The Magic Of Surrender With Kute Blackson

In this Talk, Kute delivers so much wisdom about what surrender really is (it’s not passive like you might think), the role of the ego in our lives, why the challenges we face are an essential part of our soul’s journey, and how to let go and live open to the possibilities – the miracles – life holds for us.

Listen to discover: Kute’s story of courageously following his calling even in the face of adversity. Why challenging experiences are essential to our soul’s growth. What surrender actually is and why it’s so powerful. How to tell when we’re in the flow. What to do when you feel stuck and are struggling to surrender. Where resistance comes from. Why surrender requires grieving what we think we know and how it opens us up to more love and joy.

Transcript

Hi,

I'm Michelle Chalfant,

Psychotherapist,

Holistic life coach and human,

Just like you,

Learning to navigate life's challenges.

With over 25 years experience,

I teach people how to get healthy using the adult chair model.

The adult chair model is where simple psychology meets grounded spirituality,

And it teaches us how to become healthy adults.

From anxiety and depression to codependency and relationship issues,

You can use the adult chair for just about anything.

Each week,

I share practical tips,

Tools,

And advice from myself and a wide range of experts on how to get unstuck,

How to live authentically,

And how to truly love yourself,

All while sitting in your adult chair.

Welcome to the adult chair podcast.

Hello,

Everybody,

And welcome to the adult chair podcast.

I am Michelle Chalfant,

Delighted to be here with you today on the first week of October,

Talking about surrender.

This is something that we read about all the time in books,

We watch YouTube videos,

We are on social media,

Everyone talks about surrender.

It is not an easy thing,

But when people can come on the show and break it down for us,

It becomes much easier.

And that's what is happening today.

I had the fabulous Coot Blackson on the show,

Talking all about his journey and how he learned the power and really,

To quote his book,

The magic of surrender.

And it really is magical.

When you can learn how to apply this into your daily life,

It is like magic.

We talked all about,

We talked a lot,

I'm just going to tell you,

But we talked all about,

First of all,

What does it mean to surrender?

Because people think,

Oh yeah,

Just letting go and no,

That's all headspace stuff.

No,

No,

No.

It is much different and it's much deeper.

We talked about,

Is it the same thing as forgiving?

How do we actually surrender to things like hate,

Pain,

Blame?

I mean,

How do we do that?

We got into all of this grief.

How do you process and surrender to grief?

That's a tough one.

Also,

We touched on what do we do with our emotions and including fear.

It was such a jam packed show.

I just have to tell you his life story,

Starting out in Ghana and where he has come from and where he is today.

What a journey he touches on all of that.

This is a show you are going to,

Let me just tell you,

Walk away with so many ideas and tools that you can apply in your life immediately,

Which you know,

I love.

So Coop Blackson is a beloved,

Inspirational speaker and transformational teacher.

He speaks at countless events he organizes around the world,

As well as outside events,

Including A-Fest,

YPO,

Which is Young Presidents Organization,

And EO,

Entrepreneurs Organization.

He is a member of the Transformational Leadership Council,

A select group of 100 of the world's foremost authorities in personal development.

Winner of the 2019 Unity New Thought Walden Award,

Blackson is widely considered a next generation leader in the field of personal development.

His mission is simple,

To awaken and inspire people across the planet,

To access their inner freedom,

Live authentically and fulfill their true life's purpose.

What a show this was.

Here we go talking all about the magic of surrender with Coot Blackson.

Coot Blackson,

It's so nice to have you.

It's a pleasure.

We are talking about such an important topic,

One that we all need to learn more about,

Which is surrender.

And you have written a beautiful book on this a year ago,

But we want to talk about it.

We want to talk more about it.

And you said the paperback just came out,

Which is amazing.

But tell us,

First of all,

Tell us a little bit about you.

Who are you?

How did you fall into the idea of surrender?

And you have such a beautiful message I was sharing with you.

I listened to you earlier today.

I'm like,

Oh,

My gosh,

I love him.

This is great.

So tell us about you a little bit.

About me,

Born in Ghana,

West Africa,

Father's from Ghana,

Mother's Japanese,

Grew up in London.

Wow.

Moved to L.

A.

When I was 18,

Lived partly in L.

A.

And Mexico.

And so I feel like I'm honestly a citizen of the world from everywhere and nowhere and belong to everyone and no one.

And so I always felt this as a kid.

As a kid,

I was a very empathetic kid.

And I would feel people's pain very deeply.

And I felt people suffering.

And there was a part of me that always,

I think,

Wanted to alleviate suffering in some way.

And I didn't know what that would look like.

But it just it was this feeling I'd feel people.

And I grew up in a kind of unusual environment.

But whilst growing up in it,

It didn't feel unusual.

It just felt ordinary.

My first memories as a young boy were seeing a crippled woman crawling on the floor.

She picks up the sand that this man walks on and wipes it on her face and stands up like miracles.

And week after week,

Just right in front of me,

Day after day,

To be honest,

I grew up seeing blind people,

Seeing deaf people here.

People stand up out of wheelchairs.

The same man who said she picked up a look at a woman in a wheelchair and say,

Why are you in this wheelchair?

You're not sick.

Stand up.

And within 15 minutes,

If she,

I guess,

Believed in a line,

She would stand up.

And so this man was my father.

He was considered the miracle man of Africa,

A mystic,

A spiritual teacher,

Visionary in many ways.

