank you Leonne for sharing your walk with us.
I agree Donna I could feel my body letting go as I was reading this blog. It seems to be a bit of a marker of truth for me in the words when I feel it in my body and there is a call to let go and come to a deeper place inside.
This is so great, reminding ourselves to surrender, be tender, relax all through the day… Not walking around so tense and hard, thinking and thinking. It is a constant thing, check in relax, check in relax. Surrender. I love this blog, and I love how much more tender I feel listening to my body. Thanks Leonne.
I had never really considered surrendering in that way – that it could affect so much around us. As I sit here and read, I can feel that already I am considering if there is any tension in my body, could I surrender to just being in this space just a smidgen more.
Your comment Lucy opens me up to the possibility that there is always more, a deeper level, further surrender… and from that I deepen more into understanding myself and connecting with the world.
Leonne this is such a beautiful, wise blog. I shall have walks in which I allow myself to surrender to my divinity too. I have no doubt this will allow me the ripple effect of this surrendering in all aspects of my life including those that I go into automatic protection and hardening.
‘I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.’ Leonne, this is such a beautiful sharing for us all, thank you.
I love the words, to surrender.
The Power of to surrender to the body is so incredible, when we choose to.
Your comment claudiawadek has reminded me that we can make this choice to surrender in any moment. We don’t have to wait for anything or anyone. We can do it right now.
Wow Leonne, this is so beautiful and healing to read, I even felt myself surrender as I read your words. What a gorgeous and inspiring way to be and to live… and the power of choosing surrender.. profound.
I love that Marika, surrendering to our very own authority, surrendering to us, and not giving our power away to influences outside us. Wow, the true meaning of surrender is so much the opposite of what it’s purported to be.
Thank you Leonne. Reading your post I felt like I was there on the walk with you. I am finding that the more I love myself the easier it is for me to surrender. I remember I used to wonder what on earth people were surrendering to when they talked about surrendering. I have come to know that what I am surrendering to is my own essence, which is divine.
“How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?”
This comes in timely as I have been caught in resisting my natural loveliness, power and grace. Again acceptance is the key and then a surrender to the authority of our body to take it all deeper. Thank you Leonne for sharing this beautiful experience with all of us so we can also surrender more to our essence within.
I could feel your walk Leonne and it felt gorgeous. To feel what is truly being expressed from our innermost rather than what is being fed to us from the world around us is a surrendering to self and our inner essence.
‘I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body’ – this phrase so beautifully captures for me the true power of surrender. When I honour these messages that my body offers me all day long I am allowing myself to surrender to my soul and the love that it is offering me.
Beautiful Leonne, what a difference there is to feel between walking with the awareness of how our body feels and honouring that, to walking in the rush and noise of everything else.
That’s actually been a really great reminder Giselle – ‘what a difference there is to feel between walking with the awareness of how our body feels and honouring that, to walking in the rush and noise of everything else’… Yesterday I was feeling quite down due to the conflict and disharmony I could feel with people around me, and I totally took it on and tried to fix it.. I felt as though I was engulfed in the tension, but as you say in those situations I should just walk in the honouring of the awareness of what’s happening around me, not get involved.
Gorgeous. Thank you Leonne. This allows me a fuller relationship with the word surrender. I know how lovely it can be to surrender to my body and this blog makes me appreciate the opportunities that we have to surrender and what that can bring.
‘Surrender begins when you accept your loveliness’ this is so beautiful and so timely for me, thank you Leonne.
That is inspiring Vanessa – thank you.
Perfect Vanessa I love this. Thank you.
Leonne great post, I’m also exploring what surrender means for me and your example is very timely. The simplicity that taking care of oneself and listening to the body opens up the ability to surrender in each moment is lovely to reflect on.
Thank you for your gorgeous article Leonne. As you have shared, there is immense power when we choose to surrender to ourselves and to resist this is actually creating tension in our bodies.
This was so lovely to read Leonne, by the time I finished the article I felt I too had surrendered – gorgeous.
Surrender to the love and divinity that is deep within is actually so natural to do since we belong there and everything in me is craving for being there. And as you so beautiful described Leonne Sharkey, I too have a tendency to disregard this inner being of me and make myself hard and disrespectful to who I truly am, only to fit in, to not stand out being obedient to my truth.
Wow Leonne, a really gorgeous blog. “I could feel that this surrender is not a giving up or a giving away. I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.” Surrendering to a deeper sense of who we truly are – no ‘giving away’ at all.
