On surrender
Lately I’ve been thinking about the years that marked some of the darkest times in my life and remembering the tools I used to move through them.
I just remembered this trick: a God Box.
Even 10 years ago, I had a complicated relationship with the idea of a higher power. This was brought about by a series of not-so-stellar priests who lorded over the Catholic church in my tiny hometown. Add that to my young and exceedingly overactive imagination – by the time I was 10, I had assumed that the devil had built a special space in hell for me and only me. Sometime during my teenage years, I overcorrected and decided there was no God at all.
But back to a God Box and how it helped me navigate my turbulent 30s.
As a chronic worrier with a chronic illness, my overactive imagination turned me into a time traveler. I overthought everything. But I’d started reading about the concept of spiritual surrender and taking those things that you couldn’t possibly solve on your own and giving them up to God.
(At the time, I gave things up to the Universe, as that term resonated more than the G-word.)
I appreciated this idea, in theory. I’d seen evidence in my life that many times, the problems I faced worked themselves out without me needing to intervene. So I started to open up to the idea of divine intervention.
Again, the theory worked for me. But how in the H-E-double-tooth-picks does one do this in practice?
A God Box, at least according to a story told by Tosha Silver in her book, Outrageous Openness.
She encouraged readers to write down the worries they faced and that their brains were actively trying to figure out. Then, take those written worries and literally place them in a container. Once placed inside the container, the problem was no longer the worrier’s problem. The problem now belonged to God/source/universe. When worries popped up, a quick glance at the God Box would remind you that it’s no longer your problem to handle. The problem now belonged to God.
Was I convinced? Of course not.
Was I desperate? Hell-yes-I-was.
So I tried it. I selected a container. I started writing down my worries – on Post It notes, on receipts. Probably a few Kleenexes.
It filled up real fast.
It also, with time and with practice, helped. Not in the Catholic-god-I-learned-to-fear kind of way. But in the kind of way that helped me notice when I started ruminating. It interrupted the deep-seated pattern of worry and new patterns started to form. It gave me something to actively do with my hands by writing down my problem. It gave me a visual cue – a new stimulus that could begin to ignite a new response.
I’d also been doing practices aimed at activating my parasympathetic nervous system, and I began to notice:
Solutions that I hadn’t considered now appeared.
Problems I considered to be problems ceased to be problems once I stopped paying attention to them.
I opened up to the reality of miracles.
In the last 10 years, I’ve emptied my God Box twice – not even bothering to look at the things that I’d given up to the universe. Because the truth is, most were not worthy of my attention. Some were very much worth my attention but were completely out of my control.
Today, I have a few scraps of paper in my container. I can guarantee you they are all things that I have no control over.
I also recently learned that my daughter has added some of her own worries to the box, with the understanding that I’d never read them.
What started as a desperate act of feeling better helped me shift in a lot of ways. Sharing today in case it helps.
Interestingly, an hour before I planned to post this, I was given a reason to add a scrap of paper to my God Box. And though it was a simple action, it’s not easy when you’re in the thick of it. I am controlling the aspects of the situation that I can – and I’m giving up to God the aspects I cannot. Simple, but not easy. Never easy. ♡ Sending love and strength to all who need it, including myself.
