Vachon Imagined

From the time we come into this world, we are reliant on other people.

We must seek their love, hide from their punishment, seek their approval. This isn’t only about emotional security. It is also about physical survival.

If people don’t like us, if they abandon us, we may not receive what we need.

So the body learns to survive.

Children who cry and no one comes learn not to cry. They learn not to trust that their needs will be met.

And while that is sometimes torturous to think about, it isn’t entirely wrong.

People won’t always meet our needs.

People won’t always be loyal.

We aren’t even always loyal to ourselves.

When we are faced with a problem, we immediately want to find a solution.

When we are faced with confusion, we immediately want to fix it.

When someone isn’t acting right, we immediately want to tame it, control it, fix it.

When we are lonely, we immediately reach for something.

Food.

A lover.

Television.

A phone.

Anything but being alone with the life that is moving through us.

This is natural instinct.

It is survival.

But survival isn’t living.

Survival is management.

Managing people.

Managing ourselves.

Managing our emotions.

Managing our circumstances.

And it can become exhausting.

So exhausting that eventually we want to give up.

Because life keeps telling us something different.

Relax.

Walk with it.

You don’t have to fix everything.

And that is difficult for human beings.

It’s interesting to think that something so simple as surrender can be so hard.

We spend our lives learning how to hold on.

How to protect.

How to control.

How to anticipate.

How to manage.

And then life asks us to do something that feels almost impossible:

Let go.

Not because nothing matters.

Not because we shouldn’t act.

But because there are things happening within and around us that don’t require our management.

They require our presence.

Surrender is difficult because it asks us to trust life without knowing exactly where it is taking us.

And yet it may be the simplest way to live.

To stop fighting every moment.

To stop turning every feeling into a problem.

To stop turning every person into something we need to control.

To stop treating ourselves as something that needs to be fixed.

And simply walk with what is here.

That isn’t giving up.

That is living.