Simply gorgeous Leonne. Surrendering is not a sign of weakness nor does it have to be a difficult thing to do… As you’ve presented, it’s super easy, all we have to do is listen into what our bodies are telling us and give up the protection knowing that no one can harm us.
The strength needed to surrender in full is having the confidence and presence to truly know who we are, and a willingness to be open with others. When life is full of love, the need to protect drops away.
I could feel my body surrendering deeper as I read your blog Leonne. There was lots of gurgling and releasing in my body and now less chatter in my mind.
Thank you Leonne, a beautiful sharing about the power of surrender and how this feels in the body if we accept and allow. “Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine”
People pay to go and see magic shows, they willingly pay to be tricked, and yet you created your own true magic just by walking with you and nature along a path, and we can all do that, all of the time. Glorious.
So true Catherine, we can have magic with us all of the time just by walking! It is amazing though, how easy it is when walking, to find myself going off into thoughts yet when I come back to simply walking then everything around me opens up. The magic never goes it is just whether or not we choose to see it.
Fascinating how surrender and the body are intertwined. Listening to the body is an ancient art presented by Serge Benhayon and when I build it into my daily rhythm, surrender becomes the natural expression.
Beautifully said Felix, surrendering to our bodies is an ancient art, which has been given new life by Serge Benhayon and his teachings. It has taken some time to melt the hardness in my body, a bit like thawing out after a life long ice age, but the results of truly letting go of the protection and tension is allowing space for all my beautiful tender grace to begin to express itself, which feels very natural and very delicious all at the same time.
Yes Felixschumacher, and fascinating that the body was not able to surrender whilst it was ‘bracing against the cold’.
What a lovely example of the power of surrendering to oneself. We are only resisting our true self. It is so simple and yet so powerful.
That’s right, we can either surrender or resist. There isn’t actually a middle way. Surrendering to who we are is divine.
Simpy expressed Katerina and profound. I am still resisting but with Leonne’s post and all the amazing responses, I am beginning to appreciate what it means to truly surrender.
It is amazing how much we can resist surrendering, and how much we can hold onto our protections. Given that we are always searching for this connection and looking outside for it, it really makes sense that we would simply need to surrender to our own selfs and our power is simply there.
Yes, love it Katerina – resist or surrender what a simple choice we can make ..
So simply said sjmatsonuk. Allowing ourselves to surrender into ourselves stops the fight.
I just read this blog out aloud in my home – with two beautiful and tender women listening. We all reflected on our choices to surrender to the delicateness and fragility we all are, and how this is a reflection too for those around us, that they too can make this choice and not need to be caught in the game of hardness, that can often be our world.
Surrendering brings with it a quietness, a stillness and people can feel this (whether they are aware of it or not) and it is extraordinarily powerful. This blog is an amazing example of this.
Amelia, I love that you shared this blog with others because it deserves to be shared and discussed. The more I surrender to the love that I am the more I find I am able to stop hardening up to protect myself.
I loved reading this comment Amelia. Feeling the power of 3 beautiful women surrendering to themselves together.
Leonne your feeling of surrendering being the willingness to end the madness was a beautiful analogy to me as if we surrender to the authority of our body and let ourselves just be the madness in and around us will stop, in others words all the issues, mental activity, drama’s we create will no longer have a hold on us.
It is amazing Carolien how much of a hold we create and allow issues and dramas to have over us, when as you say we can surrender to our bodies and just be and they no longer have that hold over us.
That’s perfect Carolien of course, our issues “will no longer have a hold on us” Then we can begin to look at them without the investments we may have in a particular outcome or a a way we think something should be.
I love that Jennifer, the surrender being to let it all be as it is and see what may unfold from there. I can feel from what you share how outcomes and investments will never allow for true surrender as it is then all about control.
I wonder how many simple opportunities we miss to really surrender to our bodies when all we have to do is pay attention to the little details.
Yes how many opportunities do we truly miss, my guess is many, and not just for surrender. Leonne you have inspired many to pay attention to detail and honour what is truly felt instead of going with what is around you, even in something so simple as zipping up your coat.
First of all we need to be aware that there is a choice. It is only the last few years that I have come to realise that there is in fact a choice and we are the ones who make it (and no one else).
That is a scary question because i know in my bones that these opportunities are available to us all the time.
Thank you Leonne for this inspiring article. I got up this morning and thought I should go for a morning walk, so this is the perfect reminder for me to surrender to myself and yours is the first blog I came across. Perfect.
