Practising Surrender in Baby Steps

Surrender sounds simple — until life actually asks us to do it. Whether it’s letting go of control, softening into uncertainty, or releasing old stories that no longer serve us, surrender is rarely a one-time act. It’s a daily practice — one that asks for patience, gentleness, and a good dose of humour along the way.

I had a thought while driving today about a conversation I’d had with some friends recently on the subject of surrender. I loved my friends idea of practising baby steps — journalling the emotions and judgements that arise through the day, then consciously letting them go. What a kind, doable way to build trust in life’s flow.

It reminded me that meditation is one of the best ways to exercise this same “muscle” of surrender. Every time we sit to meditate, we’re training the mind to release its busy stream of thoughts — to soften, trust, and return to presence.

Meditation was absolutely essential in my healing process. In the worst days of my chronic Lyme disease experience, the pain could become so excruciating that I honestly thought I might die. In those moments, the mind wants to focus so much on the pain I can’t tell you. It wants to  fixate on it, to panic about it, to totally FREAK OUT — which of course only makes the pain worse. Left unchecked, those thoughts spiral quickly into the most nightmarish fear which causes unendurable tension in your body. In those early days, it even landed me in hospital, my whole body twitching and spasming in agony.

From that experience, I learned never to listen to the “pain body” voice again — the voice that freaks out, complains, or catastrophizes when things feel unbearable. Eckhart Tolle called it the pain body in The Power of Now, and the name stuck with me. But you can call it anything you like — maybe something out of a Roald Dahl book like Crabbybottom or Grizzlegrump. Giving that voice a silly name can actually help you take its drama a little less seriously, and most importantly, to stop listening to it.

Now, when I catch myself complaining or judging in my head, I say:

“Oh, that’s just the pain body talking. Thank you, pain body — I acknowledge what you’re feeling, but I don’t need to hear about it all day, so I’m turning the volume down now.”

And with that, I’ve surrendered the pain body’s grip. It frees me to focus on thoughts that lift my spirits instead of dragging me down.

One of the greatest lessons my sensitive nervous system has taught me is this: keeping my spirits high is essential. When my mood rises, the pain softens. When my thoughts spiral down, the pain intensifies. It’s been an extraordinary training ground in positive thinking — not through denial, but through awareness.

Of course, surrender doesn’t mean ignoring difficult emotions. It means feeling them fully, letting them move through, and then releasing them before they harden into suffering. When we allow ourselves to “feel the feels,” the nervous system can process them naturally instead of storing them as pain.

So yes, baby steps in surrender really is the key — and thankfully, our meditation practice is helping us strengthen that muscle every day.

Closing Reflection:

Maybe surrender isn’t about giving up at all — maybe it’s about giving over. Giving our fear to trust. Our tension to breath. Our thoughts to silence. Each small act of letting go becomes a doorway back into harmony with life itself.

What if we all began to practise these little releases — one breath, one thought, one journal entry at a time?

I’d love to hear how you practise surrender in daily life. What helps you soften when everything inside wants to control? Share in the comments — your story might be the reminder someone else needs today.