Invitation to Surrender

In this conversation, Nate and Ashley explore the profound theme of surrender, discussing its significance in personal growth and spiritual awakening. They delve into the challenges of letting go of control, the emotional turmoil that often accompanies surrender, and the transformative power it holds in leading to joy and acceptance. Through personal anecdotes and insights, they highlight the importance of practicing surrender in daily life, the connection between surrender and creativity, and the role of faith in embracing life's flow. Ultimately, they emphasize that surrender is not just a concept but a vital practice that can lead to deeper self-acceptance and a more fulfilling existence.

Chapters
00:00 The Invitation of Surrender
02:57 Navigating Control and Resistance
06:11 The Grief of Letting Go
08:56 Surrender as a Pathway to Joy
12:11 The Flow of Life and Surrender
15:08 Surrendering to Greater Intelligence
18:03 Embracing Difficult Emotions
20:48 Surrender and Self-Acceptance
24:01 Practicing Surrender in Daily Life
26:46 The Connection Between Surrender and Creativity
30:13 Transformative Power of Surrender
33:06 Consciousness and Presence in Surrender
36:05 The Role of Faith in Surrender
39:14 The Journey of Surrender
41:49 Final Thoughts on Surrender

Transcript

Nate (00:02.329)
Hey everyone, welcome to Spiritual Unraveling. And we were laughing at the start of this podcast because our topic this week is surrender. And we have a little preamble before we get going, just kind of touch base. And we were both kind of just getting ready to talk about how when we bring a topic into our lives and we bring kind of attention to it, then all of sudden it just starts showing up in these.

kind of funny and synchronistic and when you have ways, funny and synchronistic ways, but when you have surrender as your topic, look out. So this week, I'm gonna turn it over to Ash because she was just getting ready to get into something juicy. I said pause, hit record. Now I'm throwing it back to you Ashley. How has surrender been showing up in your life this week?

Ashley (00:59.491)
goodness gracious.

Ashley (01:04.085)
Yeah, I was actually thinking this morning about like the deep, deep, deep invitation of surrender and the power of surrender and where it brings you, you know, and really how you get there. mean, when I am consciously inviting myself to surrender in a state of peace or a state of

okayness, it actually feels really good. It can feel really relaxing and everything. But most of the time, surrender happens to me. It shows up when I need it, when I'm trying to make something happen, when I'm trying to control something or I don't like something in my life. And so, yeah, this week I...

Nate (01:44.236)
Thank

Ashley (02:01.229)
The way it's showing up right now is this week my doctor put me in a boot and on my right foot and it's slowing me down. It's not comfortable. I don't get to move the way I want to move and it's requiring pretty deep surrender to the reality that's here rather than wishing it was different. And you know for me if I'm in surrender

If I give in to surrender, which is the invitation, I can open up and expand and allow the thing I'm not happy about or isn't going the way I want it to go. And then I'm really available. I'm actually it's it can be very expand. That can be a very expansive experience to move past that. But most of the time.

I will sit in resistance until the last possible moment. And that actually feels like a contraction. And it shows up as irritability. And my son's like, are you OK? And so it's very obvious to me when I'm resisting surrender. So.

That is how it's showing up this week in my life. And I always appreciate it once I recognize it and I can work with it and move into it. Man, it's such a gift. But the second before that, it does not feel like a gift at all.

Nate (03:47.411)
Yeah, I have a really funny relationship with the word. What you're describing is kind of the roller coaster I go on around surrender. I have an orientation around spiritual stuff, which is we make it too freaking complicated. And I say that not to externalize it to other people, but for myself.

I am somebody who likes to over complicate things, make things hard, you know, a lot of effort means that something is happening. A lot of stuff like that. And so when I'm in that kind of place and then I think about the word surrender, I just like bristle. I'm like, I don't like that word. I just don't like that word. I like allowance. I like release. I'm not into surrender, but.