He was the spiritual teacher to presidents and kings in the African region,

Built 300 churches in Ghana,

West Africa,

A huge church in London.

And so when I was age eight,

My speaking career began when he threw me in the audience and said,

Speak!

Right?

No plan.

No script.

No nothing.

And that began a whole journey with communicating and speaking.

And that's been a lifelong kind of passion.

When I was 14,

I was ordained as a minister.

And I was,

Again,

Not announced to me,

No discussion,

Just all of a sudden,

One Sunday,

My son is taking over my ministry.

Congratulations.

Everyone's in uproar and celebrating except me.

And in that moment,

I guess I should have been happy,

But my heart sank because it was that feeling of knowing that this was not my path and this was not my soul's purpose and this was not my destiny.

And,

You know,

The truth was,

I was too afraid at that time to speak my truth.

I was,

As a 14 year old kid,

I was just too afraid to,

My fear was,

If I told my father how I really felt,

Then I would be,

I would lose this love.

I would be alone.

I'd be abandoned.

I'd lose the community.

So I said nothing for four years and went along with it.

And that was a huge period of turmoil and conflict and depression,

Questioning life and myself and God and everything.

And I became very obsessed with personal development at that age.

I'd go sneak into my father's bookshelf and pick up all of his,

He had,

It was a mystic.

So he had all of these self-help spiritual books,

Eastern Mystical,

Krishnamurti to Wayne Dyer.

And I sort of devoured these books as a teenager and this was my passion.

And so when I was 18,

My life really shifted because I had a choice to make.

I felt this huge calling to come to America and now I was reading all of these self-help books from Wayne Dyer,

Louise Hay,

Marianne Williamson.

They all lived in Southern California and they were impacting people,

Not through the church or religion,

But in a whole different way.

And so this got into my soul and I just,

I wanted to go into this field.

And so I felt this huge calling to come to the US and come to Los Angeles and meet these people.

And,

You know,

Sometimes what your soul guides you to do doesn't always make sense to your conscious mind or your ego,

You know,

Your personality,

But I felt it.

And I looked into my future and I could see age 20,

Age 30,

Age 40,

Age 50,

Like I could be successful by the world standards and take over my father's ministry.

But if I didn't have myself,

If I didn't have my integrity,

If I didn't have my truth,

What kind of success is that?

And I just felt the pain of when I really reflected,

I felt the pain of self-betrayal.

I felt like if I was going to go down this path,

It was a soul suicide.

And so I had the conversation that really was terrifying,

Challenging.

And yesterday I became a man when I looked my father in the eyes and I said,

I know I'm going to disappoint you,

But I love you,

But I can't take over.

And that was that.

We didn't speak for two years and it changed the course of my life and put me on this path.

And long story short,

I wound up winning a green card in the lottery and the green card lottery came to the US,

18 year old kid,

You know,

Two suitcases,

$800,

One suitcase full of self-help books,

One suitcase full of clothes and showed up and found many of the teachers and icons and Barbara De Angelis and,

You know,

John Gray and Deepak Chopra and,

You know,

Studied with some of them.

And then years,

A couple of years,

A few years later,

Went on my own quest and started traveling.

And this is when I think things really cracked open when I ended up walking the Camino in Northern Spain and ended up,

Yeah,

It was profound.

I ended up in Israel studying with some rabbis in Thailand,

Ended up in India.

And that really cracked me open to a deeper realization of like who I am and the nature of life and my purpose.

And so it was from that,

That I came back to LA and began a journey of just slowly inspiring people,

You know,

One-on-one and it just expanded and grew and evolved from there.

So that's the short version.

We can go to the book in a moment,

But I'll stop there.

What a,

You,

You mentioned all of my favorite teachers.

I mean,

I'm listening to you like,

Oh my God,

I'm so jealous.

I can't believe you lived and you were one-on-one and were taught in person by a lot of these people.

Like,

I'm like,

Oh gosh,

I'm,

I'm envious listening to you.

What a story.

I'm so glad I asked that question.

What an incredible story.

It's like your path was laid out and you just showed up.

So your dad didn't talk to you for two years when you left.

He didn't speak for two years.

I knew he would be disappointed.

So I,

I basically,

Before I spoke to him,

I had to make peace with my greatest fear.

And that was,

And we weren't close,

But he was iconic for me.

And,

And,

And so my fear was I was betraying him and I knew like I was going to break his heart,

But I didn't have,

It felt like I didn't have a choice.

If I would,

Like,

I realized if I start living the lie to get his love and approval and validation.

Now I'm going to have to live this for the rest of my life.

And that felt so painful that I knew what I had to do.

And yeah,

We didn't literally,

He didn't say very much.

You know,

He's a very intense character.

He's old school.

He's someone who's come from the standpoint of like,

It's my way or it's my way.

You're like,

You choose which way you'd like it to be.

And so I was terrified and he didn't say anything.

When I told him I'm not taking over,

All he said was,

Are you sure?

I said,

Yes.

And he asked me again,

Are you sure?

And I said,

Yes,

That was it.

He ended up traveling to Ghana for a few months and then that started the no communication.

And even when he came back,

We weren't really talking.

And so it was really painful.

Sometimes people think that when you find your purpose or you follow your soul's calling,

Like it's easy and unicorns and light and bliss all the time.

And I think sometimes I found that following my soul's purpose is when the challenges begin.

But those challenges,

It doesn't mean that you're on the wrong path.

It sometimes means you're on the right path.

