Exploring Surrender in 2025 - What I Learned

Every year, I choose a theme.
Not a goal.
Not a resolution.
A lens from which to see. 

A way to orient myself as I move through my precious life. (You can read more about how I choose annual themes in my book, Inspired.)

When I landed on “Surrender” as my theme for 2025, I knew it had edges. 

I could feel excitement and fear in the same breath.

Usually, when I experience that familiar flutter in my belly, I know I’m on track. The adventurer in me wakes up, ready to voyage into the unknown. I’ve learned to trust that the edges of my consciousness take me where I want to go—the unknown. 

Oh my!

Once I committed to Surrender as my theme, it became clear to me how deeply I wanted to lose control—and how much I simultaneously feared it.

So the first question became: what am I surrendering to?

I surrender to my Higher Self. To Spirit. To my body. To love and truth.

I surrender to reality, to life’s events and unfolding circumstances—as teachers and carriers of wisdom.

I surrender to words that resonate, messages that uplift me, the promptings of my heart, and the guidance that feels most expansive.

I surrender to uncontrollable laughter and tears. 

This year, surrender taught me her ways. She taught me to be patient with the process and let my insides out. She taught me deeper peace. 

And so, what happened in 2025 with Surrender as my theme?

Gavin and I took the step of buying a new home. This beautiful home was a dream come true—and a stretch. Financially, emotionally, vibrationally. It was a daring move that brought up a wave of doubt, fear, lack, regret, and anxiety.

With a larger mortgage and new levels of responsibility, I felt bouts of agony. I played out worst-case scenarios, including losing everything.

I tried to think my way out of it. I tried to “have faith.” I tried positive thinking. But it all felt like mental gymnastics, contrived and disconnected from what was actually true.

The truth was simple and uncomfortable: I was scared.

I couldn’t affirm my way out of fear. I couldn’t outsmart it. I couldn’t bypass it. So, I surrendered to the experience.

Layers of fear—some inherited from my family, some carried from other lifetimes, some shaped by past financial losses, some conditioned by culture. 

Layers of self-doubt. Layers of mistrust. Layers of “I’m doing it wrong,” “I made the wrong choice,” or “I shouldn't be feeling this.”

Ah. Peeling the onion. Now I get it.

With surrendering my fears came a softening. Prayers for intervention. Tears. Journal pages filled with confusion or sadness. Emotions moving through instead of being managed.

When unwinding old patterns and limiting beliefs, it can’t be rushed. Everything needs to be felt—until relief arrives organically.

By mid-summer, something gave way. I found myself settling: being at home in our home. Safe. Secure. Grounded—in myself and in the sanctuary we’re creating.

Throughout my process, I laid my fears on the altar of Grace. I prayed, humbly, “Thy will be done.” I gave my worry and even my shame to the Divine.

I learned that surrendering our emotions to Source is a holy act. A sacred offering. A gift. There is something profoundly relieving about laying it down into arms you trust.

Where I practice surrender most naturally is in lovemaking.

In the safety and intimacy I share with Gavin, surrender happens. I don’t plan anything. Energy moves. Breath moves. Sound moves. Pleasure rises, spirals, travels up my spine.

It’s moving me. It’s moving my body. 

And my voice becomes an instrument of that movement—unfiltered, raw, vulnerable. Honest. This is me.

Lovemaking has become a reference point. If I can surrender my voice and my body temple here, how might I do the same when I write, make a video, and create?

Surrendering my hands to the writing. Letting go of controlling the pen. Releasing the need for things to look a certain way. Allowing the work to be imperfect, alive, unfinished.

Surrender showed up in my work, too.

There were moments this year when my energy was lower than I would have preferred. Offering sessions and teaching in those moments required a different kind of trust. I had to stop powering through and allow something greater than me to come through me.

Each circle, session, or workshop asked the same question in a different form:
Can I get out of the way?
Can I let Spirit speak through me instead of from me?

This touched that deep and familiar longing to not be in control. To be an instrument.

And in the loosening, the ideas coming through me were richer, more inspired, more attuned than anything I could have rehearsed. 

And I followed energy intuitively wherever it led me. I dropped my agendas and, miraculously, watched more profound transformations unfold. 

I have a sense there are even more levels to come. 

I also had to surrender to my body’s cries for healing.

Test results revealed high levels of mycotoxins (mold), and suddenly surrender meant a strict protocol—diet, supplements, rest. I surrendered to fatigue and brainfog. To a practitioner’s expertise. To rest in the middle of the day.

I had to give up my preoccupation with productivity and accomplishment. I didn’t choose this. It chose me.

In October, surrender peaked during a two-week cleansing retreat in Austin (see photo below) featuring wheatgrass, green juices, colonics, and detox. Repeat.  

I surrendered to healing, headaches, body aches, hunger pains, and all.

I emerged clearer. More resilient. And, I’m still healing, still surrendering, and still trusting the pace it takes to restore balance and vitality (and clear the mold.)

This is starting to feel vulnerable. Hang in there… 

I surrendered my control over how others perceive me.

Letting go of managing impressions, I embraced an authentic, nonpretentious (not pretending) me. 

That one still gives me chills.

Surrendering asks me to stay in integrity when I would rather please, prove, or look good. Surrendering asks for a courageous honesty, even if I might rock the boat or disappoint another. 

And that is inviting me into greater self-sovereignty and trusting my inner authority. My knowing. My confidence.

Sometimes I fear my power. And yet, I always feel better when I inhabit it.

Maybe I really don’t care so much what other people think as long as I’m congruent with myself. 

I surrendered my arguments with the past.

This is a biggy. 

I surrendered the ‘what ifs’ and the stories of what could have been. I realized I’d been carrying these regrets for a long time.

I marked that surrender with a grief ceremony at Southgate Meadow on the slopes of sacred Mt. Shasta. A physical act. Because sometimes release requires ritual—especially when we’re letting go of something that once felt essential. 

Surrender, it turns out, is not passive.

It’s a choice, a discernment, an allowing. A deeply embodied conversation with life that says, “I’m listening. I’m co-creating in partnership with You. I’m part of this grand orchestration, not separate.”

This year has shaped me into a more humble human. It has made me more available. I feel more connected to others, as we’re all walking on the common ground of humanity.

It brought me to my knees, willingly. 

As this year comes to a close and life continues…

I’m less interested in mastering surrender and more committed to practicing it, moment by moment, breath by breath, choice by choice.

What a teacher and a lover this theme has been. 

What a year!