When the word ‘surrender’ used to be mentioned to me there was a huge reaction overtime. Thoughts of ‘I can’t surrender’, ‘this and that will happen if I do’ and the overarching theme to all these excuses and rants: ‘I will be less if I do surrender’, which fits with the dictionary description. However I have had very similar experiences in that it may be summertime over here but at 6am when I leave for work it is still cold! So I take my gloves, hat and scarf with me. I feel stronger and more supported by myself for listening to my body above and beyond what the overall season might be. Whereas if I follow what others are doing or follow what I think I should be doing that results in feeling weaker and less supported by my own choices. Surrendering to the body is a work in progress but these examples and what you shared here Leonne just go to show that it is nothing worth avoiding but embracing for our health and well-being.
It amuses me the extent to which people relate how hot/cold it is relative to the time of year….the central heating in many buildings is switched off on a certain date, irrespective of the actual temperature.
I’m with you Leigh, if it’s cold, I wear warm clothes whatever the time of year. …and if it’s hot and I am going somewhere with air conditioning, I take warm clothes there too!
Totally awesome how you experimented with the warmth/cold factor and as a result knew without a doubt what was true for you. Your sharing has totally clarified for me what true surrender means – very simple really:)
Awesome blog Leonne, as I read the word surrender my shoulders dropped and my arms released and I could feel my body expand and a warm glow in my body. A lovely sharing, magic really does happen when we surrender to our loveliness within.
Yes same with me Alison, I just have to say the word surrender and my shoulders drop, my posture improves and I am back with myself.
This is beautiful to read Leonne. I have had similar experiences of surrendering, sometimes at night if I feel I’m busy thinking I tell myself to surrender and I allow my legs and arms to surrender, I can feel the hardness melt away. And in the mornings I close my eyes and allow my body to surrender, I can feel the tension go and my natural grace and gentleness return.
On just a practical level surrender is such an energy saver, when I surrender I can feel how much I hold a tension in my body in almost every moment of my day. Even in writing this I can feel how much protection there is, and yet nothing but good can come from the surrender so why would I not choose it as a default, to live surrendered feels incredible. Thank you for your sharing Leonne, you bring a much needed reflection.
“How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?” This is a key sentence for me Leonne and something that is definitely worth exploring more.
‘How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?’ I love this question Leonne and will take it with me into my day. Having spent so long resisting being surrendered it feels lovely to start allowing this and my body and those around me respond as you have described but I am still building my awareness of just how often I harden myself against so many things and don’t allow for this to happen. Thank you for sharing.
‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine’. Reading your post, Leonne helped me ponder on why I find it so difficult to truly surrender, and also consider playing with it in small, simple ways.
To me the word ‘Surrender’ means allowing myself to feel what is going on in my body and not to numb it out with food, thinking and activity that only serves to distract. All my life I’ve developed a hard way of being that has suppressed my natural tenderness and sensitivity, and I’ve not truly lived or expressed as a woman. In surrendering I am giving myself permission to feel and to allow those feelings to be present without judgment.
Thanks for this little gem. I hadn’t quite considered it till now, but yes I too experience a surrendering of myself when I go for a walk.
Wow what a great blog Leonne, to feel and accept we are divine by nature , a being of light and when we accept to fill our body with our divinity and not hold back we meet our warm lovely body as love.
Beautiful blog Leonne, I can relate to feeling a bit strange with a big coat while everyone else is almost wearing a summer coat or no coat at all. But it is so true that: “Fitting in was not worth sacrificing the beauty of my walk and the easy grace in my body.”
Wow Leonne, that gave me a deeper view on my exercises I do every morning. They are design to stay flexible and supple in my body, but also to surrender and to connect to my inner stillness. So every day I start with surrendering. I have always felt and known that it is a great thing to do so but now I realize how powerful it is, not just for me – but for the world around me as well. Thank you. And thanks Surrendering.
‘How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?’ It felt magical to read your blog Leonne, thank you for taking us with you on your walk and let us feel that surrender is not hard to do when we listen to our body
The way you write about surrender does bring new or a truer meaning to the word. Used this way along with acceptance, true oneness is in reach. Surrender as a word does bring up certain images, like the battle wary soldier, wounded but still defiant yelling “We shall not surrender!” but used your way Leonne it is a beautiful word.
There is something gorgeous about redefining a word, and reclaiming something wonderful that has been lost in translation – in this instance from the battlefield to our every day.