You just have to go through on a human level,

The soul test to be able to develop the mental,

The emotional,

Psychological muscle,

Soul force to be able to fulfill the vision.

And so,

Yeah,

It was difficult.

It wasn't until maybe like three,

Four years after I'd been in the US that we started talking again,

Like truly.

And I ended up going to this,

It's funny because I fell in love with this beautiful woman who I thought I was going to marry.

And she says,

You know,

I think you have some anger issues towards your dad,

You know,

Your therapist.

So you might get a chuckle out of this.

My response was,

Thank you very much.

This relationship is over.

That was basically my response.

And I fall in love again a few months later with another woman.

And she says,

You know,

I think you might have some anger issues towards your dad.

Same thing.

But this time I was like madly in love,

Got myself into therapy.

I got to do whatever it takes to heal myself.

I ended up at this men's retreat.

And in this men's retreat,

I'm 20 years old.

I start acknowledging my anger and my pain and my resentment.

Stuff I had suppressed because I felt like I don't want to acknowledge this because that means I'm betraying my father.

And so I was full of anger and sadness and grief and feeling unsupported by my father.

And it was all of this stuff.

And finally,

In this weekend,

Got to the place of forgiving my father and realizing that the forgiveness wasn't really for him.

It was to free myself.

And the real completion wasn't about him.

It was within myself and getting complete with my relationship with my father within my own consciousness.

And that was so freeing.

And through that process,

I really got to a place of forgiveness and deep,

Profound acknowledgement of the love that I had for this man,

Even if he didn't change,

No matter what he was,

No matter what he wasn't.

And I kid you not,

Kid you not,

Michelle,

Like within a week,

It may have been like two days,

But within a week,

This guy,

My father calls me up.

He says,

Son,

I just feel like we need to talk.

And that began the slow rebuilding of our relationship and healing.

You know,

Yeah,

It was a deep,

Deep process.

You know,

You think about when you hold that much anger towards someone,

And then like you said,

Forgiveness frees you.

So you freed yourself from that anger,

The energy shifted.

So of course your dad could call you like,

How beautiful is that?

I want to talk about something you said that I think is really important that I think people can get stuck on when you said the soul path isn't always an easy path,

You know,

And people think,

Oh,

I'm on the right path because it's so easy.

You know,

This is easy.

Yes,

Everything's lining up.

Of course it's meant to be.

No,

It doesn't mean that when something difficult is in your path,

That it's not God inspired,

Soul inspired.

Can you talk about that a little bit?

Yeah,

Yeah,

I think sometimes,

You know,

People think it's just always easy and effortless and hunky dory.

But I think,

You know,

First and foremost,

I would say that at least my perspective is we are souls.

And as souls,

We incarnate into this human experience,

Into this physical three dimensional,

You know,

Simulation,

Right,

As a opportunity to learn,

To grow,

To evolve.

And so the way I see it is life is a university for our souls evolution.

And if life really is about growth and evolution and learning lessons that our soul is seeking to experience and learn,

Then every single experience,

Every single situation,

Every single relationship,

Every single circumstance is really the curriculum and the evolutionary opportunity,

The gymnasium for our souls.

And so I think many,

Many people that have a purpose,

Many people that are up to big things,

We have to sometimes go through difficult experiences,

Because it's only through those seemingly challenging experiences and difficulties and heartbreaks and hardships that we learn and we grow and we develop the muscle of compassion,

Like I think of Mandela,

Right?

What if he didn't go to prison 27 years?

Would he have developed that level of vision,

That level of empathy?

I can't even imagine that level of monument,

Like monumental empathy,

27 years sitting in prison for only trying to help people,

Like the depth of which a human being has to go to,

To not come out and hate people and be bitter.

And so to me,

That was his soul's gymnasium,

So that he could cultivate that and be able to come out and be the soul force,

Be the change on the planet and shift consciousness at that level.

And so I think when we realize,

When we start looking at life from that different perspective,

Then I think rather than being used by the experiences and being a victim to the experiences,

As we see ourselves as souls,

We can start using the experiences no matter what.

And rather than saying,

Well,

Why is this happening to me?

We can ask like,

Well,

Why is this happening to me?

And what is my soul seeking to learn in this betrayal,

In this heartbreak,

In this relationship,

In this experience?

And I think so long as we're doing that,

We're always growing,

We're always evolving.

We're always succeeding when we're learning the lessons,

Even if it's difficult,

Even if it's challenging.

So I tell people,

Don't judge your success by just whether you achieved or not,

Or how easy it is or not,

But judge your success by the degree to which you are learning and evolving,

The degree to which you are resolving your karma,

The degree to which you are healing along the path,

And the degree to which you are becoming more of the authentic version of yourself.

To me,

That's true success.

And so sometimes it's the most difficult,

Challenging experiences that are the experiences that crack our egos open,

That crack us open.

And sometimes we can't grow and evolve unless we crack open.

And sometimes when we're locked in our egoic conditioned identity,

We don't want to crack open because the job of the ego is to reinforce its existence and never wants to change because it wants to protect us from getting hurt again.

And the ego wants everything and everyone else to change,

But it doesn't want to change.

And so sometimes it takes the blessing of the difficult experience to crack the shell of our egos open.

And it takes that heartbreak to crack us open to go deeper to heal,

Even though it may not seem like it in the moment.

Yeah.

Such great points.

Thank you for all that.

So talk about then surrender.

Ah,

Surrender.

