Surrender Dorothy

There is an Aesop’s Fable called “The River and the Leaf”:

A small leaf, caught in the current of a mighty river, didn’t want to go in the direction that the water was flowing. The leaf desperately tried to fight against it, clinging to rocks and branches along the way. It struggled fiercely, fearing being swept away, but the river, unyielding, carried it further and further downstream. Eventually, exhausted from resistance, the leaf simply relaxed and allowed the current to guide it. As it floated freely, it realized the beauty of the journey and the peace that came with surrendering.

In my life, I’ve found two ways to look at surrender. There’s the “Surrender Dorothy” kind of way where the wicked witch tries to get her to give up and stop resisting her authority. And then there’s the kind of surrender that’s about letting go, putting down the sword and detaching from the outcome.

I was distraught about the outcome of our recent election. I wasn’t alone. Many of us couldn’t imagine how it had happened. Or why. Surely it was a mistake. Was it rigged? What could we do to make it right? There had to be a way to change things. I agonized over it. I got angry. I got depressed. I got anxious. I got fearful. I endured these feelings for days, spiraling up and down the roller coaster. I simply refused to accept what had happened and it was causing me a lot of suffering.

A week or so later, I was still moaning about the way things had turned out when a wise friend said, “I don’t like it any more than you do. I hate it. But you have to find a way to surrender or it’ll drive you crazy. If it’s right or wrong, it doesn’t matter. How it happened doesn’t matter. Why it happened doesn’t matter. It happened and you have to find a way to deal with it, whether you like it or not. You can surrender to what is or you can fight against it and let it ruin your day, your peace of mind and your life, which by the way, is a very good life.”

The idea of letting go of my outrage and disappointment felt like I was abandoning my beliefs. If I accepted what had happened, it felt like the other side had won. But I considered what my friend had told me. I didn’t have to feel good about it. I didn’t have to like it. But beating my head against a brick wall didn’t give me anything but a headache.

I was on a spiritual retreat some years ago when I had a vision of myself in full battle armor with a sword in my hand. I was holding in attack mode when I heard a voice say, “Put down the sword and take off the armor. You’ve fought your way through decades of your life. It’s time to stop. Let go and breathe, try to accept the unacceptable and your pain will lighten up. Then you can relax into the spiritual path that has never failed you.”

It's hard to embrace uncertainty and groundlessness when everything in you is crying out to find safety and solid ground. To have things go a certain way. But it’s important to become a witness to your life, not a victim. When you manage to focus on something other than your own worries and fears, anxiety lifts and blows away on the wind. Eastern philosophy teaches us that when we can’t control a situation, we can change our attitude toward it. Again, that doesn’t mean you have to like something. It’s about giving up trying to control something that you can’t control. Being out of control scares us. It feels dangerous. But if we can find a way to face it and tolerate it, we can find some peace. I don’t call myself a Buddhist in the formal sense but I’m empowered by Tibetan Buddhist precepts. They’ve taught me that the more we tighten our fists, the more pain and frustration we’ll have. The more we relax our fists and open our fingers, the more ease we’ll have in our lives.

I was editing a book about the movie business with a dear friend, Lynda, who died recently. She was an uber successful Hollywood producer, she’d come up in a man’s world, and she knew a lot about control. She titled one of her chapters, “Ride the Horse on the Direction It’s Going.” She wasn’t talking about giving up and galloping away. She was talking about doing your work without grasping at straws or fighting against the tides.

I learned to take control of my life at a very young age because I had to. When I left home at fourteen to pursue my dream of becoming a professional ballerina, I had to take good care of myself and being in control was about survival. I created a schedule that helped me control my life. Washing leotards and tights every night and sewing ribbons on my pointe shoes. Making sure I ate and doing homework by myself. Showing up at 9 o’clock every morning for ballet class. I learned to tight-fist my way through life, taking control of things that would be hard for any fourteen year old to do. It was necessary back then but as I get older, trying to control my life has become a bad habit. I recognize it and I work with it and that’s the most that any of us can do.