Surrender or die trying
Loosen your grip, expand your world
If trusting doesn’t come naturally to you when life is uncertain.
If angst and worry are your default responses.
If you find yourself over-thinking. Trying to control the uncontrollable.
Welcome to the club!
But what if we could transform fear into surrender?
What if the unknown was an invitation rather than a threat?
I’ve spent my life looking for freedom, travelling, chasing expansion and living outside the box.
And 34 years of searching has taught me that wisdom = trust.
When I’ve done all I could, when there are no stones left to turn, the only thing left is trust. Yet I still struggle..
Diving down the rabbit hole
From a purely experiential and empirical perspective, I can attest with 99.99% certainty that an intelligence far wider and more “intelligent” than my thoughts exists. Nothing new here, Jesus spilled the beans two thousand years ago.
I’ve spent my life peeking behind the curtains of reality. My record shows. I’ve been meditating since I was twenty. I’ve sat silent retreats. And I’ve also jumped feet-first in the black hole of full-dose psychedelic trips.
If you’ve taken five dried grams of mushrooms or a full, well calibrated tab of acid, you know how crucial surrender is. And failing to comply with the only order the substance gives you is an assured one-way ticket to Badtripville.
“You take the red pill… you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
I’ve witnessed all my sanity anchor points dissolve before me many times. Only to see my sense of self send spider-man-like bursts of identifications to all my thoughts in order to reconstruct my personality as fast as possible.
I’ve experienced death and rebirth. I’ve glimpsed the infinite depth of the rabbit hole.
Yet, I still struggle with surrender in my day to day.
Lessons from wonderland
There’s powerful lessons in knowing how to navigate a full-dose psychedelic trip. One that applies to everyday life.
Death (your best friend)
The only 100% certainty we can have in this life is that it is finite. And so is a trip. Take the substance, trip and exit. Life works the same way.
Death awaits us all. Coming to terms with that makes life richer.
Today will never be repeated. You might never get a chance to look at the sky.
You might never get the chance to be angry at your partner again.
Make death your friend.
Let her remind you of how precious it all is.
Intensity (the speed-up button)
Life is a wild ride. Psychedelics press the speed-up button. If it isn’t, it’s probably because you’re shying away from what could be your life.
Set and setting (perspective)
Your mind creates your reality. As the host of 70 000 thoughts per day, it has the power of locking you up or setting you free. As you change the way you look at things, you can change the thing you look at.
Show up with an open mind (stay curious)
My curiosity helped me gather the tools that I need to navigate life: yoga, growth, shadow work, meditation, breathwork. I use them daily. Tools work. But you gotta use ‘em.
But the most powerful tool I found?
Trust
Trust is cultivated. It’s not a fixed trait.
Trust is the ultimate growth signpost - but that doesn’t mean trusting any rando off the street. I’m not suggesting passivity either or a wacky prescription like: “Repeat the following affirmation 50 times a day and watch your life transform in two weeks.”
No.
Rather, I’m advocating a perspective shift: moving up and out of despair into an expansive surrender.
Breath is the best way I’ve found to achieve this. Every time I lay down to breathe, I am reminded of its power to help me move from fear, contraction and worry, to gratitude, love, and faith.
Showing up and breathing signals to my brain that I am worth it.
So here’s my prescription:
Practice coherent breath for 5 minutes once a day for the next month.
Inhale on a count of 5, and exhale on a count of 5.
If you can bring yourself to do this every day for a month, I promise, you’ll see a shift.
With every inhale you get a chance to expand, to bring fresh energy to the parts that feel stuck.
Every exhale is a surrender. A signal to the universe that says: I trust.
Trust isn’t about knowing. It’s about allowing. It’s about expanding.
The concept of a higher power is something I still struggle with to believe in. But what I can believe is there are far more things I cannot control, and maybe thats my higher power. Breathing into that right now <3
My first reaction to a man saying trust is the key to everything was…well, a female tirade of thoughts. (Men can leave a drink unattended, take an Uber alone at night, walk at night, without the floodgates of cortisol wreaking havoc within.) But I see through that, into your words on the divinity of Trust itself; past the human experience and into the soul’s. In my spiritual reawakening (still ongoing), hearing “It is safe to trust the Universe within you,” set off an alchemaic scavenger hunt I’m still following. I’m going to do your breathing exercise. Meditate on trust. And keep trying to learn/experience how different the divine masculine is from toxic masculinity. Your essay expanded me today. Thank you (I think😂)✨