But then when I have the moments where I'm actually like in a calm, peaceful state, like you were talking about, and I can kind of like intentionally bring something up that's a little bit activating and then just like, just sit with it, let it be, it's there, it's not going anywhere. can't, you know, no amount of all of that energy or thinking or whatever changes it. So it's just.

sitting with it and not trying to fight it and that kind of surrender then I can kind of go into that. But I think it's funny because sometimes just the word itself it's like I do need these other they're just all euphemisms for very much the same thing you know release allow surrender they're just they're being in a state of non -resistance with what is what is happening in your life.

And yeah, when life kind of shows it to you in a pretty pronounced way, and usually that's when we have some strong expectations that are just kind of like really pulling us into this idea of like, you know, it's control. Essentially, surrender and control play this funny game inside of us.

Nate (06:11.12)
humans with overdeveloped monkey brains. We like to think we're in a lot more control than we are and surrender at its essence can lead to peace. And I think that's kind of what you and I are interested in talking about today is how that...

Yeah, that just kind of letting go of resistance, allowing full acceptance of what is without judgment, without expectation, without any of the other stuff.

is just this way to just really deactivate your system and come into the present moment, which is going to make life a lot more enjoyable. Those are my first kind of thoughts.

Ashley (06:57.399)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, totally. mean, as you were talking, I was thinking that we're indoctrinated into thinking that we are in control of our lives, that we have control of our lives from the very beginning. It's really a big unraveling to realize that that was never true and that that belief system actually creates a lot of suffering. And so if we

If we practice surrender, we're going to be put through. There's so many benefits of surrender we can talk about, but before you get to the benefits, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, I don't want to just put this on it because I don't know if this is true for everybody, but for me, there's a lot of grief around that reality that I was never in control and that that was always some illusion because

So much of my life, I think, was probably built on that belief system. I can make things happen. I can control things. I can make things the way that I want to. Of course, you know, sometimes that's true. We can be very thoughtful about the way things are going. But I don't know that controlling each moment ever made anybody truly joyful.

Maybe it made people feel as if they were safe or feel as if they were in control, but I don't know that it ever brought joy. And that's the real gift of surrender, which is very hard, I think, for most people to get to a place of true surrender. But the gift of true surrender is actually joy and aliveness in a way you could never experience when you're trying to control your life. And my favorite

Ashley (08:55.949)
Example for myself about surrender was my my first long silent retreat where I really thought I could control the experience. I really thought I could do meditation from the mind and that is it just a disaster. I mean it it doesn't work and it it's a very acute experience of

the misery that happens when we're trying to control something that can't be controlled. And so it was probably three or four days into the retreat that I finally got to this place where I was like, I'm terrible at this. I can't do this. I don't know why I even thought I could, you know, I don't know what he's talking about. I mean, just this really deep kind of

sensing into my own acceptance of my own limitation, really feeling like a failure, like I failed and almost giving up. Like I give up. I'm not, I can't do this. The moment I gave up.

Meditation House.

It just happened on its own. I couldn't believe it. And then that's the gift. There's always a gift on the other side of surrender because life is waiting for us. Life is very patient. It's waiting for us. That presence, that aliveness in the surrender is always there waiting. But man, did I have to get myself to a really miserable place before I was willing to let go.

Nate (10:42.419)
Yeah, I mean, when you describe that, it makes me think of the river analogy. like Abraham Hicks has talked about this, different spiritual teachers have talked about this, but it's like putting, trying to paddle upstream. And we do that a lot in a lot of what egoic mind and a lot of thinking and a lot of controlling and having expectations is basically

paddling upstream and they just, it's such a nice analogy because nobody in their right mind would ever do that and they would just say, turn downstream and let the river take you, which is essentially what surrender is, is just surrender to the flow of things. also there's a beautiful, the other thing that when you were talking, it made me think about kind of a fun addition to the idea of surrender is that,