I have always loved the word surrender but I have almost been afraid of it as I need to let go of control to surrender. To me surrrendering is about allowing and trusting God’s love will always hold me and knowing I can be all of me and live life without protection or control. Thank you Leonne for your beautiful blog.
This really shows how powerful we are and how much we do affect everyone around us. It’s a great reminder and an example of what some refer to as the ‘butterfly effect’.
Love it Leonne, walking can be such great medicine. As I read your words, I felt my body surrender too, yummy!
What awesome sharing Leonne. I too am finding that when I truly surrender to my loveliness within, magic happens around me.
A beautiful sharing. So simple yet so powerful and true. I particularly loved it when you said, ‘I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body.’ Gorgeous !
Surrender for me feels like I am settled in my body, not clenching and I find I am like this if I am with my body and what it is doing then and there rather than thinking about other things.. as well as feeling warm enough, not hungry or eating too much, needs totally met.. this is an incredible way to live. Having times where I feel this surrender in my body has helped me build my confidence too, when I am settled in my body and myself I seem to be less and less inclined to try and ‘be’ something or someone and more inclined to say how I feel. Looking after myself and my body, and surrendering more and more to who I am has changed my life completely.
On reflection I feel my walks are a good place to surrender as I feel so connected to the beauty around me, it can’t be possible not be part of me as well. Thank you Leonne I will be more aware of surrendering on my walks and appreciating my own beauty.
Me too Meg re that one liner on accepting loveliness, wonderful. The other line I loved in your post Leonne was this one: “How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?” – submitting to the authority never of another in subjugation, but only ever to the grand wisdom of our own body. The strength in this true surrender feels powerful, not weak.
Thanks Leonne yes I too used to think of surrender as the white flag of defeat, whereas now it is about surrendering to myself and to love (same thing) and it is powerful and glorious. I really enjoyed going on that walk with you. I also laughed when I read about your dressing all warm and snuggly. Christoph and I have an early morning walk every day all wrapped up from top to toe and even have heated battery operated gloves that glow, meanwhile other walkers go by with bare hands and legs!
So very lovely to read your blog Leonne, I can so clearly feel what you express, within me, as a living truth. Surrendering and letting everything drop away to reveal the most exquisite stillness that is ever present and all around us, realigns us all, to the one true wavelength. LOVE.
Beautiful Leonne. Surrender for me use to mean giving up but today it takes on a much more powerful truth. Surrendering is simply our way of trusting in ourselves and our own innate ability to love.
I love this line Leonne… ‘How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?’
I find myself resisting many things in life, perhaps it’s not so much about my daily events but the resistance I am holding in my body from not surrendering to my loveliness. Thank you for sharing your awareness Leonne.
Words like ‘surrender’, ‘tenderness’, ‘gentleness’ have always brought up images of weakness in me too. I love what you share, that submitting to the authority of our own body, which always shares the truth, is truly supportive as well as powerful.
Leonne I love this sentence; ‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine’. For me this makes life a simple process when I just apply those qualities of surrender and allow myself to accept and appreciate who I am and equally who we all are, thank you.
Absolutely gorgeous, Leonne. I used to think that surrendering was about stopping resisting circumstances/situations/people – things outside of me, but now I agree with you, it is about stopping resisting my natural way of being, going deeper into acceptance of my true essence. There’s empowerment and glory, and not defeat.
This is beautiful Leonne, the simplicity of surrendering to my body allows me access to so much more.
Leonne the word and indeed act of surrendering can be applied to so many different aspects of our life. You have highlighted the feeling of physical surrender and also surrendering to the fact that you are divine. For me recently I have been feeling the pull to surrender to the things in my life that irk me. There are reoccurring themes in my life that have remained as fairly constant points of frustration to me, namely to do with the behaviour of others. I have been aware recently that if I simply surrender fully to how others are then I would no longer be in reaction to them.
I smiled when I read your comment “to surrender to the things in my life that irk me”. The frustration you describe is a pandemic across the world, leading to so much disharmony and is one of the root causes of dis-ease. So to surrender in life frees us from these irksome ways, and allows harmony to re enter our lives.
I too used to believe that surrender meant giving in to defeat. Recently I was walking and noticed that my arms were moving on their own. I don’t mean they were doing anything unusual, but I could feel they had surrendered in that I wasn’t controlling them to sway. It was a subtle feeling, but they moved to their own beat, and I was pleasently surprised by how freeing it felt. I experimented a couple of times, by consciously moving them slightly more briskly as I walked, and immediately noticed how hard and protected I felt when doing that. It was really revealing to experiment with and is now a really lovely marker for me to come back to when I feel tension through my shoulders and upper body.