Wow.

What does it mean to surrender?

Because people,

I think,

Don't have a clear definition and they get it confused with other things.

What does surrender mean to you?

Yeah.

You know,

This was not a topic.

This was not the book I thought I was going to write.

So the funny thing is I had to surrender to the book about surrender and the book that was seeking to be written.

I had a whole nother agenda.

And so I think in our culture,

We have this,

I was going to say perception,

But let's call it a misconception that surrender is weak,

That surrender is passive,

That surrender means giving up,

That is waving the white flag,

That if you surrender,

You're going to be left behind.

If you surrender,

You're going to be a victim.

You're going to be a doormat.

You're going to be trodden on.

You're going to be taken advantage of.

You're not going to manifest your goals,

Dreams and desires.

If you surrender,

You're going to get less in life.

And I'm actually saying,

No,

No,

No.

If you surrender,

Like let's reframe surrender a moment into something more expansive and an active thing.

If you surrender,

What if you didn't get less?

But what if you got more?

Like in true surrender and letting go,

What if you actually got more than you could have intended and planned with the limited concept of your own mind and personality and ego?

More joy,

Like maybe not what you wanted,

But maybe beyond what you wanted.

Maybe not what you expected,

But more.

And so what is the more?

We're not able to imagine the more because from the ego's perspective,

All we can see is what we can see from the limited lens of our conditioning,

Which is rooted in the past.

And so surrender is to take the limits off of life.

To surrender is to,

When we stop trying to control every little thing about ourselves and our lives,

Control,

I would say letting go of the illusion of control,

Because in many ways we think we're in control,

But really we're not.

I think of the last couple of years have shown us anything.

It's maybe shown us we're not as in control as we thought as human beings.

I think one of the master addictions is control and ego seeking to control everything.

Because if I can control everything,

Then I'm going to be safe,

Which is also an illusion,

I think.

And so I would say surrender is when we stop trying to force life to fit into our limited idea of what we think it should look like and manipulate and force it.

And sometimes we try to make things into something that it's not.

And we want what we want when we want it,

But it's not flowing.

And so surrender is more about flow.

Surrender is letting go of the idea of who we think we should be and how we think life should be so that we can be truly open and available and receptive to allow life to show us,

To allow the authentic energy and expression of what life is seeking,

Of the life we are truly destined to live,

That is truly in alignment with our higher self,

To allow that to emerge.

And so I think surrender,

When we truly surrender,

We're available,

We're open.

And that's when we're in flow with infinite possibilities.

I think from my experience that surrender is the most powerful thing we can do.

I think in humanity's evolution right now,

We are in a phase transition.

And I think that the last few years as a humanity,

We are being initiated into a whole new way of living out of the old paradigm of ego and control and force and sort of patriarchal systems to one that is more open and cooperative and living in harmony with nature and life and our souls and the divine and the infinite intelligence of life.

And I think this is surrender.

Surrender is to the old paradigm,

Ask the question,

Like,

What do I want?

What do I want?

What do I want?

And I say,

Yeah,

You could make things happen.

You can manifest.

You can create based on the ego model.

You might get what you thought you wanted,

But only to realize that what you thought you wanted wasn't what you really wanted.

It was just what you thought you wanted.

And many of our goals are often projections of unmet needs from our childhood.

And we think if we get it,

Then we're going to be happy.

And we're still not.

And so the path of surrender is about asking oneself the question.

I call it more of an infinite question.

And that question becomes,

What is it that life is seeking to express for me?

What is it that the universe is seeking to express?

What is it that my soul,

What is the deepest impulse of what my soul is seeking to express and to feel that,

To tune into that,

To tap into that and allow that to emerge and then to align our thinking and our thoughts and our feelings and our egos and our identities and our planning and our strategy in alignment with the soul's expression.

Then ego is in service and in harmony with the soul and working together.

And then we take action,

You know,

And so surrender isn't just being passive.

It is taking action,

But in alignment with what's authentic and what's true,

Taking action without attachment.

Then I think we're able to live surrender more harmoniously.

And that's beautiful.

I love what you said,

All of it.

How do you know?

How do you know if it's the universe,

God,

Force,

Life force,

Whatever you want to call it,

Coming through you and guiding you,

Or is it a project,

A projection?

And when do you know that you should take action versus surrender?

Like,

This is where I think we get so tripped up because the ego is tripping us up all the time.

We think I'm surrendering and I should go in this direction.

It's like,

Wait a minute.

That was a projection from childhood,

Unmet needs,

Unmet wounds go through.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I thought first,

I think,

I think life,

If we really become,

If we're willing to be still,

I think you start seeing that life has a flow.

There is,

There is a energy,

You know,

Many times we're not still because we're so busy projection do this,

You do this,

Should be this,

I should be there.

I should go there,

You know,

And we try to control.

But if we just let go for a moment,

You start seeing it's like being in the ocean.

You kind of feel like the river,

The ocean,

It just kind of,

It's very gentle,

But it starts moving.

And I think life in its energetic,

Intuitive intelligence,

It has a flow.

And I think the more we can just be with that and be available,

Just to be available,

Just to practice being still and being available to just listen and tune in and be available.

You start feeling the flow of like,

Hmm,

Something's guiding me.

Like,

I think you asked me where I am in this moment and,

You know,

L.

A.

And I was guided to Phoenix.

I was,

It was just kind of like something doesn't make sense.

