The other night, in my own coaching group, we talked about Surrender. The big word. The one that sometimes makes you feel all heeved out because you think about giving up or raising the white flag. And I began to see how counter-cultural Surrender truly is. I mean, Surrender is so much a part of my life. It’s embedded into everything I know. Whether it’s the idea of “laying something down” or the idea of even giving up…
I think I gave up on winning ALL. THE. THINGS. a long time ago.
In my last blog post, I talked about being planted as a seed and allowing our failures to plant us deeper.
But I hadn’t yet talked to y’all about the important matter of “Becoming a Seed” to be planted.
And this is a truly deep question, and it’s deeply rooted in the concept of Surrender.
So here are some thoughts on Becoming a Seed. And how Surrender plays a critical part in that journey.

One.

Seeds seem inert, but in actuality are filled with ridiculous amounts of potential and energy oriented towards germination and growth.
I know, since we’ve been talking about failure, that many of you are like me. Sitting here at almost forty thinking, “How the Hell am I not the person I wanted to be when I was 12?” And thinking and re-thinking and over-thinking all of those choices that brought you into this time and place, and trying to avoid feeling like a total failure because you’re comparing your bloopers reel to everyone else’s highlight reel.
amiright?!
A seed is still. A seed seems like nothing. Like a fleck. It can be that way for literally decades (or if you keep up on super cool random food facts, for millennia!).
Then, maybe someday, you get tossed in a hole, and maybe someone gives you some warmth and some water for your thirsty soul… and all of a sudden… POW! Germination!
Did the seed do anything?
Nope.
Did it need to receive and be willing to be transformed?
Yep.
This is Surrender. Receiving the goodness that is trying to rain and shine down on you and having a willingness to be transformed. You don’t have to do it all yourself, but you do have to be willing.

Two.

Once a seed cracks, it’s this bizarro combination of nurture and staying out of the way of the germination that is already happening. After a seed starts bursting through, it’s not just pushing towards the light, moving the dirt and debris out of the way, but it’s necessarily sinking its roots even deeper into the soil. The deeper it was planted, the more it struggles to reach the light, but also the firmer foundation it will have once it breaks through the ground. I think part of our challenge is that when we don’t see the light right away, we lose hope that we’ll ever see it.
But it’s normally because we’ve been planted deeper so that once we’ve broken through, our roots will be strong enough to allow us to grow even higher.
But we also can’t block the process. We don’t want to block the deepening of the roots, nor do we want to put things over the top of the soil that will prevent our sprouts of life and germination from breaking through. We have to stay out of the way of the energy that’s been released in us, and trusting that as we reach and grow and move, that the soil will make space for us, that the light will be there waiting for us.
And this, too, is Surrender. Surrender to the feeling of insecurity, but also surrender to our own BIGNESS as we explode from the seed.
I love this quote from Rabbi Baal Shem Tov, a Jewish mystic and scholar, considered the foundrer of Hasidic Judaism:
Let me fall if I must fall.
The one I am becoming will catch me.

Are you Surrendering to yourself to catch yourself – as you grow, as you explode into your bigness?

As you become this incredible being that was germinating in the seed that you were?

Can you believe that this future You is actually already inside you, and can you surrender to allow them to emerge?

Surrendering to a way that might be uncomfortable and that might mean pushing aside the dirt, even as you sink your roots even deeper?

When we become a seed, we are giving ourselves permission to be a contradiction and to hold ourselves in tension.
The intense, patient, silent, inert stasis of being a fleck, inserted into the ground.
The squirrely, uncontrolled, get-out-of-the-way-of-your-own-self explosion of growth as you emerge from your shell and become the you that was there all along.
Surrender. It doesn’t mean giving up or throwing in the towel, but it means receiving that which is, for all that it is, and allowing something mystical, something less explainable, and less understandable to have a say in how your life is manifesting and making room for the you that is emerging.
You need to be watered, nurtured, given nutrients and life. You may need help in clearing out some of the dirt and debris from your way. You may need some tools to help crack the shell of fear and insecurity.
But all of those are conscious acts of Surrender.
Because you are falling out of yourself and into the You that is Becoming.

Because Becoming a Seed is really about Becoming a Being who Continues to Become.