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The Surrender Wheel: Part 2

Writer's picture: Nate LangleyNate Langley

Updated: Jan 22


Warning: This blog does not contain any information about the ongoing feud between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively. There is however some stuff about Ryan Reynolds at the end.
Warning: This blog does not contain any information about the ongoing feud between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively. There is however some stuff about Ryan Reynolds at the end.

Here's something you already knew... On the journey between where you are now and where you'd like to get to (as a person, professional, or otherwise) there will be obstacles. No surprises there. What is surprising though-as I observe myself and many of my clients as we move through our paths of growth, is how big of a role the stories we tell ourselves play in determining the level of success we'll have in overcoming our obstacles.


In the last blog I talked about my relationship with the word "surrender" and the way my definition of surrender shifted around the time I had my "soulful awakening" (this is code for: got really sick and hit rock bottom and decided there was nowhere to go but up).


For much of my life I was really good at the opposite of surrender, which I would consider resistance.


When I hear resistance I think "resistance training" which is actually quite good for you. It's a stressor to the physical body-putting your tissue under load and creating tiny micro-tears that repair and build back stronger and more dense while you're resting in the following hours and days. When you resistance train, you become accustomed to having your body in a state of tension. Some of that is good. What happened for me is (emotionally and physically) I never allowed my body to come out of tension. Thanks to past injuries (emotionally and physically...are you noticing a theme there?) I was afraid to let go of tension because I feared that without it-I would fall apart.


The point of part one of this blog was this: once I finally did figure out how to let go and surrender, my fear came to pass. I did fall apart. Full on disintegration. Physical, psychological, professional, emotional, relational all the words that end in "al" were having a not so fun time.


AND


That's exactly what I needed at that time of my life. I had built a body and a life on a shaky foundation and the pieces needed to fall in order for me to rebuild in alignment. A product of this rebuild was that it reconnected me with my intuition-something that I'd long numbed myself from. That's where the idea of the surrender wheel comes in. Having the courage to surrender and let go, rest and allow insights to flow, follow the insights, repeat.



It's a work in progress. Just like all of us.
It's a work in progress. Just like all of us.

As I moved from surrender into my rest phase I found it almost supernatural how the unseen work I was doing on myself translated to observable changes in my life. In late 2020 I let go of a career that I spent a decade building because it felt like I'd reached a ceiling for growth there. It was scary, but I was shown by my intuition that this was a necessary step in becoming a greater version of myself. Two months after I let go, an opportunity came up that would move me to Sedona, Arizona. I felt into my intuition-it was a yes. So Renee (my partner) and I uprooted and made the move out west.


Since arriving in Arizona in 2022 I've left the company who created the opportunity for me to come here (very grateful for them) and I've continued to tune into my intuition on how I should be spending my attention. This practice has led me to starting a coaching business, becoming a breathwork facilitator, and retreat leader. I shit you not when I tell you that I had visions of working with people on healing and growth using nature all the way back to 2020 when my disintegration took place.


When I look at the wheel in a macro sense, I had a big surrender event in 2020. Between 2020 and 2022 I was in a rest phase really trying to tune into myself (don't get me wrong, I was still working in spurts to allow myself the luxury to rest). 2022 to present I've been responding to what my rest phase showed me.


So now it's 2025 and I'm currently having some experiences that are bringing me back to surrender. Although I've made tough decisions, took risks, and made many of my dreams from a few years ago a reality, I'm finding that the road less traveled isn't without its bumps. After a busy fall season where we ran four retreats and our first couples retreat, I've come against a month where I have next to nothing going on. And it's not for a lack of trying either. I've created more on the social platforms than ever, Renee helped me build the website this blog is sitting on, and we've been getting great feedback on all of the experiences we've run so far.. but the momentum has hit the skids.


Looking back to what I said earlier, the opposite of surrender is resistance.


You busy March 13th?
You busy March 13th?

What I find myself resisting this time around as I experience this slow down in the new life I'm trying to build is going "all in." I've gone all in with my actions, but I've been noticing the past few weeks as we're failing to get sign ups for our upcoming couples retreat in March that I haven't gone all in emotionally. I've almost been approaching it from a place of pre-emptive indifference. Creating the posts about the event, but even as I hit "post" the doubt and the negative patterns come in "nobody is even gonna see this." "This is useless." "Get ready for a let down." I'm embarrassed to say it, but its true.


What's also true is that I experienced such magic when we ran that first couples retreat that I was pinching myself the whole weekend. I loved EVERY single minute connecting with our guests and I felt more alive than I ever have. It was the first time in my life where I felt like I experienced myself living my purpose.


I care so much about returning to that state that I've begun emotionally protecting myself against the possibility that it doesn't come to fruition.


But in protecting, I'm really just holding constant tension around the entire thing. So.... I gotta take my own medicine and let go.


Here goes:


I care a lot about this thing and I'm gonna be really crushed if it doesn't work out. I may even shed a few therapeutic tears. But I'm gonna put myself out there anyway...Much like Ryan Reynolds' character Van Wilder did at the end of his 2002 romantic comedy when he decides to fully apply himself and graduate. If you haven't seen it, it's not that good but I watch it every time it comes on.







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