Surrender

[Chava]

I mean this in the positive, not negative sense. It's nearly f*cking impossible for me, but I'm learning about how important it is and the little ways it can work a bit for me. It's the feeling of being totally okay, safe, able to "let go" and just feel at peace and present, right where you are at. Everything is OKAY.

For years and decades I only found these moments through chemicals...and yet that's not really surrender, but ending up a slave to the chemicals. I'm not "okay", but it was the closest I could feel to being able to let go a little and calm the f*ck down. So CNS depressants in mega doses (primarily alcohol through the years).

For me, the moments when I've been able to step out of my hypervigilance, hyper-distraction, and self-involved mental whirlwinds have been when I was playing music or listening to music that I really connect to (or sometimes just pure but complex sounds, like singing bowls). All the other shit can just melt away, even if for only a moment, and I can have that sense of being "okay" and just surrendering to life as it is...nothing to fix in that moment, nothing to struggle against. Sometimes I've felt that while immersed in nature too. The god connection has been very weak for a long time, but I know other people can feel that sense of safe letting go and peace through connection to a higher power (I am working on my own spiritual connection, in my own way...takes a sort of diligence, but so important for me),

Does this make sense? Do others struggle to even have this feeling and what/where are you able to experience it?

Basically...a feeling of safety that is actually the flip side of my avoidance and trauma-induced safety measures. It's like my trauma is not a factor but I am free of it for a moment and just safe within the universe, not trapped in my own bubble. It's hard, but that's what I want. I have to work quite consciously at the measures which help me slow down just enough to experience these fleeting moments.

(edited to shorten...so many thoughts!)

 

[Stickler]

I feel it out in nature and during meditation, both of which I need more of. It seems to take me a bit of walking out in the woods or wherever before the anxiety sloughs off.

I remember we're all just process. I let go of clinging to my little hamster mind.

 

[Deleted member 20978]

All makes way sense to me. Really well said. I have definitely found surrender, as you describe it, to be very important but at times the struggle insists. I second Stickler too, nature helps me let go. And music too.

 

[Tinyflame]

Well I suppose it involves a decrease in anxiety, an increase in trust, phsysiological & psychological calming, dropping defenses, self-permission to do it. Things like that.

Where, when & how since the ptsd? I guess for me connection, with nature, God, a rare person.

Not that that's complete, simply because surrender isn't always not painful. I think it involves some degree of trust & dependence (a huge degree of trust, even also trust in another's viewpoint of ourselves), but underlying fear can still be there.

If that makes sense.

 

[Chava]

Thanks for responding @Stickler @Jemini and @Junebug ! I realize "surrender" isn't a hot topic with trauma! :cautious: Trust, letting go, letting down our guard...ouch...NO!!! But it is that feeling of being able to totally let my guard down and just "be". It's fleeting, and it's different from being distracted (I do distracted all day). I am safe in my home and I know that, so have to make a more conscious effort to slow down to the point I can just listen to music or sounds, or open the windows and listen to birds...and just lay on the porch, "okay" and connected to all of that.

 

[Tinyflame]

Yes a feeing of I am safe and I am home. :hug:

 

[Chava]

home

so elusive, but yes :headphone: