Surrender

Elisa A. Escalante/ LCSW/ 03-01-2026

At least once a month I receive another burnt out client with a goal to increase their productivity. This is obviously counter productive, but they are in denial. Some of the work ahead includes helping them learn to accept and surrender to their new reality. The reality being that they cannot keep up with their pace forever. Why? Mental, physical or emotional burnout, aging, mental illness that is impairing their daily functioning. When this is occuring, but the patient is holding onto the compulsive behaviors/ pace of a younger version of themselves, they are fighting against nature. When I inform them that relaxation practices would be more beneficial for optimal health in the long run, they tend to dislike the feedback. There are times in our lives where it is necessary to grind, push harder, go past our threshold and build stubborn resiliency. But, there are also seasons in life that are meant for letting go, slowing down; surrender.

Pacing/ Micro Dosing- These are just fancy terms for slowing down and doing things in spurts, versus all at once. People that have chronic pain, auto immune, mental health conditions cannot always perform an entire task all the way through with no breaks. They feel lazy if they cannot complete a task all the way through, but it is imperative that they respect their body. Our concrete internalized beliefs may create conflict. The idea that we must perform tasks at a certain pace within a certain time. Or creating a big mental to do list for tomorrow; a future we cannot predict yet. Making a goal with no way of knowing whether or not our symptoms will let us complete the task within our own imaginary time constraints. We need realism, we need to think about what is sustainable when we create new goals.

Calming the Parasympathetic nervous system- People are over stimulated, now more than ever before. Work, news, political climate, social media, people. I have talked with some patients that do not have a single ‘Non stim’ (non stimulating) coping skill. What does non stim mean? It means that nothing should be coming at us. No tasks, no requests, no people, nothing that promotes more wakefulness or stress to the body. Calming our parasympathetic nervous system is a must. Especially for busy working parents. Deep breathing, yoga, meditation, mindfulness practices, calm music, mindful baths/ showers or spa days. If we can master these practices regardless of how messy and overwhelming our lives feel, we then master the art of having control in chaos. How does this form of control become surrender? Because it is the only thing we can learn to control; our own minds and bodies. It requires us to give ourselves permission to let go, even when our minds and circumstances do not want to let us.

Letting go of toxic relationships- I validate that it is a very hard experience; to love someone that is self destructive and/ or harmful to us. When we love and care for people, we want to help them help themselves. But this can cause resistance. Though we may be able to see very clearly, the path that someone can take in order to improve their lives, it does not mean they want to walk that path. Regardless of love, safety and common sense, other people’s beliefs, ideas, and behaviors are completely out of our control. We will lose people we love. To substance abuse, to self harm, to betrayal. We may try to help them, and they may run away in the process, or hurt us for helping them. We need to learn when to let go and let them live. They have the right to self determine their own lives. The more we chase the temptation to ‘fix’ them or fix the relationship, the more we suffer.

Radical Acceptance- Everyone needs reminders of ‘what is in their control’ and what is ‘outside of their control’. Surrender requires acceptance. Think about self acceptance, other people acceptance, and life acceptance. We may need to learn to accept our own genetics, we do not get a say in that. We do not get a say in who our parents are, that is the ‘luck of the draw’. We must accept that other people can leave us or ignore us whenever they decide we are no longer of use to them. We may have to accept our society, our laws, our cultures. Or we can choose to leave and venture elsewhere if we do not agree with the confines of where we live. We must surrender to the reality that living life requires some suffering, and some work and effort toward self care. If we give up on ourselves and the reality of what self care requires, we then suffer more.

Humanize ourselves and others- Humanizing language means to acknowledge that we can feel tired, we can feel burnt out, we can feel a wide variety of emotions. De humanizing language sounds like “You don’t feel that way…”, “You shouldn’t feel that….” or “You arent’ tired”, “You shouldn’t feel tired….”. As a human, we can feel any/ everything. We can even feel things in parallel too; meaning multiple emotions at the same time that are conflicting. In grief we can still feel some relief with laughter. In love, we can still feel annoyed with who we love. We can have happy memories with someone and have memories that trigger anger as well. We can appear able bodied but be frozen in terror or analysis paralysis. Human beings are complex, not robotic. We do not have unlimited supplies of physical and mental energy. A part of the human experience is to surrender to our limitations. We can be humble, we can acknowledge and admit when we have needs. We can learn that vulnerability does not mean weakness.