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Do you know that moment when life doesn't go the way you planned and then you might tense up or resist or push harder only to feel even worse? What if that tension isn't necessary? And what if the thing that you're fighting is actually the very thing trying to help you? You're listening to Relish, the podcast for people ready to stop chasing self-improvement and start savoring their lives. If you're tired of the hamster wheel of healing and hungry for more joy, presence, and meaning, you're in the right place.
Hey friends, it's Alyssia and welcome back to Relish. My intention for this show is for you to relish and savor your life. And resistance to what is something that gets in the way of that. And this is why mindfulness has been so powerful for me. And it's why in this quick bite episode, I want to touch on a concept that I think is often misunderstood, and that is surrender. I wanted to share this now at the beginning of the new year because every year as I reflect on my last year, I choose a word that becomes an intention for my next year. And my word for 2026 is surrender. Before we dive in, if you're enjoying the show, please follow, download, leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcast and Spotify.
This is really the best way you can help the podcast grow and reach more people. And I have been feeling so connected to all of you reading your reviews and getting to know you in this community. So, thank you. Let's get into it. For many people, that word surrender can have negative connotations. It could sound uh at times passive or weak or like giving up. I know some people have a negative view of it because they relate it to religion in some way. But a few things have shifted my own view and my relationship to surrender. One is a book, one of the most powerful important books I've read. It's called The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer.
I'll link it in the show notes. And another has been influenced by Hoffman. I've mentioned before that one of my jobs is I am a Hoffman process teacher. I'll link that below as well. And I love one of the distinctions that we make at the process on the first day. And that is the difference between surrender and submission. So I'm going to give you a highlevel overview here. Submission is what's passive. Submission is a sense of I have no choice. It's a victim energy and taking any action feels forced. It feels like I'm being forced to do it.
The definition of submission like in my computer dictionary is the action or fact of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person. So there's some external force who is in control and I have to be in submission to that force. But surrender I view completely differently. Now the definition may not seem so the definition is to give up or to hand over but the energy can be quite different of that giving up. Surrender is an active choice. It's staying present with what is. It's not resisting what is. It's giving up the resistance and also choosing how to be with what is. So there's still agency and the person with the power in surrender is
not someone outside of you. It's you. I look at this as surrendering to yourself and to all that you're connected to. It's actually a more empowering approach. So the core idea of Michael Singer's book, The Surrender Experiment, this is a book that changed my life. I kind of call it one of my bibles. The sentiment is nature already knows what it's doing. You know, the universe and Earth, the oceans, the trees, everything is unfolding without any kind of micromanagement. There's an intelligence to it. There's a flow without us humans needing to do anything. it flows along kind of perfectly. In fact, it's when we insert ourselves that we can kind of start messing with nature's flow. You
know, the human mind thinks it knows better. And that starts to show up in our preferences. Our preferences, I want this outcome. I need this to happen this way. This cannot happen. I must control this. And our whole identity becomes a set of preferences in a way. And we start believing our preferences are the truth and that's what's going to make us happy. But our preferences are really just coming from us searching for security in unknown. So singer's challenge in the book is pretty simple. It's what if life is actually unfolding perfectly and it's my resistance that creates the suffering. What if I stopped inserting my self and my preferences into that flow kind of blocking the flow? What if I trusted
that I am a part of nature, not separate from it, and let life lead where it needs to. Not in a passive way, not in a, you know, whatever, who cares, but with awareness and curiosity and willingness to be a full participant in that flow of life. So for me that surrender can look like releasing the grip but not abandoning the wheel. It means being aware of my preferences which are so human and normal but without needing to twist reality to shape those preferences. So from the perspective of the brain control is about prediction. Your brain is constantly trying to guess what's going to happen next. And it feels safest when those predictions match reality. But something interesting, and I'm going to dive into this more in a few weeks,
the biggest bursts of joy and meaning and wonder, they come from what we didn't predict. research on reward, what's called prediction error. It shows that when life surprises us, when there's something we didn't expect, the brain experiences a bigger reward than if everything had happened the way we planned. Have you ever heard that phrase? It was better than I could have dreamed. It was better than I could have expected. That's where the greatest joy is. when we let go of surrender our expectations and attachment to our preferences. So the control that we cling to is often the thing that's actually preventing the joy we're trying to reach.