When it can feel kind of hard, it can be helpful for us to remind ourselves that the other aspect to surrender is basically infinity, is this infinite amount of possibilities with the way that the world, that the energy, that people can show up in your lives. that, you know, surrender feels safe because it's control, it's expectations, it's all of those things.

but it's also so small. And you can do it for a while and you can, like you said, you can kind of do it successfully to a certain degree, but you're also just like completely limiting this unlimited resource, which is life and energy and the, I think the invitation of source to step into surrender is to say, you know, there's ways we can surprise you. You might.

you you might really enjoy. But you have to let go of thinking that you know what those things are. Wouldn't be a freaking surprise if you knew where the path was leading you. It requires a level of trust and of faith and of letting go of that tightness and the constriction and thinking you know how things should be done. If you knew how to best do things and you've been doing it your whole life.

Nate (13:10.129)
you wouldn't be unhappy with your life, you would be happy with your life. You know, wouldn't be listening to people like us, that's for sure.

Ashley (13:19.917)
Yeah, it's like, it's so interesting. I've actually, while you were talking, I was thinking about just this experience this week of being put in the boot. What this makes me, it makes me laugh because I've had this real deep intention, desire.

Ashley (13:40.619)
Just, you know, I've been putting this out for a couple months now that I really want to heal my foot pain to completion. I want it to be healed to completion. I just keep thinking that and saying that. so when she put me in the, sorry, when she put me in the boot and I was so disappointed and that disrupts my whole life. And now that we're talking about it, I'm thinking, you know, if I move with this energy of

being in the booth, there's a potential that I'm going to get my wish that this is what the universe, you know, this is what's gotten orchestrated to answer that call, to answer that, that deep desire. And, and so there's, you know, there's also this amazing, amazing thing that you get in touch with when you surrender, which is this greater intelligence that's at play all the time.

Nate (14:14.041)
And who's?

Ashley (14:39.607)
that's so much smarter and more capable than your own little brain, what you can come up with based on your life thus far. If it was working, then we wouldn't even need surrender, right? But we're all sort of wanting our lives to be better and whatever. And we really can't allow deep change to happen.

you know, transformation, healing, until we surrender to this greater intelligence. And you don't even have to acknowledge that it's a greater intelligence. Just do it and you'll see how things start to get organized. It's really hard to not see that greater intelligence once you surrender. And I imagine there are a lot of people who will never surrender in their lives. They'll never kind of move out of that illusion of control. But once you do, it's like,

You want more of it. It's really amazing. It's really a portal into a different way of experiencing life.

Nate (15:48.483)
Yeah, I love that. I love the idea of surrender being the portal. And it's the portal to that, it's the portal to that pathway that is so uniquely yours because all of your life and all of your struggles and all of the stuff has carved out a certain path that is specific to you. And most of the things you want are on the other side of that.

and the universe wants to deliver to you. It's not trying to hold anything back, but we often think we know the best way to get there or how we want it to look. And your foot is a great example, right? The intention you set is so beautiful and clean and yet there is nothing in there about how it should happen, rightfully so, because it's not your job, right? Your job is to literally go with the flow and allow

you know, that path to show itself to you and for you to kind of step onto it, you know, boot and toe and walk it and know that it's all gonna work out. Otherwise it wouldn't be showing up for you.

Ashley (17:03.787)
Yeah, I was just thinking like, why is this so hard? This is the invitation in meditation. It's the invitation in spiritual awakening is the surrender. And I was thinking, why is this so challenging? And it does go back to, I think the grief. There might be other emotions in there, but there's just definitely a grief that people will get in touch with.

you know, surrender itself comes with this just sort of array of difficult emotions that maybe we're avoiding all the time. we've all been conditioned to avoid those bad feelings or we've called them bad feelings. When I invite people on retreat into surrender, you can sort of see resistance as it comes up, you know, because there's this natural, there's a natural resistance to.