That is such a common misconception Elodie, that to surrender means giving in to defeat. I love how you describe your subtle yet super powerful experience of the true meaning of surrender. Gorgeous!
Hello Leonne Sharkey and thank you for redefining the word surrender, obviously now it was not what it was being made out to be. Many things have been turned around and given there true meaning thanks to Universal Medicine.
Hi Leonne, I really liked reading this. The honesty of the hardness you were feeling because of trying to fit in and not stand out and then by you being willing to choose to honour and surrender to what you truly felt, how that changed the way other people were when they came into contact with you. Accepting and surrendering to being ourself can definitely be a powerful and freeing experience and if we choose, can become our normal way of being.
Leonne I can relate to your being conscious of the other walkers or joggers and the need to fit in (the fact that we may be dressed more warmly than others etc. At times I have felt that I walk slower than others and my walk is more of an amble as I take in nature all around me. I have learned over the years to allow others to stress and strain if they choose and to walk my walk enjoying the right to be me.
True surrender is so freeing when looked at the way you describe it, thank you.
I agree with what James has said as well as yourself, of in the past seeing surrender as either defeat or weak. Now from sessions with Universal Medicine practitioners I see it as being something completely different and instead feel the power and loveliness as you have described when we surrender to the love and deep sacredness that lies within our bodies. I love the way you write.
I used to avoid surrender as I saw it solely as the dictionary definition. I now see surrender as the allowing of myself to be all of me in life in every moment no matter what is presented, so that the fragile and delicateness that I am is not compromised. This is very much a work in progress and one I sometimes find challenging but one that I also love and find so very empowering.
Leonne I could feel the choice to surrender to my own loveliness and authority of my body just from reading your blog.
What a powerful new meaning you give to the concept of surrendering Leonnie!
‘The power of true surrender’ .. Thank you Leonne
I wrote this blog to remember an amazing moment in my life, it was my way of taking a snapshot of this moment so I would not forget how powerful it is to surrender. When I am hard and protected this energy affects others. When I surrender to me others are held in love and there is harmony between us.
thanks Leonne, from reading this about surrender I could start to feel the struggle or resistance in my body constantly preventing this from happening, and unable to be at ease in my body. And I can feel the protection or guardedness that others do also feel – which would confirm to them that they also need protection, and so it goes. Surrendering to ourselves is a great first step.
Absolutely Annie – this blog has been reminding me to surrender in every moment – especially when I am at work on the phone or computer. There is so much more ease in my body when I choose to allow surrender.
I woke this morning, on a Sunday, with the intent to really let myself rest – I’ve had a physically and mentally demanding week at work and my body calls for the rest. I surrendered to myself by saying: ‘today you need not achieve any outcome’. Feeling surrendered and strong is the same thing to me, now I look forward to remaining more surrendered in daily life even with all the tasks required of me.
I love what you have shared with us Leonne; it felt as if I was walking with you and could actually feel the moment when you chose to surrender. It was such a very different feeling from what I used to think surrender meant, and that was to give up, shrink and in some cases, run away. By your living example you have shown that surrender is none of those, but a conscious choice to become aware of how you and your body are feeling and then to let go of areas where you are; holding on, in tension, protecting yourself or in your case, trying to fit it. These beautiful words say it all: “Fitting in was not worth sacrificing the beauty of my walk…….”. Like you, fitting in is no longer a choice I make, now, like you, I’d definitely chose the “….. the easy grace in my body”……. every single time!
It is so automatic to override what is felt in the body or comparing ourselves with what everyone else is doing, it is so easily exposed on my walks as well, as you wrote ‘Fitting in was not worth sacrificing the beauty of my walk and the easy grace in my body.’ Thanks Leonne.
It is true what you share James. To surrender seemed like an act of giving up or that I had failed in some way, but really it’s about allowing the power of ‘what is’ there to connect to. It is like, surrender to be part of the incredible power and that this power is within us all, a long way from giving up.
Thank you Leonne, I love the way your awareness unfolded as you stayed with you and surrendered to what your body was telling you. Our body is truly our best friend and mentor! Beautiful!
I had not associated surrender with accepting my loveliness and trusting my divinity -this is an amazing insight, Leonne, thank you. This may well be the missing factor for me in maintaining the feeling of surrender and allowing myself to let go. Letting go the hardness also resonated with me -this was not something I had pondered on before.