Surrender doesn't eliminate effort. It eliminates the suffering caused by holding on, gripping too tightly. I've come up with a metaphor that's helped me understand this a bit. So, imagine you're floating down a river, down this river of life, and the water's moving and it's carrying you forward. And you see up ahead there's this specific bank and you think that one. I need to get off on that bank. That one with the pretty home and the money and the fancy car and the partner or the kids, you know, the one that I told myself would make me happy. And so you start paddling frantically trying to control the flow, fighting the current, and maybe you even manage to force your way over to that
bank. But once you arrive, what happens? I imagine if you are listening to this podcast, you know this game, okay? It's never what we thought. It doesn't feel how we hoped. And maybe you're even exhausted from all the paddling. That's life under attachment to those preferences and to trying to control. So now imagine a different option where you're still aware of your preferences. You're going to have preferences. You still see the bank and you know you're like, "Yeah, I want that." But if the current pushes you somewhere else, you flow with it. And you might not even like it at the time. You might very well feel
frustrated, you know, pain or grief or fear of not getting to that bank that you wanted. But instead of fighting it and trying to control, what if you got curious like, huh, okay, I don't really like this. That wasn't my plan, but maybe it's a part of life's plan. Why is life taking me here? Why that bank? What if this is the place that's actually meant for me right now? That is surrender. Not drifting aimlessly, but participating without controlling, being open to the unfolding, being available for it instead of fighting it and being at war with it. And over in my own life, when I have followed the current instead of fighting
it, the outcome has been better than the one I designed. Truly better than I could have imagined. I mean, it brought me here to you to this podcast, Relish. I thought my life was supposed to be a different path. I thought, you know, I had it all figured out. I was going to get married and have kids and, you know, work this job that I thought I love forever. Nope. life had a different plan. It took me in a totally different direction. But now it's interesting. I can look back and see, oh yeah, that life that I thought I wanted, my preference at that time, I can see that wasn't really meant
for me authentically. I can see it was driven by fear. And I can feel that now in this state of more abundance that I'm living. I can see that those past experiences that I shifted from were really important stepping stones to what was next. But I just couldn't see what was next. When we're lost in that current, when I was lost in that current, all I could focus on was the scarcity and the lack and the fear of not knowing what was going to happen and not being in control. So surrender is not giving up in a passive way. Let's call that submission where I'm a victim of someone or something external or a victim of my own life. It's giving up the illusion that you are in control of anything except your own presence, your own being.
Your preferences are not a problem. Your desires are not a problem. you're going to have them. You're human. It's normal in your brain. Clinging to them is the problem. Believing that is the only way you can have happiness. That's the problem. I think I've shared this quote before. Happiness is letting go of what I thought my life was supposed to look like. And this is ancient wisdom. The second noble truth of Buddhism says, "Attachment and clinging are the roots of suffering." Surrender is the opposite of clinging. It's I'm willing. I'm curious. I'm available to what life is showing me. I'm not confusing my preference with the truth. I'm receptive. And it's not abandoning intention. It's about holding our intentions lightly.
So, you can still have goals. You can approach them as aspirations rather than expectations. I did an episode on that before. I'll link it. You can still take action. You can still dream. Please dream. The world needs your authentic dreams and desires, but hold it with open hands and let the river of life flow through your hands and actually show you the way. And if the path changes, if timing rearranges things, if people shift, sometimes I show up at a bank, I wanted a long time ago and it doesn't come for 10 years. The outcome might look different than what you imagined. And if that's happening, ask, "What if this is the current carrying me somewhere meaningful?" That question has brought me a lot of
peace and presence and spaciousness and joy. So, my word for 2026 is surrender. Um, I've started this podcast. This is my main focus for the year. I want to give it everything I've got. I have no idea where it's going. You know, I've said that before with this. There's no end goal. The journey is the point. And my intention here, my intention is to surrender to life's plan which has brought me here and helping me stay connected to that so I don't get caught up in thinking I know how this is going to unfold or get too attached to my preferences. I want to be open to the unknown and along for the ride with all of you present for it. I do have a dessert practice associated with this
episode. So for those of you who are new, sometimes I record guided meditations, visualizations, practices that correlate with episodes. This one is a meditation that will help you practice surrendering in real time to loosen the grip on control. So the takeaway today, surrender is not weakness, it's wisdom. It is a practice of trusting life enough to stop gripping every outcome. It's choosing curiosity over control. And it's partnering with reality instead of fighting it. And when you do that, life, who knows, it might reveal something more beautiful, more unexpected, and maybe even more aligned than anything your mind could have planned or come up with. If you have a moment, I would so appreciate if you'd share this quick bite with a friend or
on your social media. Please download and follow the show. We've got a lot of great content coming this month, so download so you always have it there in your feed. And if you could be so kind and generous to take a minute, leave a five-star rating and a little short review, that really helps as well. This is really important for us to grow and be able to share with more people. Presence, joy, trust. So, here's to 2026 and you surrendering to relish your life. I'll see you next time.
