The subtle art of surrender

Yesterday afternoon, finally bowed down by the weight of the past week and topped off by a reaction to my second covid vaccine, I took to my bed.

As those close to me will testify, getting into bed in the day time is something I tenaciously resist (I know that will almost certainly change when I start chemo next week).

But yesterday, I switched on my toasty electric blanket (thanks to my wonderful friends for such an inspired gift), pulled my duvet over my head and quite simply surrendered.

And, it felt amazing. A deep release, as if I could finally let go of holding on to everything and everyone so tightly and breathe out.

The subtle art of surrender is something that I am not well practiced in. But cancer is bringing me face to face with it, demanding that I learn to soften and open myself to letting go.

A few weeks post mastectomy, having set myself back by having done too much (who knows what part of me thought that down-dog and plank were sensible just a few short weeks after such radical surgery), it was suggested to me by my wonderful nurse that I needed to learn to 'accept that I was a now a patient' (subtext - 'and start acting like one').

Although said in absolute kindness and a beaming smile, this did not sit at all comfortably with me.

I associated 'accepting that I was a patient' as somehow synonymous with relinquishing my power and any residual command over my condition. It felt at best passive, at worst like a giving in. A surrender of sorts.

I felt a deep resistance to this (a little like my rejection of day time napping, only much deeper).

Surrender is, of course, intimately entwined with its co-conspirators control and trust. In my post-diagnosis world, these three concepts trace a constant and complex dance, weaving around each other in a tangled and unspoken contest to decide which should take the lead on any particular day, in any particular situation.

In some ways and on some days - particularly those on which I feel most vulnerable - I want to be able to cede control completely, releasing myself from responsibility and handing myself over entirely to my expert medical team. I feel comforted in the knowledge that, at its most simple, all I need to do is surrender to the process - Show Up. Breathe. Trust.

Indeed, some of the most stressful moments of the past two months have been when it has felt like there is some choice or decision that I should or could be taking, but for which I feel ill-equipped. Or that in some way I hold responsibility for a situation which I don't know how to solve.

In other moments, I find it more difficult to generate the necessary trust to allow myself to lean in and surrender. A heady catalogue of missed calls, inconsistent advice, over-stretched staff, opaque NHS operating systems and process-led rather than person-centred appointments left me at the beginning of this week feeling temporarily exasperated, exhausted and un-done. Hyper vigilant, I questioned how I was supposed to generate the trust to hand myself over wholesale into a system that, for a few days, did not feel like it could or would hold me.

At other times still, I find myself feeling deeply resistant to the idea of releasing control. In these moments I spurn the implicit notion that I should play a passive role in my treatment. Instead, while recognising that that in reality I only have a narrow field in which to play, I am determined to remain perpetually alert, curious and questioning – to maintain some sort of agency (however seemingly small) over my destiny.

What I am perhaps learning to appreciate is that my understanding of what it means to surrender has, until now, been too rigid. In common with its fellow militaristic metaphors referenced in my last post, too clear cut, too all-or-nothing.

Instead, I am beginning to learn that to surrender, for me right now, is more about learning to gently release, soften and to accept.

Learning to surrender is to soothe the taut, fight-or-flight response of the 'sympathetic nervous system' – allowing myself to back down and giving my restorative 'parasympathetic nervous system' a chance to kick in.

Learning to surrender creates space, allowing me to experience the full spectrum of my feelings and emotional reactions, rather than holding them in or supressing them.

In her book, the Cancer Whisperer, Sophie Sabbage suggests: “ To process shock you need to feel – be it rage, fear, regret, grief, anxiety, sorrow or despair. If you don’t these emotions will cloud your judgement (and) drive your decisions.” I wholeheartedly agree.

Learning to surrender demands that I cultivate acceptance. Acceptance of my current reality, acceptance of what is. It invites me to stop resisting and to sit fully in the knowledge that I cannot control this crazy journey.

But to surrender does not need to equate to inaction. It does not mean that I do not have power. I do. Rather it is to recognise that there is a calm and a peacefulness that comes with learning to loosening my grip, which allows me to exercise the power I do have in a clearer, less grasping and more grounded way.

As someone who has lived much of her life to date in control mode, learning to surrender is going to take conscious practice.

So, in recognition of my quest to master this subtle art, I am again heeding the gentle call of my duvet, choosing this afternoon to surrender without resistance.