But something,

Something is kind of moving me over here,

You know,

Made no sense until I got there.

And when I got there,

Boom,

Everything started making sense.

And I started to realize the energetic,

Spiritual,

Evolutionary,

And should we say karmic reason for why I needed to be there.

And once I learned the lesson,

And I bought a beautiful little house there,

Thought I was going to be there for a little while.

But when I learned the lesson that I needed to learn,

That flow was like,

Go check out Miami,

Go check out Miami.

And so letting life lead you,

You start seeing that the river starts moving in a direction,

And it may not make sense.

And I think one of the things that blocks that is we're constantly,

The mind is constantly seeking to understand why,

Why,

What does it mean?

Which is another form of control.

If I can understand why,

Then and control it,

Then I won't get hurt.

So why,

Why,

Why,

Why?

And then in that constant questioning,

I think we disconnect from that flow.

And so I felt this nudge,

Go to Miami.

And so you will feel a flow of life in its intelligence.

And I think if you can just attune to that,

And follow that flow.

And sometimes,

You know,

What I have to learn to do was give up the need to constantly understand why.

Like I tell people,

You don't need to understand,

You don't even need to know where you're going to get to exactly where you need to be.

Because there is an intelligence beyond the mind,

An intelligence beyond conditioning that is deeper than that,

It's of our soul,

You know.

And I think many times when we're driven from pain,

The feeling of like,

When we're driven to try to,

If I can get that thing,

Then I'm going to be happy.

Mm hmm.

We're trying to like,

Get happiness.

I think that's usually many times a setup,

Where we're coming from is a place of lack,

Coming from a place of scarcity,

Coming from a sense of wounding.

If I can,

We're going towards something to get a feeling that we think is going to fulfill us.

And many times it doesn't.

And even if it does fulfill us,

It lasts a second.

If I can get that Lamborghini,

Then you get it.

And it's like,

Well,

It doesn't make me happy,

You know.

So I think it's important that we start observing also,

What's driving me?

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

What's the motivation?

What am I seeking to get?

What do I think I'm going to get when I achieve that thing?

And just kind of question that for a moment,

Because many times we don't question it.

We actually think that that thing is going to give us the happiness that it never really does.

And we're left miserable.

I think sometimes getting what you thought was going to make you happy is sometimes worse,

Because when you get it and then you realize it doesn't make me happy,

Then what?

Then what?

You know,

At least when you're in the pursuit of it,

You have the illusion it's going to make you happy.

So I think really feeling like,

Wow,

Am I coming from lack?

What do I think it's going to give me?

And start just beginning to question.

And I think when we can start finding ways to cultivate the feeling of what we think we're going to get when we achieve it,

Before we even achieve it,

Start cultivating it now.

Maybe it's joy.

So let me just break it up.

Ask yourself,

What is it I want to manifest?

What is it I think I'm going to feel when I manifest that?

And see,

Like,

Is it true?

Question,

Question that motive and then ask yourself,

OK,

Wholeness,

Completeness,

Joy and start seeing how can I start cultivating more of that joy,

More of that fulfillment,

More of that,

You know,

Self-loving more of that fill in the blank now cultivate.

And that doesn't mean don't go for it.

But now if you could start cultivating it,

You might find that you're not as motivated to go for it anymore.

And then that desire starts dropping away or you start enjoying the journey even more as you're in the pursuit of it.

And it's not really about the thing.

You took the words out of my mouth.

It's like it's the journey that brings us the happiness,

The anticipation.

It's like a little kid getting excited for Christmas Day.

Right.

You get so excited for the whole month and then it's over when Christmas happens and life goes on.

Right.

But it's the anticipation.

It's the same kind of thing.

What do you say to people that are having a difficult time surrendering and they're stuck in blame,

Pain,

Emotional pain.

Someone hurt them.

Let's just say somebody hurt them and they are angry about it and they're stuck in it.

You know,

The ego clings on and we're stuck in it and it's keeping us stuck because we can't let go and we need to surrender to let the end,

You know,

So talk about that for a minute.

Like what do you say?

I want to talk about the feeling part because I think it's so important what you're saying.

And I want to talk about the ego part because they kind of go together and I think when we can,

It's an important thing,

It's a delicate thing because I think when we can understand the nature of something,

Our relationship with it shifts.

When we can understand the nature of why we sometimes stay stuck,

When we can understand the nature of why we resist,

It can transform your relationship with the resistance.

And it no longer becomes about the stuckness or the resistance.

Like the issue is not the issue.

It's really more about your relationship with the issue and how you relate with yourself.

That's more important than the stuckness itself because often when we make it about the stuckness and we try to get rid of the stuckness and try to push the stuckness away,

We stay even more stuck.

And so understanding the nature of the ego,

Let's just start there,

I think can transform the game in many ways.

The ego is what we perceive ourselves to be.

The ego is that sense of identity that we hold onto,

Name,

Form,

Body,

Memories,

Experiences,

Traumas,

You know,

Et cetera,

Et cetera,

From the past that we hold so tightly onto for a sense of me.

And the degree to which we hold on and identify with this me thing,

A set pattern,

A construct is the degree to which we are in ego.

So ego for me is not necessarily good or bad.

It's just neutral.

Ego is the vehicle that our soul uses to navigate in this three-dimensional physical experience.

So everyone has an ego,

And I think it's not the ego that's the issue.

It's having a relationship with the ego.

And so when you understand that ego is a set pattern.

