Why surrendering to God is actually the ONLY way

If you’ve been in the make-it-happen, action-oriented masculine world of self-help, surrendering may sound terrifying or even depressing at first because it feels like giving up. 

Because your whole life you may have gotten what you wanted through not giving up… pushing, controlling, and forcing yourself to show up even when you don’t feel like it.

And you may have even attained the “success” you thought you wanted. And it may have served you (at least for a while). 

Until at one point, life shows you that your effort can only go to a point. And that you are not always in control, as much as you think you do. 

This can look like things that used to “work out” in the past not working out anymore (e.g. relationships/ business/ career). Or it can look like having the life you’ve built before completely falling apart. Or where you’ve been trying to make things work, but somehow you find yourself stuck in the situation, unable to move. 

All of which summed up the type of desperation I experienced, when I first realized that I needed to surrender. 

It was a time when I first got into entrepreneurship– where my entire belief system turned upside down. 

My whole life my identity was built around being a high-achiever. My worth came from being able to achieve my goals and it was the only way I knew to earn love from my parents. And I thought that just like how easy it was for me to get straight As at school, I could also well achieve the big, glamorous things eazzzily in entrepreneurship. 

Until I found that even after two years into running my business, I didn’t. 

I thought I was doing all the “right” things– growing a youtube channel, getting a hot body, pumping out new videos every week and all that jazz (I was a fitness coach then)… but when people who were interested in my work got on calls with me, all I heard was the same old answer: “I can’t afford it.” 

For two straight years, all I heard were rejections one after another. Everytime I thought there was some hope, again the answer was NO. 

I looked at other new coaches who signed up on the same business coaching program I was in. They were celebrating their 4/5 figure income months left and right but there I was, feeling like a failure, who couldn’t even get a single person to say yes to working with me. 

I felt desperate, sad, unworthy, and ashamed, all things at once. I felt that maybe something was wrong and deeply flawed with me. Not to mention, the voice in my head who would constantly criticize and judge me. 

Until one day… I decided to let it all go. I remember sitting on a park bench, crying and giving it all to God. Or like what I would call it back then, the Universe. 

I was defeated because it felt like none of my effort mattered. But this humility also made me realize that there was something bigger at play here. And I didn’t know exactly what that was but somehow knew that what was also moving the river right in front of me was also moving me. 

And there I began writing down what felt like bliss to me. I let go of the “what ifs” in my mind and simply felt my higher purpose. There I saw myself having already made the money I wanted and getting to coach amazing women in a way that lit me up. I pictured these scenarios in my mind’s eye, felt as though I was “already there,” and let that all go… 

After that, I didn’t care about when the sales would happen anymore. Because I knew without a doubt that my desires would happen one way or another– whether it is this or another lifetime. I knew that serving people through coaching was part of my soul’s destiny and that I don’t have to worry about it. 

And the next day, someone who just stumbled upon my Instagram page immediately booked a call with me and SAID YES TO WORKING WITH ME. She even said that my program was so affordable and I should charge higher!

That my love, was my first experience of realizing the power of surrendering. 

It gave me a yes in one DAY which I couldn’t get for two YEARS. It showed me a way where I didn’t have to struggle and force my way through for receiving what I desire. It made me realize the power of letting go. 

And even more than just being able to manifest the things I want in life, what surrendering gave me was a sense of comfort in knowing that I’m not the only one in control here. At least, not the personal separate ego who thinks I was doing it all alone. 

Rather, there is God / Universe / Source (call it what best resonates with you) leading us and guiding us. There is God who wants what’s better for us, more than what our little ego minds think we want. 

Like in my case where the two years of rejections gave me a deep connection to my soul & spirit: something I wouldn’t have gotten had I been wrapped up in only the “money wins” and “success.” 

Or consider the time back in my college when I thought I was “failing” to get a summer job. But because I didn’t get any jobs, I went back home to Myanmar and spent my time with dad. (Turns out he passed away two years after and I wouldn’t have spent that last time with him had I not “failed” to get a summer job). 

God works in weird and miraculous ways, in fact better than anything we would have planned or imagined. And the only way we block it is by controlling every outcome. 

That’s because whenever we are trying to control life (with our limited, little ego minds), we cannot let love (and the Higher mind of God) act through us. Just like when we are hanging onto our nightmares, we cannot feel the loving arms of the Beloved that are holding us. Instead, we are filled with worry, fear, and doubt– all of which only impedes our way to what we truly desire. 

Truth is, it is through surrendering that we come to realize that all is well. We wake up from our personal nightmares to instead see life for what it is. We discover that we are safe, we are loved, and that all is well… In fact, it has ever been and will always be… 

Through surrendering, we experience God’s Queendom in this present moment. We experience the eternity of peace that underlies the blueprint of the Universe. To me, being able to fully surrender to love (i.e. God) is what I call a heaven-on-earth. 

Yet I also know some people who may be thinking: 

Well, if we let go of control and fully surrender, what if we get nothing done? What if we become a vegetable who does nothing but sit around and stare at the birds? 

To that I say, that is true. But only so for the “doer” who believes that you are lacking, incomplete, and that you need to “get” what you’re missing through doing. It is only a death to the “doer” who thinks you can only make things happen through worrying, controlling, and suffering.

But once you let go of that, a new Self within you will emerge. 

Where now you don’t have to “try” to do things anymore but instead things get done through you. 

Where now you don’t have to carry the weight of your desires anymore but the heavy lifting is done by something far greater than you.

Where now you can finally exhale, express your joy, and see the perfection of yourself, life and God. 

As you realize that it is only through surrendering, that you are merging with the deepest desires of God.  

Love,
CM