Surrender into the Fall

this is the real test of surrender

I am lying on the floor and my bodyworker is kicking and stepping into my shoulder, armpit, ribcage, and all down my arm.

I'm sobbing.

Long ago I removed the story component of my emotional processing, so the words for this expression are few.

The tension pouring out of me is a backlog of the reconciliation required when I know that I have chosen surrender, that I commit to practice trust, in a world which is not safe.

Surrender into betrayal; the ultimate test of surrender.

Can I surrender while I am being betrayed? hurt? condemned? judged? Can I surrender even to that, and surrender ongoingly to a life in which betrayal is not only possible, but an outcome so likely as to be a guarantee?

Surrender, true surrender, is not collapse. Surrender does not mean going along with hurt and exposing oneself again and again to hurt, but rather choosing each hurt I choose, and owning the fullness of my choice, without resentment, without blaming anyone or anything else.

When I know and accept that life will offer me a certain amount of pain, a certain amount of challenge, I am increasingly capable of exquisite selection of that pain, and therefore empowered with the selection of my participation in how I receive, hold, manage, take damage, and recover.

What does it really mean, to “turn the other cheek?”

It means if more damage is coming, I'll take it somewhere that's not already hurting.

It means I let violence show itself clearly in the expanse that is my choice of peace.

It means that I do not maintain a posture of cowering before someone who has chosen to do violence against me, but instead stand up and go on BEING, undaunted by a harm I always accepted was guaranteed.