We're all born,

Like as children,

As really young kids,

Young babies,

We didn't have ego,

Really.

We were just being.

We were being,

We weren't resisting our feelings.

We would cry when we felt like crying.

We would hit our head,

Cry,

And then just jump up and go.

We weren't like,

You look at a little baby,

It's not like,

Well,

You know,

Four months ago,

I hit my head and,

You know,

It's over it.

It cries,

It's done.

It's gone.

The feeling goes,

It's done.

It's now full of joy,

Giggling again.

I mean,

If you look at a baby,

It's like,

Wow.

And I think babies are so clear.

They're in touch with the innocence.

That's why when we look at a child,

We're reminded of our own innocence.

So what happens?

A kid is born in touch with the divine essence,

In touch with light,

Pure,

You know,

Pure energy,

Consciousness,

Radiating itself.

It will jump on the table and sing.

It doesn't care if it's not Mariah Carey.

It runs and gives you a hug.

It doesn't know who you are,

Whether you're a drug dealer,

Whether you're Mother Teresa,

It's just pure light.

We're born,

We incarnate into this human experience.

We meet our parents,

Right?

Our parents,

They're just doing the best that they can do based on their conditioning,

Based on their past,

Based on their programming,

Based on their ancestors,

Based on society.

Maybe dad was an alcoholic.

Maybe mom has mental health issues.

Maybe they're fighting all the time.

Maybe there's abuse,

Pain,

Trauma,

Hurt.

So first thing is we learn to shut down,

Disconnect and suppress so many of the feelings of,

As a way to deal with what's going on around us.

Suppress,

Disconnect,

Not feel,

Not feel,

Not feel.

Before you know it,

All of the mountain of unfelt feelings and emotions start building up and our true light,

Our true essence gets hidden underneath the pain,

Underneath the unfelt feelings.

So our light doesn't shine.

It's there.

And then we learn all sorts of strategies to disconnect and not feel as a way to function and survive because it's painful when dad screams.

It's painful when mom's hitting dad.

It's painful when our needs aren't met.

So we start developing walls and defense mechanisms to just not feel.

Now we hold tightly to that way of being as a survival mechanism.

That wall we erected worked for us when we were five.

It worked for us when we were 10.

It helped us survive.

But now we're 25.

We fall in love.

We're falling in love.

Our heart starts opening and boom,

That mechanism kicks in.

It's like,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No.

We're not going to let you open your heart because if you open your heart,

You might feel helpless and out of control and pain like you felt when you were five.

So the job of the ego is to not change.

It doesn't want to change.

It doesn't want to let go.

And that's why we resist.

And that's why we hold on.

And then we also develop a role.

We go into the world,

The sense of who do I need to be in order to get love,

Validation and approval.

For me,

I thought I needed to be the perfect son.

I needed to be the achiever,

The all-day student,

Take care of the community,

Take care of everyone,

Be kind all the time.

And so we develop roles and masks and personas that we can talk ourselves into a certain shape in order to get the love,

The validation and approval.

We hold tightly to that.

That gets reinforced.

And we think that's who we are.

And we really believe like,

This is who I am.

But it's not really who we are.

It's just the shape and the pattern of condition programs that we've learned to become to avoid pain and get love.

And so when we recognize that ego is not what we are and what resists is ego.

And if we're not ego,

Then ego is a pattern.

That pattern is not set.

That pattern is not what we are.

Then I think what just starts helping,

Even in working with feelings,

Is just the awareness that we're not those patterns and the ability to hold the space for ourselves when we're stuck.

Hold the space for ourselves.

Because when we can recognize the reason I'm sabotaging,

The reason I'm holding on,

The reason I'm acting out,

The reason my walls are up and I'm guarded and not feeling is survival.

You know,

It's really those patterns and my ego is trying to protect me.

Then I think we can start relating to ourselves with more empathy and more compassion.

And I think the holding of ourselves and the relating of ourselves with more empathy and tenderness and kindness and softness and compassion for those wounded parts of ourselves,

You know,

Can allow the healing to happen.

And I think that is part of what allows the controlling aspects,

The hurt aspects to just begin to relax a little bit and relax a little bit and let go a little bit.

And then surrender can just start blossoming a little bit more as we hold ourselves.

And it's the loving and the compassion because we understand that we're not bad people.

You know,

We don't mean bad.

We might act certain ways.

We might be stuck in certain ways.

But it's protection.

Then it's the loving that facilitates the healing and meeting ourselves with the love.

And so I think in many ways we hold on because we hold on because we're in pain.

We hold on because we're hurt.

We hold on because we feel that and we don't allow ourselves to feel our feelings fully because if we feel our feelings fully,

We're afraid.

It's going to last forever.

We're afraid we won't be able to cope.

We're sometimes afraid that,

Well,

I'm not going to feel my feelings towards my mom because I don't want to give them control.

I don't want to give them power over me.

They don't deserve that.

And so in doing that,

We keep ourselves stuck.

All feelings remain present till fully felt.

And so when we understand that the feelings that we don't allow ourselves to authentically feel fully and truly with awareness,

We'll simply stay stuck.

And they will end up expressing in unhealthy ways.

And so if we understand that no feeling is permanent,

All feelings are temporary,

All feelings have a natural cycle.

And if then we're able to say,

OK,

Let me be with my feelings and hold myself with compassion and the space and find a therapist,

Find a coach,

Find a guide who can help me navigate some of those feelings that I've suppressed so that I can let them go,

You know,

And really let them go.

