I was balking, so being a woman of profound spiritual depth, she phrased the problem as one of attachment. “Have you forgotten that detachment and surrender are necessary for the spiritual life?” she asked.

Of course, I knew, but it wasn’t something my heavy heart or muddled brain was ready to consider. But the question hit home and hung in my mind for weeks that turned into months until I was ready to enter into the spiritual process of letting go.
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As with all things, the first step was acknowledging there was a need.  Once I did, examples of attachment and letting go seemed to jump off the pages of daily life, like the sparrow near our porch who tried repeatedly to carry nesting material too wide for navigation. I found myself whispering, “Just let it go,” which she eventually did, now free to fly and find a more manageable piece.

Or watching my granddaughter climb a rock wall. “If she lets go, she will fall,” I thought, followed by, “But if her hands were clasped around other things, she couldn’t open them to hold on or move forward.”

Or the friend, clinging so tightly to anger for years because of a loved one’s death, he lost his faith in God and all joy in a life that still held innumerable blessings. It wasn’t that he couldn’t surrender, it was that he didn’t want to. He was choosing to live in the pain, day after day, year after year, and it was making him sick.

Surrender does not have a positive connotation in our society. It is a word for giving up, for defeat, the result of weakness. I prefer to think of it as release. When we release all that is not to our benefit, it is a gift and a grace for our spiritual, physical and emotional lives.

As I slowly began the process of letting go, first of stuff easily tossed in the trash and then of things that had real meaning for me, I began to understand the emotional attachment that results in so much unnecessary clutter. Much of what I was holding on to were things that meant so much to my parents and became mine when they died. I limited myself to giving them to others who wanted them, but found it almost impossible to throw anything away, as if it were an act of disrespect.

I learned to hold each object, offer a prayer of gratitude to God for my parents and the belongings they enjoyed in life, and then put each item in a box to donate or throw away. I’m still working at it.

The difficult next step was to acknowledge and release painful experiences from my past, the hurts, the losses, doubts and perceived failures. It never meant forgetting, it simply meant untying them from my head and my heart so they would lose their control.

In the process I realized you cannot hold on to God when your hands (or your heart or mind) are full of your own stuff. Our hands must be empty and open. By surrendering we let God take control of our lives and deprive the entire litany of obstacles to our peace from dictating our days or the rest of our journey.

In a beautiful, contemporary interpretation of the Rule of St. Benedict, titled with the saint’s words – Always We Begin Again – John McQuiston II includes a verse that, for me, unfolds the purpose and fruits of surrender:

“Life will always provide matters for concern.

Each day, however, brings with it reasons for joy.

Every day carries the potential

to bring the experience of heaven.

Have the courage to expect good from it.

Be gentle with this life,

and use the light of life to live fully in your time.”

Mary Clifford Morrell is the author of “Things My Father Taught Me About Love” and “Let Go and Live: Reclaiming your life by releasing your emotional clutter.”