TO SURRENDER IS TO BECOME WHO WE CAN BE

Story By: Mariana Jimenez

How would you describe your relationship with yourself?

Whenever I’m asked to define what mental health means to me, I find myself repeatedly referring back to this question for the answer. Believe that at its core, our answer to this question defines the state of our mental well-being. Now, this is a very broad question; so where do we begin answering it? Let’s first start by defining what mental health is not: mental health is not about trying to achieve happiness on a 24/7 basis, it’s not about trying to get complete control over our feelings, and it doesn’t have to be about completely changing our identity into one that we perceive to be healthier. It’s also not necessarily about buying expensive green juices and having matcha lattes every morning, as I think we’ve come to believe due to online wellness trends like the “that girl” trend.

My intent is not to say that the above items can’t add enjoyment to our daily routines, but I think a line that these online trends have blurred, but is important to remember, is that having these things does not mean that we have achieved mental health. Mental health is a state of being, not having an array of things that may be defined as “wellness”, because there is far more meaningful inner work and self-discovery to be done to achieve mental well-being than any of these material mediums can even compare to.

I think a big misconception around the journey towards mental health is that we must discover ourselves for the purpose of “fixing” or “controlling” the parts of us that we are unhappy with; however, recently I think I’ve come to realize that mental health is quite the opposite: it’s about surrender. I heard a quote recently that said “true peace is achieved when we can accept our life as it is rather than trying to relentlessly work around it to change its narrative”, which I think beautifully encompasses what it is to surrender. When we recognize that we can love and accept ourselves as we are while still working towards becoming better versions of ourselves, the more we are able to recognize and appreciate our evolution.

Further, the more authentic and deep-rooted that change becomes because it is done from a place of compassion instead of from an intention of reaching a standard. So, what does surrender look like? How can we step into surrender while still being advocates for the changes in our life that we want to make? Fundamentally, I think surrendering is simply embracing uncertainty. The universe has a plan for all of us, and as much as many of us may wish that we had direct control over the direction that our lives follow, thinking that we can exempt ourselves from this higher plan can lead to a lot of discontent. How does this tie back to the question, “”how would you describe your relationship with yourself?”

Well, embracing uncertainty is how we best get to know ourselves. When faced with an unforeseen, challenging circumstance, we can choose to observe how we react so that we can learn to respond in the future. Uncertainty gives us direct access to the limiting beliefs we hold about ourselves and the world around us that we must rewrite to stop holding ourselves back from a richer future that is aligned with our goals. In uncertainty, our emotions towards our circumstances become a testament for the parts of us that need love and compassion from ourselves to heal. Embracing uncertainty gives us an opportunity to build deeper connections with ourselves by becoming active observers of the inner world that forms within us when we cannot control the outcome of our circumstances. Surrendering doesn’t mean that we are letting ourselves go or that we are becoming complacent with life.

I believe that it’s actually an act of honouring ourselves, because it takes immense courage to place ourselves in a vulnerable place and it takes even more strength to be vulnerable with ourselves about personal traits that we may feel disdain towards; but this is growth. This is self-acceptance, self-renewal, healing, and self-love. When we look at our life not as the unfortunate outcome of our broken parts, but the beautiful product that it is capable of blooming into if we allow ourselves to feel and see ourselves fully, we are stepping closer to a place of more profound consciousness that we can live from. When we live from the awareness of who we are and who we have been, and who we are becoming, our life becomes filled with purpose.

As Brianna Weist says in her book When You’re Ready, This is How You Heal, “we heal when we learn how to adjust how we show up, not how we change what we show up to”. I mentioned earlier that I believe mental health is a state of being; an ever-present awareness of who we are outside of the ebbs and flows that can impact our day and thus our emotions, our energy, and our motivation. Having this knowledge and confidence in who we are begins to make our relationship with ourselves feel like we are coming home to ourselves. When we start start turning inwards to give ourselves the comfort, validation, and support that we crave from the outside world, we enhance our relationship with ourselves, we start healing our inner child, and we start to recognize that the only person in this world that we have to worry about measuring up to is no one but the person we were yesterday. Imagine what a beautiful reality this could be, if we were solely concerned with making our past selves proud rather than
pleasing everyone around us…

As American rapper Russ once said, “too busy watering my grass to check if yours is greener”. Start coming home to yourself. Start loving yourself as you are, for everything that you are. Start imagining yourself telling your past self how far you’ve come and how much you’ve learned about yourself. Start forgiving your flaws and treating them with compassion, because you did the best you could with what you had and what you knew then. Start embracing the process that it takes to become sure of yourself, while knowing that you are worth every tear and every smile that you allow yourself to express on this journey. Live with the peace of knowing that you are exactly where you need to be right now, because there’s no better place to live and learn than the present. Then, and only then, can we start living from a place of mental well-being, consciousness, and closeness to ourselves.

Connect with Mariana directly:

Instagram & Facebook: @commitmentgrowthpodcast

Podcast: The Commitment Growth Podcast