And I think one thing that will help,

That's helped me,

That may help people is if you're willing to take the label off of the feeling.

Many times people think that,

But I've been feeling the feeling and I've been feeling the feeling and I've been feeling the feeling,

But I'm not letting the feeling go.

I'm still mad.

I'm still angry.

Many times people think that they think that they're feeling the feeling,

But they're actually thinking about the feeling.

They're analyzing the feeling.

They're judging the feeling.

And to truly let a feeling go,

First you have to be open and willing,

That's one,

And committed.

And then one thing that happens as a practice is to take the label off of the feeling,

As in good or bad,

As in sad,

As in just take the label off and just experience the feeling as a sensation in the body.

And I think when you can just experience the feeling with no label,

Without trying to change it,

Without trying to get rid of it,

Without trying to do anything to it,

But just surrendering and being with it fully,

You'll find that when you're just with the feeling as this pure energy and sensation in the body,

And you just experience it for what it is,

You start cycling through the natural cycle of that feeling.

And a layer of that feeling starts to dissolve.

That's what I found.

And then some feelings have more layers,

Like grief,

For example,

Has more layers,

But those are just a few things I would say.

That's wonderful.

I love that.

I was going to ask you,

What do you think the ego is?

So thank you for explaining that.

So is surrendering then,

Is to surrender the same thing as to forgive?

It's different,

Correct?

It's different.

Yeah,

It's different.

I think part of surrendering might include forgiveness.

I have to surrender to forgiving and surrender to letting go.

But sometimes too,

Many times people don't crack open into,

Shall we say,

Full,

Open hearted surrender because we're holding on and we haven't let ourselves feel the pain,

The hurt.

And it's hard to truly forgive,

Truly let go when we haven't allowed ourselves to feel.

You might intellectually know,

I've got to forgive,

Got to forgive,

Got to forgive.

It's important to forgive.

It's good to forgive.

But if you don't allow yourself to embody and feel and let go,

You might understand it,

But it may not be embodied where you can truly release it.

And I think one of the portals,

One of the doorways to surrender,

Because there's a difference between acceptance and surrender.

Because you could come to a place of,

OK,

My spouse,

He is what he is.

She is what they are.

She is what she is.

I don't like it and I'm pissed off.

And I'm kind of mad,

But I accept it.

But now you're still pissed off,

Mad,

Frustrated,

Resentful that they are what they are.

And I'm going to kind of like be there,

Be in relationship.

But I'm kind of like withholding my love from this person,

Even though I'm accepting.

Acceptance,

But not surrender.

And so I think to truly surrender requires the willingness to move through the portal of grieving.

Because surrender is a letting go of an identity,

An idea,

What we think should be,

Who we thought we were.

And most of us don't fully crack open to surrender because we don't allow ourselves to really grieve.

And I think grieving is a key doorway to true surrender.

And that can be a little scary for some of us.

But when we really do grieve and go through that process is,

I think,

When we can really let go and forgive and realize I'm never going to have the relationship.

I'll give you an example with my father.

So we made up when I was in my early 20s and we started,

As I mentioned,

He calls me up and we started having a much better relationship.

And I loved him and I didn't feel the animosity I felt.

But we were never really,

Really,

Really,

Really,

Really close.

And so The Magic of Surrender book was inspired because my mother passed away in 2017.

So she was diagnosed with stomach cancer.

And it was,

Let me tell you,

Michelle,

It was intense.

My mother was the closest person to me alive.

My mother,

I knew love in my life because of this woman.

And I can die saying I know what unconditional love is.

And I am what I am because of her in so many ways.

So she raised me.

So when I heard that she had stomach cancer,

My heart just broke open.

I couldn't imagine it because in your mind,

In my mind,

You think your parents are going to live forever.

Of course,

Yeah.

I started flying back and forth from LA to London to be with my mother in chemo and just sit with her and I would hold her hand and we would have tea together.

All the things that I thought I was too busy to do because I thought I had time and now I finally realized,

Shit,

I don't have any time.

This is it.

My only regret was why did I wait till she was dying?

And just a side story here,

Which it inspired the book.

When the doctors finally said to us,

You're going to die.

So get your affairs in order.

I asked my mother two questions about surrender.

The first one was,

Are you afraid?

You know,

I had tears streaming down my face in the car.

I said,

Are you afraid?

And she said to me,

This Japanese woman,

The little Japanese woman,

She says to me,

I'm not afraid because I know I'm not this body,

That this body is a temporary vehicle for my soul.

She said to me,

Son,

I'll be with you from the other side,

Guiding you every step of your way.

So I'm not afraid because I know who I am.

And so I said to my mother,

Is there anything I can do for you?

In your final days to,

You know,

Make sure you're happy.

Like,

What do you need?

Where do you want to go?

Like,

I just wanted to be a good son.

She looked me in the eyes again and she said,

There's nothing I need and there's nothing I want.

She said,

All I want is what God wants for my life.

And that hit me so strong because I realized that this woman was so surrendered.

She was at peace this whole year.

She wasn't angry.

She didn't feel like a victim.

Truly,

And she was an emotional person,

But she was in such peace.

She wasn't attached to living.

She wasn't attached to dying.

She was surrendered,

Like she was free.

She was open to the highest journey for her life.

And so when she passed away,

I went through this major grieving process,

Like feeling,

Like there were moments where I felt my heart breaking open,

Shattering open.