opening that well of emotions up. But eventually most people surrender on retreat because there's nothing else to do. And we just keep sending that invitation over and over and over again. And there is contact with difficult emotions. There's often tears, there's often confusion and frustration. And we get in touch with what we've been.

trying to control ourselves away from, distracting ourselves away from. And then people sort of stay with it. It doesn't kill anybody. It actually usually has some really important information in there. And then there's some freedom. It's not, you know, the avoidance of whatever that difficult emotion is or that information was, you're not

using your energy to avoid it anymore. So there's this opening up to kind of feeling free, feeling a little bit more unburdened. So there's a lot of, I mean, I think surrender is the spiritual path. Is it? Is surrender the spiritual path? Did we get straight to the heart of it?

Nate (19:25.531)
It's definitely a huge piece of it, right? It shows up. It's a piece that kind of orbits all of the other aspects of spiritual awakening that we're talking about. I'm intrigued by this, the emotional piece that you're talking about, because I think, even in my beginning when I was talking about how like, don't like that word.

I think, yeah, you were talking about grief. think there's probably, for me, can feel into frustration and maybe even anger or resentment about the amount of time and energy you have kind of forcing and actioning and doing that gets, know, that we, particularly in the Western culture, that we're really, we're really,

brought into that, that that is the way we get things done. And I think, you know, there are aspects to it that clearly people have harnessed, which is like intention and staying focused. It can get you a lot, but what costs if you're not also kind of in flow with life, if you're not surrendering to what's showing up, if you're not following the energy, these are all

of natural byproducts of surrendering, is, know, maybe you had an intention and you think it's going this way, but like you said with your foot, know, some life happens, it provides you a different path. But a lot of us just keep going right through that sign. And we're like, I'm blown through that stop sign. That's not the vision I have for how I get to my thing. So I think when I think back,

on my kind of like life experience, is a little bit of a, there could be a place in there where you could spin out a little bit and be like, God, I wasted so much time, like, you know, hammering a screw. It's like, that's the wrong tool and the wrong thing. They don't go together, but you're like pounding and you're like, why isn't it working? I'm doing the thing. Yeah, there's a grief.

Nate (21:45.262)
resentment, some frustration. There's just, yeah, there's a lot of energy in there. I think underneath all of it, as I'm talking about it now, I can feel that the reason that we do so much of this is out of fear. So there's an interesting relationship between surrender and fear, right? Which I also think probably as I'm talking might have to do with the...

our human existence being so human and real and not really being connected to our kind of eternal non -physical existence. And so then it creates this really sharp funnel for us, this life experience. there's just, it gets very tight. We get very clinchy and fearful about missing opportunities, about wasting our life, about all of these things which are really missing the point.

Right, so I don't know, I'm losing my thread a little there, but.

Ashley (22:48.875)
No, it's interesting because you brought up fear and I was actually thinking about it requires a bit of faith. So my example of being on retreat and then just completely giving up and recognizing my limitation and feeling like a failure. Well, surrender showed up there. That was beautiful, right? Like I didn't...

Nate (22:55.3)
Yeah.

Ashley (23:13.697)
think, I'm going to surrender to what is. I had to take myself to the brink. But if you're somebody who's on the path and there's this passion around freedom, awakening, more aliveness, joy, reality, truth, and you want to practice surrender,

Nate (23:16.248)
Mm -hmm.

Ashley (23:40.479)
It does require a bit of faith. It requires moving into a state of really letting go. And I think that's really hard for people. think it's just, again, faith in what? I like to just think about it as faith in life, to really see that life is, if you accept

Nate (24:01.399)
Mm

Ashley (24:08.075)
your reality exactly the way that it is right now without judgment, without needing it to be different and your energy body changes in your relationship to life. If you can let go of energetic resistance, physical resistance, mental resistance, emotional resistance, it does have an element of that moment that happened for me on retreat.

