Paying attention, moment by moment, is surrendering to the unknown. That surrender is the practice of being open to whatever comes next. I see being open to whatever comes next from the vantage point of Step 3 of the 12 Steps - "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God." When I stay open, I'm giving the higher power the chance to direct me towards healing where I otherwise might direct myself towards sickness.
God is the Unknown. Or I should say the Known Unknown because I believe we do "know" God because we know our lives, our emotions, our minds, other lives and this higher power runs throughout all of this. So what does it mean when you surrender to God? You allow yourself to be led as if you were blind because truly we are. Some people see the higher power as a loving parent or parents guiding them as if they were handicapped children. But there are so many ways to imagine God, to make the Unknown known and familiar.
I don't like feeling blind but I know it is my condition. I can't see the bigger picture. I don't really know the larger meaning of my life and other people's lives. I am very aware of my ignorance and yet this ignorance allows me to stay open and often receptive to what comes along. It is the state of beginner's mind, the mind of the student just starting to learn about a subject she knows little about. I feel that way a lot. That feeling of being small and ignorant grounds me in humility. Surrendering to something greater, more profound, wiser is practicing humility. It should be obvious - me = small, world = large. But it is not obvious to most of us who get so caught up in our own stories.
We become our whole world with the external world just another extension of ourselves. It's like living inside a very strong, elastic, nearly impenetrable bubble. Practicing humility pierces the bubble and lets some of the actual world into awareness immediately giving the individual a much greater perspective, much greater insight. This insight takes form in a feeling of vulnerability and tenderness which is love. That's the saving grace of practicing humility - the result is love and love is strong and protective.
When we get humble, we get liberated. Our humility is an invitation to God to come inside. My experience with humility is that every time I humble myself, God is right there supporting me, giving me access to a kind of awakened heart and mind which is compassion for my self and others, a respect for life. The lower you've gone into sickness and hard times, the greater your respect for yourselves and other sufferers when you take the path of recovery from that trauma. The first Step of the 12 Steps is a call to a very deep humility that comes from living with powerlessness over one's illnesses. The second Step is an acknowledgement that something in the Unknown is benevolent and wise and can be called upon as we work to heal ourselves. The third Step is about commitment to this force within the Unknown.
Surrender is not something you do once and it is finished. Surrender is a continuing process. It is scary at first. At key points during the day and night I open and listen and ask "Now what?" I pray each morning for insight, intuition, inspiration and understanding for the day so that I can make good choices guided by God. I've learned from my life experience that the main thing God wants us to do is to take care of ourselves, which means absolutely that God wants us to love ourselves deeply at all times. No one can love you the way you can love you with God's help. Your relationship with yourself is your primary relationship. If you don't have a good relationship with yourself, you will encounter problem after problem in your relationship with others. Self love is the most important bottom line behavior to practice.
When you choose to love yourself, you surrender to God. Many people look for unconditional love from their partners and become discouraged when this does not happen. Whenever someone lets them down, they lose faith in the possibility of a greater power being unconditionally loving. My belief is that God loves unconditionally all life. It is we, in our sickness, that do not love all life, but continue to choose to be conditional with our love towards not only others but especially towards ourselves. So where do we start? We start where we are, with ourselves. If we need to, we act as if there is an unconditionally loving higher power and we aspire to follow that power by being unconditionally loving towards ourselves as we are and not as we would be.
I think for too many of us unconditionally loving ourselves is entering into the Unknown. It takes courage and persistence to love yourself no matter what. I had the wonderful and horrible experience of loving myself despite being attacked by voices that were trying to convince me that I was evil. I think that I survived that experience because I didn't have as big a burden as some. I did internalize shame as a child and yet in terms of most of my actions I didn't feel guilty. I was so withdrawn from people that I didn't give myself a chance to hurt a lot of people. Not so for more people than not, especially people who have gotten caught in different kinds of addictions. But the truth as I see it is that I could have been a mass murderer and God would still love me deeply and accept me. That's what unconditional loving is about. It's what many mothers and fathers feel about their wayward children. They love and support their children no matter what, not as enablers, but as a healthy support system connected to others in health.
It is human to be afraid of the Unknown and to want reassurance that all will be well and nothing will be overwhelming. But the nature of life is to flow like water down into the deep and dark recesses and back up towards the light. The nature of life is to move and change and hopefully grow in health. But there is a lot of sickness in us that pulls us down. Even way down deep or maybe especially way down deep, there are important lessons to learn. Nothing is wasted. Our lives are precious and our experience is valuable, but we have to remind ourselves of this on a regular basis.
