Is it surrender… or is your mind BS-ing you?

I’ve been thinking a lot about surrender lately — not the holy, blissed-out version, but the “my stomach is in knots and I’m trying not to totally lose it” version.

A lot of people love the idea of surrender.

I did too.

When I first read Tosha Silver’s It’s Not Your Money, I was exhausted from trying so hard to make things happen. It was a relief to let myself off the hook. The idea of offering everything up to the Divine felt like a weight lifted from my very tired shoulders.

So I decided to practice it.

Everything that stressed me out? Offered up.

Every desire? Offered up.

Every fear? Offered up.

And then I made a financial mistake.

Not a small one. One of those “oh my god, how did I screw this up?” kind of mistakes.

I kept saying, “Okay Divine, whatever is supposed to happen will. Let me be okay with it.”

But I was absolutely not okay with it.

I was worrying nonstop.

I was spinning.

I was blaming myself because I actually knew what to do, but I trusted someone else’s advice over my own inner voice.

And that part hurt the most.

No matter how many times I whispered, “I surrender this,” my mind stayed on spin cycle.

Finally, I reached out to my Brainspotting coach.

We processed it.

I found peace and quit beating myself up.

I accepted what had happened.

And from that calmer place, I suddenly heard, “File a complaint.”

I didn’t even know that was an option.

But I checked, and sure enough, I had multiple avenues.

I filed.

And that’s when I actually felt that I was going to be okay...with whatever outcome.

And that is surrender.

Not the “Okay take this from me PLEASE” type of surrender where you are just trying to get what you want or relieve pain.

But the quiet, grounded, “I’m okay either way” surrender.

So how do you know if you’ve really surrendered?

Tosha Silver describes three levels of surrender, and honestly, I've been in all of them.

Level 1: You don’t surrender. At all.

You try to control everything because you don’t trust Life.

Your emotions are held hostage by outcomes.

You believe you must make it all happen.

(This was me for… decades.)

Level 2: You like the idea of surrender, but your ego is (still) running the show.

You “surrender” as a strategy to get what you want. (It’s sneaky but most spiritual women live here without realizing it.)

You say the prayer or make the offering, but inside you’re spinning.

Yes, you obsess. You overwork. You feel anxious about money, clients, timelines, and goals.

You might even dissociate a little bit here, where you just avoid doing the work or feeling anything.

Level 3: You truly let go.

You feel your feelings. All of them: pain, fear, discomfort, rage, envy, sadness, and grief.

You don’t bypass or “love and light” your way out.

You are genuinely unattached to the outcome.

You accept how you feel and what is happening in your life.

Your gut knows you’ll be okay no matter what.

And that’s when things start happening. Money flows. Support appears. Inspiration hits.

Doing your inner work really helps you to get here so you can clear up the accumulated stories, thoughts patterns, and traumas to actually be able to feel your emotions and feel grounded enough to trust that life is on your side.

We all dance between these levels.

Being in Level 3 all the time? Basically impossible.

We’re human. We get scared. We grasp. We are wired to do what is necessary to stay safe and avoid discomfort.

And honestly, your nervous system determines which level you default to.

If you learned growing up that you had to do everything yourself? Level 1 will feel like home.

If your safety was tied to outcomes and productivity? Level 2 will feel familiar.

If you’ve done the regulation work? Level 3 becomes accessible.

This is ongoing work. Always.

And yes — there are things like health, politics, injustice, poverty — things much harder to surrender. (We’ll get into this another week, because it deserves its own space.)

But for now, here's what I want you to know:

Surrender is not giving up.

It’s trusting that Life is on your side, even when your brain is screaming otherwise.

PS-If this brought something alive in you, if you’re realizing how much you’ve been grasping, pushing, over-functioning, or trying to “make it all happen” by yourself…this is exactly what we work on inside Awakened Wealth. Find out more here.