I agree Anne – I wrote this blog immediately after the walk that inspired it and this part was a revelation to me when I re-read what I had written.
I love the way that the whole path changed the way it felt for you when you chose to surrender your body. This makes me think about any situation where I might feel withdrawn or overly protected and perhaps all that is needed is to surrender.
Lovely Leonne. I relate to that that feeling of being hard and defensive in the body and experience it often. It’s horrible! I have received Esoteric Healing Sessions over the past 4 years and have learnt how tender, delicate and precious we truly are as human beings. Its so horrible to have defences up and its great to always work on surrendering because underneath all that protection and hardness is true beautiful warm tenderness.
That is a very beautiful experience to share Leonne, thank you. You have certainly established a new and maybe the only true meaning of the word surrender, to melt the defences we hold onto in our bodies that deny us our true loveliness. It is a miraculous moment when we really feel just how hard we hold ourselves and begin to release that hardness in favour of a deep tenderness within. When that tenderness is truly felt, both by ourselves and another, nothing can stand its way.
Surrender – yes it has become such a challenging concept. The general connotations are of failure, defeat, in the power of another. On a bodily, functional level, it also challenging for most of us as our bodies have become stuck in ‘fight-or-flight’ mode. Yet, as you share Leonne, if we can surrender to body it is paradoxically the empowering thing we can do for as we become in harmony with our body so we become in harmony with the Divine. What greater thing can we do than that?
Thanks for sharing your walk Leonne. I can certainly feel there is a very big difference between surrendering and giving up. I would much rather surrender to what there is to feel than give up because it feels too hard.
Leonne, I love how you break it down. I have had an edge with the word surrender and considered it as a giving away or giving up, but as you describe here, it’s an honouring of us and our body and a letting go to that, and it is indeed divine. I know it when I just let go, feel what is needed from my body and go with that and it does indeed feel sacred. The moments where I’ve allowed that, life just flows and I am in and part of it, no fighting, just being me.
How powerful the way we are with life can be. I got a strong sense that with each and every step you were able to surrender more Leonne, in a way that seemed almost impossible at the beginning of your walk. And yet all this flowed as you simply accepted and allowed your loveliness to be. Wow – it seems now to me our true power begins with surrender.
Those words Acceptance and Allowing your loveliness are what surrender is for me after reading this blog. It is like falling into something we already are. So in a way it is perhaps giving up our resistance, the resistance we have to embrace our lovely self in full.
This is true Leonne, and so beautiful to hear it from you. I feel that by even reading this blog, I feel my body is speaking louder and is letting me know those areas where I still hold tight, hold my arms steady (in case of a fight), tighten up my shoulders (so I can handle it) dadadada… I feel just the same as you where sharing. I allow myself to feel this tension, tightness and contraction, which I can then choose to let fully go off. My body feels much warmer and soft and solid (from natural tenderness) now. Time to use this principle in my everyday living – checking up how my body is feeling (tight, surrendered, nervous, anxious etc.) Automatically I can then choose to surrender more deeply into my stillness.
‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine’
I love this blog Leonne. I can feel the power in simply allowing myself to let go and listen to my body.
It is true that when our bodies feel warm and comfortable, our loveliness can be felt much deeper and hence expressed deeper. When we feel cold, a part of us has to be delegated to manage how to get warm, and less of ourself is there to simply express this loveliness.
I could feel my breath and my body surrender deeper while reading your blog Leonne, thank you.
I agree Leonne, when we take care of our body and treat ourselves with love, surrendering becomes so much easier. All the little details really do matter.
I learned the word surrender in relation to the awareness I build for my body. For me surrendering was/is to stop resisting the messages of my body and to surrender fully to my body’s authority. The opponent was/is my mind but by giving it no authority it started to surrender to the body’s messages and this is how I can feel the true power of surrendering.
So gorgeous Leonne. I could feel myself held by you in the warmth in which you write as I read this blog and I could feel myself surrendering to my body. A lovely reminder of the strength and grace that is on offer when you surrender to the body and the wisdom that it offers.
Thank you Leonne, A beautiful reminder of how loving ourselves and choosing to deeply nurture and listen to our bodies can bring connection, simplicity and harmony.
‘Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness’ – wow I love the simplicity of this. I also find walking a great way to clear my mind and help my body surrender.
