~Surrender Dorothy~

This is an interesting blog speaking of love… and our reaction to love! Those of us who are NOT immersed in self-love (need to be there folks!), must learn to surrender to love. Sounds scary until you really investigate the meaning of the word…surrender. This post explores the meaning of this word which brings comfort to the idea of…surrendering to love.

Hey, great idea that is completed by replaying the video of Matt Kahn, a very good spiritual teacher,  explaining and exploring the concept of surrendering to love! Please read the article here followed by another posting of Matt Kahn’s thought. Please read, watch and …

Enjoy!

Posted by heartlightdg in GeneralJuly 29, 2014

I’ve been feeling lately that there is still something in me that is not on board with all this love stuff.  Like, maybe I really don’t know how it feels to love.  Or I don’t do it unconditionally.  Or there’s something holding me back from living this intention of meeting all of life with love.  

Part of me is still judging myself as not being deserving enough to receive it or worthy enough to give it to someone else.  

Part of me still judges others actions and words so I feel like I can never even get to the loving part because of the unpleasant thoughts going through my head.  I have often said, good thing there aren?t thought bubbles appearing over my head because no one would like me!   This, of course, reflects my inability to love myself unreservedly, as underneath those judgments of others, resides the very same judgments towards myself.

This week I asked myself and others, what do I need to do to get to this place of living as a loving being, fully capable of expressing that love?  I want to feel immersed in this place of unconditional love.  How do I do that?  Yes, I recognize that I am in that space more often than I am not, but there are times when I feel a distinct lack.  Those moments are when I feel as though I am unable to be loving towards myself or someone else.

Surrender was the one word answer I got.  Not only did I hear that word once, I heard it and ran across it multiple times, from many different sources, until I knew I was meant to listen to this message.  This is important despite, or perhaps because of, my resistance. Immediately, into my head popped the image of the witch skywriting in the Wizard of Oz, Surrender Dorothy.

Now, what does surrender actually mean?  I didn’t know what it meant in this context.  I know what the word means to me and it brings up negative connotations. So I looked it up  from dictionary.com

1.  to yield (something) to the possession or power of another; deliver up possession of on demand or duress.

2.  to give (oneself) up, as to the police.

3.  to give (oneself) up to some influence, course, emotion, etc.

4.  to give up, abandon, or relinquish (comfort, hope, etc.).

5.  to yield or resign (an office, privilege, etc.) in favor of another.

6.  to give oneself up, as into the power of another; submit or yield.

7.  to allow( oneself) to yield, as to a temptation or influence, etc.

word origin: surrender

1441, to give (something) up, from O.Fr. surrendre give up, deliver over(13c.), from sur- over +rendre give back (see render).

.Synonyms
1. See yield. 4. renounce. 5. waive, cede, abandon, forgo. 6. capitulate. 7. capitulation, relinquishment.

That word has not held good connotations for me.  I’ve heard of the surrendered wife and it gave me the creeps when I listened to religious people speak of that particular concept.  That felt like handing over your own power to another person, a man, so they can make decisions for you because they know better than you do about what is best for you.  I disagreed totally with that philosophy.  It makes the you can?t tell me what to do woman in me fold her arms and dig in her heels and glare.  

Surrender to me has meant giving up and quitting.  Im not a quitter, as evidenced by my long term, unfulfilling marriage and jobs I hung onto for too long.   Surrender has never felt right to me. 

As I pondered this word for the past week, I have watched it continually pop up in my awareness.  Surrender.  If you notice, in the Oz movie there is no comma between the words Surrender and Dorothy.  The witch is telling the residents of Emerald City to give Dorothy to her.  Its not saying for Dorothy to give herself over to the witch.  I never even realized that the comma wasn’t there until I ran across a discussion about it when researching the word surrender.  This began another train of thought that pulled me even further into this pondering.  

A video from Matt Kahn with Surrender in the title then caught my attention.  A perfect place for me to land.  I should be more loving, says self-judgment.  I’m not loving enough, says self-hatred.  It’s amazing when you can see it from a fresh pair of eyes.  While we try to love someone to prove that we’re good enough, its coming from the identification with believing that we’re not good enough yet. How can love flow through that place in its purity?  How do we expect to squeeze love through the facade of self-judgment? The love that is already within you already knows how to love and embrace everything.  Our personal will can’t do it.  The only power your personal will has is to surrender to the Divine.

I give permission for the Divine to shine through me and do it on my behalf.

I could type out the entire session here because it all fits so perfectly my quest of late. So many ahas came from it that I have viewed it several times.

I have been filtering love through the veil of my ego-self instead of my heart. Filtering love through the veil of self-judgment.  It doesnt work that way.

To Surrender Dorothy means to surrender living and loving through the personal will of my human brain and ego and self-judgments- the Dorothy-me- and just let the love flow through the clear channel of Divine Will, which is truly the only will. Everything is Divine Will. There is nothing else.  Divine Will created us, all the forms and all the spaces in between.  So what else can I do and be but Love That’s truly the only thing that exists.  

I have talked in the recent past of changing my name.  I now see Surrender Dorothy not so much as surrendering my name, rather as surrendering the attachments to what the name has meant to me.  I see it as surrendering the egoic-Dorothy over to the heart-Dorothy.  

Surrendering means to see that All is Love, no matter how it looks to the human self.