The Paradox of Surrender: How Letting Go Helps Us Receive What We Truly Want

Note: Episode 10 Show Notes & Resource Guide are available at the end of this entry.

Have you ever noticed how the things you grasp for most tightly seem to slip through your fingers? How the relationships, opportunities, or experiences you try hardest to control often feel the most chaotic?

There's a profound wisdom I've been sitting with lately that runs counter to everything our achievement-oriented culture teaches us: sometimes, the path to what we most deeply desire runs through surrender, not force.

In our latest episode of Moon & Fire, "The Sacred Surrender: Opening to What You're Longing For," I explore this counterintuitive truth. As a threshold walker and coach who helps women navigate life's significant transitions, I've witnessed firsthand how loosening our grip on exactly how things must unfold often creates the very opening needed for our deepest longings to find us.

This isn't about passive resignation or giving up on our desires. Rather, it's about recognizing when our white-knuckle striving is actually blocking the very thing we seek.

Recent research confirms what many wisdom traditions have long taught: a state of surrender—our willingness to accept whatever comes without resistance—is strongly correlated with psychological well-being, happiness, and life satisfaction. Meanwhile, gratitude practices have been scientifically shown to shift our nervous system out of stress response and into receptivity, allowing us to recognize opportunities we might otherwise miss.

In this episode, I share:

  • How to distinguish true surrender from giving up

  • The neuropsychology behind why surrender works

  • A simple gratitude practice that can shift your relationship with control

  • Practical rituals for sacred surrender in life's threshold moments

If you've been pushing hard for something that feels stubbornly out of reach—or if you're simply exhausted from constantly orchestrating every aspect of your life—this episode offers a refreshing perspective and practical tools for a different way forward.

Sometimes the most direct path to what we're seeking is to release our grasp on how it must arrive. I invite you to listen and discover what might be waiting for you on the other side of surrender.

With wild grace,

 

Listen to Episode 10:

EPISODE 10 SHOW NOTES

Episode #10: "The Sacred Surrender: Opening to What You're Longing For”

Brief Description:

In this transformative episode, I explore the counterintuitive wisdom of surrender as a powerful access point to what we're truly longing for. Drawing from my experience as a threshold walker—someone who helps women cross from one season of life to the next—I share how surrendering isn't about giving up, but about opening to a larger reality beyond our own striving. Discover how gratitude practices can shift your relationship with control, creating space for unexpected gifts to enter. Learn why neuroscience shows that loosening our grip on specific outcomes actually expands our perception and creativity. Through practical rituals and embodied practices, this episode offers a pathway to experience the paradox at the heart of sacred surrender: sometimes the most direct route to what we desire comes through releasing our attachment to how it must arrive.

key quotes

  1. "True surrender is an opening, a softening, a remembering that we are held within something larger than our individual striving."

  2. "Surrender doesn't mean abandoning our dreams or desires. It means releasing our attachment to exactly how they must manifest and on what timeline."

  3. "Think of surrender as the exhale after a long, deep inhale. Both are essential to the breath cycle, but many of us have been taught to value only the inhale - the gathering, the accumulating, the achieving."

  4. "Sometimes the most powerful action we can take is to surrender. Sometimes the most direct path to what we're seeking is to release our grasp on how it must arrive."

  5. "When we're in a state of striving and stress - what we might call 'making it happen' mode - our brain activates its threat-response networks. This narrows our perception, limits our creativity, and actually reduces our ability to recognize opportunities."

  6. "Gratitude reminds us of a simple but profound truth: many of the most precious things in our lives are not there because we manufactured their presence through force of will."

  7. "Even a few minutes of genuine gratitude practice each day can begin to shift our relationship with control and open us to the possibility of surrender."

  8. "There are moments for clear direction and purposeful movement. And there are moments for softening, for listening, for allowing ourselves to be moved rather than always being the mover."

  9. "Research shows that a state of surrender is strongly correlated with psychological well-being, including thriving, happiness, flourishing, and life satisfaction."

  10. "When we surrender to this greater holding, we don't diminish our power - we actually access a more profound source of it."

Research Sources:

On Surrender

  1. Sease, T. B., Andersland, M., Perkins, D. R., Sandoz, E. K., Jean, C., Sudduth, H., & Cox, C. R. (2024). Surrendering to thrive: Evaluating the psychometric properties of the State of Surrender (SoS) scale and its relationship with well-being. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 33, 100815. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2024.100815

  2. Sease, T. B., Cox, C. R., Wiese, A. L., Sandoz, E. K., & Knight, K. (2024). The impact of State of Surrender on the relationship between engagement in substance use treatment and meaning in life presence: a pilot study. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1331756. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1331756

On Gratitude and Contrasting Emotions

  1. Howells, K. (2022). Trying to find gratitude rather than resentment when in chronic pain. Kerry Howells. https://kerryhowells.com/trying-to-find-gratitude-rather-than-resentment-when-in-chronic-pain/

  2. Psychology Today. (2025, February 3). Gratitude. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/gratitude

  3. Mindful. (2025, February 10). The Science of Gratitude. https://www.mindful.org/the-science-of-gratitude/

On Health Benefits of Gratitude

  1. Chen, Y., VanderWeele, T. J., et al. (2024). Association of gratitude with mortality risk among older adults in the US. JAMA Psychiatry. [Referenced in Research.com]

  2. Fahkry, T. (2024, January 10). The Power Of Gratitude In An Unfair World: Appreciation As An Antidote To Bitterness. https://www.tonyfahkry.com/the-power-of-gratitude-in-an-unfair-world-appreciation-as-an-antidote-to-bitterness/

On Gratitude Practices

  1. Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2), 377-389.

  2. Seligman, M. E. P., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions. American Psychologist, 60(5), 410-421.

  3. Harvard Health. (2021, August 14). Giving thanks can make you happier. https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks-can-make-you-happier

On Synthetic vs. Natural Happiness

  1. Gilbert, D. (2006). Stumbling on happiness. Knopf.

  2. Gilbert, D. (2004). The surprising science of happiness [TED Talk]. TED Conferences LLC. https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_the_surprising_science_of_happiness

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