Day Shift — Let Go Of The Need To Control Everything

“Surrender isn’t giving up; it’s tuning in.”

When we talk about surrender, it’s a giving up—a waving of the white flag. It’s a letting go of old ideas. For me, when I’ve had the big surrenders in my life, it’s been: “All right, clearly I don’t know what I’m doing here. I give up. I quit. Please, somebody—something.” Surrender is vital because when I don’t surrender, I’m at the effect of all of my ideas about how this is supposed to be going: how I’m supposed to be going, what I’m supposed to be doing, how it’s supposed to feel. All of it is made up.

But then there’s another step. I don’t surrender into a state of neutrality and then just hope for the best. I’m not a leaf on the stream of life. I surrender, and I let myself be in that state of not knowing. I let myself exist in the space within, or the space within which all of this is occurring. And then I find one of the very few places where I have agency, where I have choice. That’s in: Where do I place my attention now? And for what reason?

The answer to that question—Where do I place my attention now?—is: settle into what it feels like to be here, and then place my attention out here. And why am I placing my attention out here? To listen to the world, to listen to you, to see what’s going on out here. And to see it through the lens of a belief system that has, as its main tenet, the idea that I belong here. That I’m meant to be here. That I’m meant to be doing something here. And that there’s some knowledge, some truth, some flow of life far greater than this small self that wants to guide me.

You can call it a belief in God, a belief in the Divine. Those words trigger some people into unfortunate memories, so we can call it the flow of nature, the flow of love, the flow of evolution. But the belief is that there’s something happening here that’s for the highest good of the whole thing, which by extension is also the highest good for me. And I put my attention out here to be guided to the next right step, the next right action, the next thing that wants to be done through me. The next love that wants to occur through me. The next place where this Oneness would like me to place my loving attention.

I don’t have to figure this thing out. I just want to let go of the idea that I can figure anything out, get fully present to what’s going on here, and remind myself continually that what’s going on here is far greater than I can even imagine.

So give yourself an opportunity today to discover one moment of that far greater thing happening. Let go of the voice of cynicism and live in the silence, in the space of expectation of the Divine.

Thanks for listening. I hope you do feel better. Much luck.

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Jeff Kober is an accomplished actor, photographer and vedic meditation teacher. He has had regular roles in notable series like The Walking Dead, Sons of Anarchy, and NCIS: Los Angeles, and has appeared in numerous films including Sully and Beauty Mark. Kober is also a writer and artist, and has previously penned screenplays and authored the book Embracing Bliss.