But if we're choosing it and we're engaging it and we're thinking about all of those different layers of letting go, if we're using the word surrender, you know, to move through those different layers and you look at the landscape of your life and you're willing, you're saying I'm willing to accept that this is what life is giving me right now. I'm going to receive my life rather than trying to manipulate it, strategize it, control it, make it different.

and you start letting yourself receive it, you know, for each one of us, it's a different experience like what happens. But for me, every single time, there's some gift in that. There's some new insight. There's some connection made to all of life. There's some...

connection to my own nothingness, essence, divine beingness. There's just something that pulls me out of my ego identity, self -absorbed, whatever that is. So even just the experience of I accept everything as it is.

Nate (25:46.612)
Yeah.

Ashley (26:05.599)
I surrender to what life is bringing to me. Just that, no matter what changes, no matter what happens, just that has such a gift in that moment.

Nate (26:18.462)
Yeah, well, and as you were saying this, it's making me realize that because the resistance is, it's just, it's all up here. It's all thinking. It's all, I wish this wasn't as it was. And that's okay. That's okay. We're humans. know, there's power in...

preference, right? There's power in and and part of the human experiences is having experiences and then reflecting did that work for me? Was that something I want to do again? You know, that's just part of us kind of being incarnated and that's okay, but the the kind of being in something and then saying well, I just don't want this to be or

can't believe it's this way, which I do all the time. It's ultimately just such a waste of time and energy. And it really just, you can feel it. Even when I'm saying it in my body, can feel it. It's like a plug. It just puts a plug right in energetic flow because you're just saying, I'm so, I don't want this thing to happen. I'm just gonna stop it. I'm gonna just try to stop it in its tracks. And just like.

again back to the river, can't stop a river from flowing. Like you, you know, you're gonna get pummeled. You ever, you know, you get caught on the banks of a river and you're not in the flow, it's an incredibly scary experience. And that's essentially what we're doing when we don't go with the flow of life is that we're just gonna get pummeled by the energetic flow of what's around us. And it's all there for us.

And yet the kind of rejection of it or the turning away or the disavowing of it is painful because it's also, it's partially you rejecting yourself, which is never gonna feel good. Your source is never, your soul, your essence is never gonna agree to that. So it's gonna cause physical discomfort as well. So now you've got mental discomfort and then.

Nate (28:39.276)
on top of it, you can start having physical manifestations and you can manifest illness as well by not going with the flow of life. I this is, yeah. So I don't know. mean, I don't know if Surrender is everything Ashley, but it's a big piece.

Ashley (28:55.373)
Well, you just convinced me. But, you know, it's hard to do, you know, my example about being in the boot, that's a small surrender. You know, it was just a moment that I noticed this week. They're much bigger ones. know, people, their lives can turn a corner so quickly with

you know, illness or tragedy or anything. And in those moments, man, it's hard to dig deep and surrender and see what I'm saying is like, this is a gift. Like life is always giving you what you need. Life is always handing you.

Ashley (29:45.165)
these opportunities for whatever your soul came to do, your soul's becoming, whatever is here for you. But that resistance just does cause so much pain and suffering and heartache and manifests in the body and in the emotional, in our mental health. so it is a critical, it seems like it's a critical practice and can be

something that people practice every day. know that it's a core aspect of true meditation. think true meditation is intentional surrender. It's an opening up to allowing everything to be as it is in that moment, in each moment. And so we can practice this so that when those big moments happen,

that would maybe have brought fear, intense fear and contraction and resistance. We can open up to those moments. We can.

be more expansive. We can have faith. We can receive the gifts. We can change that perspective. And I think that's the real bang for your buck with spiritual awakening. think that's, you know, what we're moving towards is to be in our lives without resistance. That's really challenging, but we can practice. think, I think that's what meditation is. It's, it's a practice in surrender.

Nate (31:30.551)
Yeah, I like that. So when you're talking about it in that way, are you talking specifically about the sit down, the act, and then when you're doing the meditation, that sense that you're letting go, that you're surrendering to the moment, you're in the breath, and then whatever that's...

whatever is the presence. Go ahead and I'm curious to hear a little bit more about.

