Meditation #7 The Power of Surrender

Meditation #7 The Power of Surrender

Every time I hold a baby, I fall in love.

I am seduced by that total faith, that surrender to my embrace, the confident grasp that instinctively seeks my fingers and holds on tight, searching into my eyes to absorb my soul through that exchanged gaze and the spell is fully cast by that flicker of light when recognition and the thrill of exploring a human face ignites the connection.

I love the smell of a baby, the feeling of light and love that seems to envelop us both as we cuddle and then the delight when that baby gifts me with a chuckle! I had one such moment this week, and it fed me enough love to last all month, and it allowed me to open the memories of what it mush have felt like to be wrapped within loving arms, looking up and hoping that sturdy embrace meant this big person would know how to decipher me, feed me when I felt hungry, figured out how to relieve my discomfort and cared enough to explore my being and tell me I was loved.

Can we find still find within ourselves that willingness to let go? To trust in others and allow them to grow by being our caregivers, our helpers, our source of love, comfort, laughter, wisdom or simple presence? It is so easy to become trapped in the delusion of being self-sufficient, self-conscious, to believe everybody is watching to see your failures, or your weaknesses or deficiencies, and to refuse to ask for help, reach out for comfort and allow others to be the source of what we need.

In Spanish, we frequently say “me da pena”, the closest translation would be “it embarrases me”, and it frequently is applied to a situation where we will be exposed as vulnerable, lacking, needy or weak. But most often, it just means recognizing we are human and incomplete, and need the skills, the help, the cooperation of a team or maybe just one friend, to help us through and allow us to cross the threshold into realizing that it is in fact empowering and revealing to surrender, to allow another to hold us, feed us, listen to us and perhaps heal us by looking into our eyes and either by laughing along or joining our tears, serving us and opening our hearts once again, making us realize we have never really been alone. From the beginning we have been held, despite our broken, undeserving selves, we have been mended and tended, and this surrender is how we learn to trust not only others, but ourselves, in order to live without fear, and within love.

With love, 

Lina.