Yes absolutely Meg, me too. Walking is great, so is it a great marker to feel all the areas that are flowing in your body or not.
Me too Meg. Walking with presence and surrendered is so powerful. It is our own divine love that we are surrendering too. And that love holds All.
So true Leonne, I always used to think of surrender as a weak and pathetic thing whereas I now am beginning to feel the true strength and power of it.
Well said James – I agree with your words when you suggest we can choose to ‘feel the true strength and power of it (‘it’ being to surrender) ‘, or as also been my view in the past that ‘to surrender’ showed the face of ‘a weak and pathetic thing’ – amazing with a little developing awareness, as that which has been gleaned over time from the presentations of Universal Medicine, the natural wisdom from within can be felt and honoured.
Well said Roberta, “the natural wisdom from within can be felt and honoured”, and it sure is a strong, powerful wisdom.
Yes, the power of surrender is quite the opposite to what we are societally led to believe.
I can relate James. Surrender in my life was definitely portrayed as a weakness and of course we must look at exactly ‘what’ we are surrendering to. Surrendering to love, our divine love is very powerful.
I’ve also had a similar experience recently Leonne, where I was simply putting my clothes away after all being washed. And even in this simple act I felt my body was bracing and hard, so I chose to let go and surrender my body, and before long I was feeling grace with every movement. This then translated to other parts of my daily life…and what a difference I felt in my body…and this is forever deepening. Thank you Leonne
This is inspiring Leonne and something I’d like to try in my next walk and as I walk through life. I loved what you shared “..I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my body. Surrender begins when I accept my own loveliness, act on my awareness and choose to trust in the fact that I am divine.”
This is beautiful Leonne, an accurate re-definiton of the word surrender and what it truly means. Isn’t it telling how it’s interpreted by the dictionaries etc as being something submissive, implying that in surrendering, we give our power away. Whereas in actual fact, nothing could be further than the truth — it’s actually the opposite for the more we surrender to ourselves, to the divine intelligence that resides in our bodies, the more we walk in the true power of who we are.
Thank you Leonne for your words on surrender. It makes sense that surrendering is not a doing but an allowing to be my natural way of being, in the sense of surrendering deep into my body and letting go.
Super inspiring blog. Surrender as means of giving in (to me) rather than giving up (to something outside me), well worth experimenting with, thanks Leonne.
It is so simple really, no need for complication as you so clearly stated Leone – ‘I was able to see that I allow myself to surrender to my own divine essence when I listen to and support my own body’. In the world that is so busy I see people rushing, pushing, trying, getting caught up in the mind and what they are seeking seems unattainable. All stillness is lost. We are all connected and when we take responsibility for connecting to ourselves and maintaining that then the power of this is magnified.
Thank you Leonne, I love the old Latin translation of ‘surrender’, which is to hand over, deliver, bequeath, give up/in, yield, transfer, sell and exemption. All of which seem far closer to the true meaning of the word surrender than the oxford dictionary meaning! I now feel to totally surrender on my walks from now on.
Another truly gorgeous blog Leonne. I love how you define that surrender is not a giving up or giving your power away. it is simply allowing the awareness of ones natural grace and inner stillness to come to the fore and allowing them to be the main focus. I also love the sharing of how, when in this state of being, this changes everything for everyone around you. Truly powerful.
Such a gorgeous and powerful word: surrender. For me it mostly means stop fighting with myself. Stop fighting the pull ‘ upwards’, to show the world all of me, to not hold back and express in full. To love everybody equally and make not certain people and certain events more special than others. If I do surrender then I drop into my body, it gets very spacious inside and very still. And the effect is felt by everyone, just like you describe in your beautiful blog, Leonne.
A lot of the things we worry about – what people think of us, how we look, what we sound like, how intelligent we appear and so on are often not always actually happening. With all of that mind chatter out of the way and simply surrendering in our bodies and to our breath, it’s no surprise to find that there is something deeply graceful and beautiful there waiting for us all along.
“How amazing can life be if I stop resisting my natural way of being (surrender) and submit to the authority of my own body?”
It is truth Leonnne, your question comes to me in the right moment reminding me the need to develop more and more the intimacy with my body especially when I am in motion and surrounded by people.
I can feel the grace and lightness of your surrender in my body as I was reeding your words. Thank you for your beautiful sharing.
Thank you Leonne for your beautifully powerful blog. How freeing for us all to understand with your help that surrender is about letting go and trusting in our inner loveliness- and that it has nothing to do with an enemy or battle lines.