And so I just would have these moments,

The sessions where I just let my heart shatter.

And it felt like the shape,

Each time I would let myself grieve,

It felt like the shape of my heart would break.

And then there was more love.

And then I would see that,

Well,

My heart wasn't broken.

It was just broken open to more love and more love.

And so in the grieving,

Each layer would just break my heart open to more love,

You know?

And it was really profound.

And I think the degree to which we suppress the negative feeling is also the degree to which we suppress the joy and the bliss and the ecstasy.

And so when we open to one,

We open to the other.

And in that moment of grief,

I remember speaking to my mother,

Like metaphorically,

To her spirit.

And I said to my mother,

Why did you pass away?

Why did you go early?

Because my father's 12 years older,

So I assumed he would go before.

I got this response from her soul,

And her soul said to me,

At least I think,

Her soul said to me,

I left early to gift you a deeper relationship with your father.

Ooh,

I have goosebumps.

And I understood the gift of what her soul was doing.

That's the day,

Michelle,

Where I said,

I'm going to call my father every single day.

And I decided that any layer of judgment,

Resentment that I was,

Like,

I loved him,

But it was like,

We weren't super close.

Because where I came from was like,

It takes two people to tangle.

He doesn't call me.

Why doesn't he call me?

Until he calls me,

I'm not going to call him.

And it was kind of like that.

In that moment,

I realized we're all going to die.

None of us know when that moment's going to happen.

And I don't know when that moment's going to happen with my dad.

And I wish I had spent more moments with my mom.

And so I just decided,

Talk about forgiveness,

To just forgive everything,

To drop everything.

Because it was just a deep acknowledgment that it doesn't matter if I'm right.

It doesn't,

Like,

When he's dead,

I look at him in his casket.

It doesn't matter if I'm right.

I will have missed out on so many of the amazing moments with him.

And being right is not even freaking worth it,

You know?

And so I forgave him,

Realizing from his culture as an African male in Ghana,

Born in the late 30s,

Early 40s,

He didn't know any better.

He grew up without a father.

He grew up without,

I mean,

How could he have done any more?

And so he did the best he could.

And so what I realized was my mother was giving me this gift.

And I decided to forgive my,

Like,

I just dropped it.

And I forgave my father.

And I said,

You know what?

What matters is I love him.

What matters.

That's all that matters.

The fact is,

He was what he,

But I love him.

And I made a commitment.

I forgave him at a whole nother level.

I completely accepted what he was at a whole nother level.

He is what he is.

He's never going to call me.

He's not going to,

He's not going to,

Like,

I may not have the relationship in my mind I would like to have with him that I see on TV with sons and fathers in Hollywood.

It is what he is.

But I realized I wasn't open to receiving what he was able to give me.

Because I was so busy and attached to what I wanted him to give me.

So in that surrender,

In that forgiveness,

I said,

I'm going to call this man every day for the rest of my life until he dies.

Like,

It doesn't matter if he ever calls me.

I,

If I love him,

Then let me love him.

I'm going to love him.

And he will know that he was loved.

And when he dies,

I will know I did my part and I will be at peace.

So I started calling him every day.

Hey,

Dad,

How are you?

I don't think he knew what was going on because I would not call him for six months.

Hey,

Dad,

How are you feeling?

OK,

That was it.

Hey,

We didn't have some deep conversations.

Hey,

Dad,

Did you eat today?

Hey,

Dad,

Are you taking your protein powder?

Hey,

Dad,

Are you taking,

That was it.

Slowly,

The relationship transformed.

Like,

He started telling me he loved me.

Slowly,

He would call me up.

I'll never forget,

Like,

I knew something shifted.

And I knew that real forgiveness had happened when,

On my birthday,

He called me up.

Wow.

I'll tell you,

This is when I knew that healing can happen.

For anyone that is wondering,

Can relationships shift?

The answer is yes.

Because my father called me on my birthday.

He hadn't called me on my birthday my entire life.

Wow.

And it was through the forgiveness and the complete acceptance of what he was and what he wasn't that this,

Talk about,

I grew up seeing miracles.

This was a miracle for me.

But,

Akir,

You say you had to change.

I had to change.

You changed.

You forgave.

You surrendered.

You accepted.

You did your work.

And then your outside reality changed.

That was the key.

I didn't wait for him to change.

Exactly.

Exactly.

That is,

I'm so glad to end on that point.

That is huge.

Because we wait,

As humans,

We want someone outside of us to change.

Then I'll forgive you.

Then I'll accept you.

Then I can surrender.

No,

We got to do it now.

We want our reality to change.

We got to do the work.

That's the key.

Beautiful story.

And I'm so sorry about your mom,

But what a gift.

The blessing.

This was phenomenal.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

This was so great.

Have a beautiful rest of your day.

I hope that you enjoyed that show.

And you will also,

Starting today,

Commit to practicing surrender in your own life.

This is a powerful concept.

It sets us free.

So please,

Please,

Please really look at your life.

Go through your day today,

The rest of the day,

And look at where you can surrender and just step into it and let go.

Powerful.

All right.

Lovely people.

That's all I've got for you today.

Have a beautiful rest of your week.

And I'll see you seated right here next week in the adult chair.

Reviews

Loved it. Profound and very interesting
🙏🏼

Such an awesome podcast! Will listen to again many great points

Phenomenal!!

Wow. This was one of my favorites, thank you so much for all that you do.