Ashley (32:08.107)
Yeah, you just said it all. You had all the components. Yeah. So there's a kind of disruption of the mental kind of ego driven self, which is trying to manipulate, strategize and control in your life. Thinking about the past, thinking about the future. It's not necessarily in the present moment. When you come into the present moment, when you truly come into the present moment, you're in surrender.

Nate (32:10.059)
Okay.

Ashley (32:36.939)
You're in the void. You're allowing whatever.

is going to arise from that. don't know if darkness is the right word, but void emptiness. You know, the present moment is is an opening to potential to possibility to whatever wants to arise and that practice of presence.

which is not about the mind saying, wow, I'm being really present right now. This is really, I'm present, I'm present. It's really about the felt sense, the experience of sitting in that open, surrendered.

awareness of what's arising now and now.

And we can get really good at that, meaning that we can.

Ashley (33:39.895)
feel the benefit of that surrendered moment, we can move past the grief of the illusion of control and we can keep arriving in this open place and start to train our being to stay more and more and more and surrender so that whatever happens in

any given moment, we are receptive beings. We're open, surrendered, receptive beings. And it just changes the trajectory of your life. It's the river analogy. You're going now with the flow. And people who are in the flow know what the benefits are of being in the flow. We've all been in the flow and we all know what that feels like. This is how you get yourself in the flow.

That's my experience.

Nate (34:36.51)
That's great. Yeah, and as you were saying that it was making me think too recently, one of the things that I'm really into spiritual tools, I like all the different techniques and do different things. Last week we talked about heart math and I was talking about the heart math monitor that I like. The other thing that I've been doing a lot lately and now I'm realizing how it's tying to surrender is I've been doing a lot of tapping with mirror work.

And when you tap, one of the things I realized about tapping as we're talking about the meditation is that tapping also has a big surrender piece because there's always part of the lead up, you do a prompt where you talk about what's happening and you always own it. That's actually a huge part of moving the energy when you do a tapping session is just saying like, you start your tapping and you're like, even though I'm feeling

blank or even though this is happening and I'm feeling frustrated or whatever, I still love, and accept myself. That's kind of like the initial prompt. But part of the ingeniousness of it is that you do not try to deny that the thing is happening. They is causing a reaction and the reaction in you isn't the thing. The reaction in you is the

you're not allowing it. You're not allowing it to flow through you. Like experiences, again, I won't stay on the river analogy forever, but flow, has so much to do with what we're talking about. The life experiences and particularly emotions, we're just not taught this very well. They are meant to flow in and out of us. They help us inform whether or not something is for us or...

maybe not for us, something we like, we dislike. It's also a way to regulate our body and through emotions, but we're not meant to like hold them and like really clench to them. Whenever we hold onto any of that stuff, and it's basically an energy form, you wholly get stuck energy, stuck energy is not good. And that's part of what happens when you're not in surrender, when you're not in allowance, you can get real clenchy with certain feelings or emotions. And so,

Nate (37:03.31)
I love right now I've been really into the tapping because I can do it very quickly and I can have moments where I'm like, feels off, what is it? And then something powerful about the mirror work too, looking at yourself as you're owning, so annoyed with this thing and you start tapping, you do the prompt. But I realize it's also a conscious way of.

engaging surrender because you're basically owning that some part of you isn't in flow, isn't in receptive nature. You're in resistance. so you take it, then you tap on these points, which also pulls you into your body and out of your head, and you let the energy flow through you. And then as you were talking about, people who are in surrender know

That's also a very nice, whenever I do that I know because like two or three minutes later I feel immediate relief, right? It's not like this euphoric glaze, which sometimes you can get if you do a really long meditation session or you do something that really excites you and you get into the flow. But it's like, there's no more constriction. There's ease and you just, you're like, relief. I guess relief would be the word. So yeah, that's.