For me surrender is a form of grace, and once we let go of whatever we are holding onto, holding onto to the way we think a situation should go or be, so many more choices open up that we would have never been aware until one surrenders to whatever life presents.
Leonne this is gorgeous and very confirming of just how powerful we are when we listen to our bodies and surrender. I am going to be super aware of how my body feels wherever I walk from here on in.
really lovely Leonne. I’d so much rather look silly as well :D. Lovely to read your blog.
Yeah that’s such a great point though, Harry – the times when we’ll override what we’re feeling just to look or appear cool…or to not stand out. It’s funny for me to look back and think of the times I’ve done this – but I’m with you both, I’d much rather look silly and be warm than look cool and be cold!
Because of your writing Leonne, I too have just felt the power of what surrender really means. Priceless, thank you.
What dwells within the heart of all of us is beyond exquisite. ‘Divine’ is the only word that comes close to expressing it. Surrendering, as you illustrate here Leonne, is only saying yes to this treasure trove. It is choosing to let go of that which we pull in from outside of us to keep ourselves small or protect ourselves from being hurt. Surrendering is allowing the ‘divine’ into our body to flow through and with our expression.
Surrendering is just saying ‘yes’ to our truth and who we are.
You give the word ‘surrender’ a whole new level of depth and meaning – and the way the body responded sounds amazing.
Thank you Leonne, this shines a whole new light on what surrender actually means to and in my body. I could feel myself letting go as I was reading and was realising that I haven’t stopped to consider or feel what surrendering is. This is something I will continue to play with.
I have found that it is impossible to be still or surrender when I am cold. My body is naturally tensed up, trying to keep me warm. It was beautiful what happened on the path when you surrendered and it is amazing that it takes just one person in that energy to affect everyone else. I have also been contemplating the word and feeling of surrender, and found that it is my spirit which needs to surrender and become one with my soul.
This is such a simple and tangible example of what surrender truly is, and I see how we can do it any part of our day. Like driving a car, sitting at the desk or even when having a conversation with someone. It’s just a matter of being in our body and letting go! Thanks for sharing Leonne.
Leonne, a most beautiful sharing. Reading your article in itself is an invite for me to surrender even deeper into my body as I sit here now. Thank you.
This is great Leonne…the true power of surrender – when it is done to your own essence and not to anything or anyone else. Magic.
To surrender to your own essence is to trust that your own essence is all that is needed because it is glorious.
I love this blog Leonne, I felt like I was walking with you and felt your surrender. I have also felt the power of surrendering that you speak of. Often I notice if there is any reaction, resistance or protection no matter how little it creates a tension. Even something as simple as feeling the cold or the busyness of a shopping centre can transform when I connect and stay with myself, surrender to me.
I agree, Victoria – and what a confirmation it is when the surroundings transform, as you say. Life is so much easier when we’re surrendered and in our natural state.
How interesting…the way words become distorted in such a way that we lose the true sense they convert. “Surrender”, by becoming associated with giving up and disempowerment, is something we avoid. In not surrendering, we fight…but we are fighting nothing other than ourselves.
Leonne, you have restored surrender to its rightful meaning, a powerful word that blends acceptance with the deepest trust.
Leonne your observation is so incredibly pertinent and wise and Rachel I love how you re-articulate what has been said in a way that takes it deeper. Far from being weak “surrender” now has a deeply healing significance. It takes us from the temporal through to the divine in a way that makes stillness, truth, love, joy, love and harmony personally accessible to all. Gorgeous – a real revelation.
It is beautiful if we let our grandness out and let ourselves feel it…To observe the outside and connect to the truth is sometimes not easy, but for me my neverending focus. Beautiful reminder of you, that it is always possible and that it changes everything around you.
How simple it is to choose to surrender to our loveliness and allow ourselves to be in the grace of who we are. Thank you for sharing Leonne.
As I was reading I was surrendering deeply with you and your walk. I love it at the end when you point out the importance of acting on our awareness and submitting to the authority of my body. It rings true and it expands me.
I agree Julia – it was a beautiful and surrendering moment to read this blog and enjoy Leonne’s walk.
A beautiful reflection on the effect we can have, and do have, on the world around us. I notice how in cold weather my shoulders hunch up towards my ears and need constant awareness to continue to release them
Thank you Leonne, your clarification around ‘surrender’ makes it a much more inviting word and activity. What a beautiful walk.
How clear How simple … Thanks Leonne !