And Suddenly You Surrender, Episode 117
When we learn to relax our defensiveness, when we become less anxious to protect our borders – when we find ourselves surrendering to life – we become more loving, we regain our integrity and our dignity, and we have a much better chance of both receiving our lives and contributing to them.
A conversation about the ways we separate ourselves from life and how we might return, with Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.
This is Turning Towards Life, a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. We’re also on YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google and Spotify.
Here's our source for this week, which is a quote that you can also find in this piece written by Justin.
And Suddenly You Surrender
I consider the loss of contact with our lived experience as the main root of the malaise that affects our society ... We become blind to the very texture of our experience ... cutting ourselves off from what is closest, most intimate to us. We become blind to the very texture of our experience. In particular, we live in the illusion of a rigid separation between an inner and an outside world, between 'me' and 'you', between body and mind, between seeing, hearing, touching and tasting.
We spend considerable energy trying to maintain these frontiers, which we consider essential to our survival.
In the rare moments when our tensions dissipate, these rigid boundaries fade, opening up a vast space. We can sometimes have a glimpse of this ... One day there is a book, a song, an encounter, or a special light in the morning through the foliage, and suddenly you surrender, you lay down your arms. Recovering contact with this tender dimension is a huge relief. When we are less on the defensive, less anxious to protect our borders, we become more loving. We regain our integrity, our dignity.