(un) Sweet Surrender

Today I want to offer a poem about surrender. It can be hard for those of us who run a business, who are on a mission to see the point in surrender. Mostly we live our lives practicing strategy and control and those two things have their place. No strategy, no direction, often no progress.

But life often throws us a curveball, the backspin hiding the strange path it’s about the take. In those moments the more you can see the unexpected as a teacher, as an invitation to leadership, the more at peace you can be and the better you’ll be able to show up as leader, love your people, and make the choices that matter most.

(un) Sweet Surrender

I said I wanted to let go of the things that tied me down to the past. But not this. Not this thing I had come to rely on, that I had secretly been holding back from what I was willing to give up.

I said I wanted to wake up, to truly understand the nature of reality, but when I said that you, surely knew I wasn’t serious. Sure I wanted to wake up, but not if it means feeling this stress, this groundlessness, this confusion.

I said I wanted to experience surrender, as I walk my path of purpose, combining the clarity of masculine direction with the grace of feminine flow. But why must I surrender this, the thing I thought I could rely on when things were so tough?

I said I wanted to release all my claims on the embodied feminine, release the complexity of my life, and find something simpler. But why did simplicity have to show up like this, why do my hidden claims have to be revealed, and why now when things finally felt like they were settling down?

I watch as my mind wants to surge into the old pattern.

Grab control. Take action. Make things happen.

I feel the irritation at the edge of my eyes. The kind I feel when I have more than half a cup of coffee in the morning and then try to sit still during meditation. I watch and try to remind myself

This is the teacher. She appears before me. Hand on my shoulder. Saying, “Let go.

Life is so short. Half of yours at least has already drifted away. It’s like a dream now.

That beach in Hawaii at the end of the trail. The waves pushing into a break in the rocks.

Waking up at an edge of a canyon in Arches national park Certain you’d roll into it in the middle of the night.

White water in the Ocoee river The waves, bigger than you can imagine.

Driving into Portland at night The city spread out in front of you like a banquet.

The eyes of a lover and another, and another.

It’s a dream now. This too is a dream. “

I watch as I want to grasp. My mind spinning up. I relax. Or try to. I remember how short life is.

I sit down to write. Instead of answering my email.