There's the plug for, know, if anyone's wondering what would surrender get me at the very basic level. How does relief sound? It's, it's nice. Yeah.

Ashley (38:42.601)
I'll take it.

Yeah, when you, gosh, even as you were talking, I could just feel some parts of me letting go and relaxing. It's just so interesting. Even in this conversation, there's an invitation into accepting everything exactly the way that it is. I do think there's a connection between surrender and self -love and self -acceptance.

because yeah, what's that connection? just like was clicking into that.

Nate (39:21.771)
Yeah.

Well, I think maybe what we're talking about is that there is no, you don't need to change to be lovable, right? So part of what surrendering is, is complete acceptance and allowance and not fighting anything as it is. And that is also part and parcel of self -love and self -acceptance. It's like, I don't need to change. I am.

I am whole, I am me, I am a unique person, living being, entity, surrendering to that unique one of a kindness that's you and just say, I don't need to change anything or do anything different because this is who I am. So I don't know, I think we're close. I don't know if you have more there.

Ashley (40:21.409)
Yeah, well, I would say this goes back to my story that I told about that first retreat. Once I surrendered, what I noticed that I don't think I could have ever at that time cultivated from the mind was this deep, what felt like almost an existential love.

love meaning a deep okayness. Everything was okay. when you're in that, but you said relief. think this is what made me think of it because when you're in that deep, deep okayness, it feels like love. It's not necessarily going, there's not duality. I love myself. I'm two things. I am loving myself, but you just become this love.

flooded with love. Love has arisen in that moment. You you're experiencing love and in that love, in that open spaciousness where everything is just okay, there's a deep, deep, deep acceptance of yourself, a deep acceptance of all of life. Nothing needs to change. You know, you, you...

you kind of pierce into the reality, which is nothing needs to change. I mean, I think that is our reality. And then once you get there, I mean, we're not talking about this necessarily in this podcast, but if we can reach that state or that state can arise based on the conditions of the mind and the body and the mental, emotional alignment or coherence or whatever.

when we can open to that, I think then we can move into sort of a more creator, once we're in reality, we're not trying to control or resist our, and try to make our lives into what we were told we were supposed to be, then we can move more into this kind of creator energy. And that's a really interesting.

Ashley (42:48.511)
maybe subject for another podcast, but that love and that acceptance, I think just arises on its own in surrender, which is wild. It's a wild thing that the mind can't always create from a dualistic. I mean, you can get close by practicing self -acceptance. You can get close to it, but I think it's a little different than surrender.

Nate (43:12.155)
Yeah, I think you're on it there with the creative part too though, because I think anyone who does creative endeavors has had that moment where, you you create an environment or a situation or a scenario where you're not gonna be distracted, you're not gonna be, you know, whatever for your craft or your project or whatever. But then,

what comes through you if you get into a flow state is actually something that is not really yours. It does flow through you and you can't, the reason I said you can kind of set things up so that it's optimal, that stuff helps, but you can't actually force it to come. And I think, you know, we have a whole thing called writer's block, which is essentially people not,

being able to surrender to the flow. I so I think it does, I think it does apply. you know, this unique dance that we have with universal energy only works if we allow it to be a two -way street. You know, there's give and take and there's flow in any time that we're

holding onto something or we're blocking something or we're disavowing or saying that should not be, we step out of the flow. And then we're not gonna have any sparks of inspiration, we're not gonna have any clarity, we just kind of move into this place of, okay, now I'm going through my mental Rolodex to figure out like, what did I do in the past? Which is gonna inform what I do in the future, which is newsflash.

how you perpetuate all of your life that is like stagnant. Because, you know, when you do that, I this is all like kind of the Joe Dispenza stuff. You're predictable, whatever it is, something that, the predictable future, it's, all of that is kind of code for not being in flow and being resistant to what is showing up for you.

