What Does Surrender Mean?
The word surrender has different meanings in different contexts. In general terms, people associate surrender with giving up and/or losing.
Society associates surrender with losing, war, giving up, being humiliated, etc. It is a totally yucky thing.
Surrendering to Sexual Pleasure
When I’ve seen people discuss surrender in relation to women’s sexual pleasure (funny, barely ever men), it means giving up resistance to pleasure.
This is a throwback to Victorian morals and beliefs. It also aligns with modern day religious beliefs that promote sex for procreation only.
Any enjoyment was/is secondary and never to be pursued for itself.
Maybe people use it more with women because a woman’s body often needs more stimulation for pleasure than genital penetration alone provides.
Surrendering to pleasure means giving up internal resistance to sin, pleasures of the flesh and being a bad girl.
Surrendering to a Higher Power
In 12 step recovery there is a paradox about surrendering to win. It’s a spiritual thing.
In that context, surrender means letting go of your own plans, desires, ego and everything else to your Higher Power.
A lot of people resist and fear that. Sometimes I still do after practicing for 18 years.
We fear the unknown, losing what we have, and not getting what we want.
This is how the paradox comes in: You get to choose and define your Higher Power. You develop your own personal relationship with Him/Her/Universe/Higher Self or whatever other name you want to use.
When you come to believe that your Higher Power is based on love, that fear diminishes.
The more you believe in your gut that your Higher Power is unconditional love, the less struggle you feel against surrender.
Letting Go of Sexual Shame and Fear
Developing this belief has had a profound effect on my life.
I know any time I’m feeling fear it’s because I’m not plugged into the source.
It’s taken time, but now I have a relationship with my Higher Power that allows for all the pleasurable activity I want. And I believe it brings only positive consequences.
It’s only been in the last 5 years that I’ve developed a knowing in my gut. My Higher Power wants me to be happy sexually.
That has released my inhibitions and fears regarding my sexuality.
It was very difficult because my ego is driven by fear.
I was afraid I would lose my marriage and maybe my child. I feared being ostracized by friends and family.
Rejection scared me, too. I worried I wouldn’t have the experiences I craved.
I was afraid I might like it too much and become a totally irresponsible slut whore.
Choosing Love Over Fear
The more honest I became with myself, the more painful it became to see how unhappy I was. I had been sticking to how I “thought I should” be.
As I learned about integrity, I saw how far I’d strayed from my true self. Living the way I “thought I should” rather than the way I really am meant I was out of integrity with myself.
The programming, socialization and domestication I’d experienced wasn’t true for me. As I became aware of this, I realized I had two choices.
I could accept the limited ways I’d learned to believe and behave. I could continue acting how I “thought I should.”
Or I could accept myself as I was getting to know myself and start developing my own beliefs and behaviors.
Each choice would have meant surrendering in some way. But I could surrender to fear or to love.
I could give up the known safety that was also suffocating my true self. Or I could be willing to give up everything in pursuit of my truth.
What Happened When I Surrendered
What happened?
My Higher Power is unconditional love and only wants good things for me.
My husband decided he wanted to stay with me no matter what. We both became sluts 🙂
We indulged and continued to pray and meditate.
I did become a whore, and I loved it! It’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done with my life.
And it led me to my current calling of educating others about pleasure.
How could I have otherwise known that so many were suffering silently with their sexual dissatisfaction?
How could I have gotten the skills to give pleasure to all body types and overcome so many obstacles to sexual enjoyment?
How else would I have truly known through firsthand experience that there are people who honestly love every body type and everything about sex (and more)?
Yes, there have been rough spots along the way. There are oodles of people who disapprove of me and my lifestyle.
Those who loved me still love me. We practice good communication and boundaries.
Those who didn’t stick around didn’t really love me anyway. They loved the idea of me or what they could get from me.
Continuing to Practice Surrender
I still feel fear of the unknown and of losing what I have.
But the problems in my life today are on a much higher level and even bigger than before. So they make me go to my Higher Power even more quickly.
Since I have practice and experience surrendering my plans and ego in exchange for solutions and support, I do it more quickly now than ever before.
I encourage all to try it. You might like it 🙂
If you need help, let me know. The thing that keeps it fresh for me is helping others.
I often hear the thing I need to hear when I’m saying it to someone else.