Nate (45:35.445)
everything is, I believe, I know it's out there for some people, but I do believe that everything is showing up for you for a reason and they all carry little nuggets of information and guidance. And if you don't kind of get playful and allow that stuff to kind of move around you, then you know, the guidance isn't really working the way it's supposed to, you know, and anytime we just, yeah.

Ashley (46:04.289)
Hmm.

Nate (46:05.142)
Anytime we hold too tight onto something, bottle, you're bottlenecking the universe. That's not a good idea. Yeah.

Ashley (46:15.735)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how do people practice surrender? You know, I was thinking you gave an example of tapping. I talked about meditation, but I think there's all sorts of things that have to do with the body that have to do with...

following a different energetic frequency than the mind, know, disrupting the mind. And that can happen in all sorts of different ways. It can happen through movement or dance or art or all sorts of ways. But a big, big part of it is consciousness, being aware of your own resistance, being aware of the part of you that wants control and being willing to feel that grief, that frustration.

Nate (46:44.504)
Mm -hmm.

Ashley (47:09.441)
that resentment, being willing to go through and being willing to feel whatever's here. So when I got put in the boot, you know, letting myself feel the disappointment, feel that frustration and without judgment, without needing that to be different. And then that's just a part of it. So any other thoughts about that before we stop?

Nate (47:37.354)
Yeah, think without getting too complicated, lot of it, consciousness is right on. I also think just presence. So if you're feeling like this stuff is difficult, then checking in throughout the day and just having moments built in, you can do it through apps. There's tons of really cool apps right now that'll just give you a little reminders to stop what you're doing, take like,

not even, you don't even need a minute, just feel into your body. How do I feel? Take some conscious breaths, come into the present moment. All of that stuff brings, let releases surrender and brings you into the flow of life. So yeah, I mean, I think anytime that you are willing to honestly look at your feelings and then step, you know.

step into your heart, drop down into your heart and take a couple of deep breaths. I think just something that simple three or four times a day, if you're not doing it at all, is probably gonna make a dramatic change in your life. Just touching in, you you're getting tons of information. Your body is full of biofeedback about resistance and flow, so.

Ashley (49:02.605)
you

Nate (49:03.997)
But you have to be willing to look at it a little bit. So, yeah, bravely examine what's coming up for you and use your breath if it gets scary. It's always there and it's the easiest tool you're gonna get.

Ashley (49:08.833)
you

Ashley (49:22.529)
Yeah, and I also appreciate what you said earlier about your own sort of resistance to the word surrender because it's a powerful word. We have a lot of associations with that word that might feel scary or permanent or, you know, like, like, bottoming out, you know, or, or, you know, that might come with a lot of negative associations. And so doing some inquiry.

Nate (49:30.984)
Mm -hmm.

Ashley (49:52.843)
with yourself when you feel that those feelings come up about any of these concepts or ideas, you know, just doing some inquiry into like, why is that scary for me? Why am I resisting that word? Because I think surrender is one of the most potent and powerful words you can let live in your being.

and see how it transforms you. know, letting surrender transform you is a form of surrender. So, yeah, just looking at the word itself, I think is a good practice.

Nate (50:36.296)
Absolutely. Okay. Do we feel like we covered surrender enough?

Ashley (50:42.837)
I think we got there. I think this was a really great discussion and I'd love to hear what people think about our conversation and how surrender has been a part of your life. I'm just, you know, wondering what that word, because it is a very potent word, how you've worked with surrender or so, yeah.

Nate (51:11.335)
feel free to reach out to us people. We're doing this because we have a passion and a love for having these conversations and we're genuinely very curious and we love exploring the depths of these kind of topics.

Ashley (51:14.359)
you

Ashley (51:30.923)
Yeah, so what you agreed with or what you didn't agree with or what's easy about those or what's hard about it. Yeah, we're hoping to create some community. we'll see you next time.

Nate (51:33.393)
Right.

Absolutely.

Nate (51:42.875)
Bye, Ash.

Ashley (51:44.311)
Bye.