Like physical exercise, spiritual exercise works only if we do it. Even better is if we not wait to do it until we find ourselves in trouble. Often we work out hard after overindulging. This is not unlike our relationship with prayer. We often surrender spiritually and reach for a higher power when disaster has struck. Lesson 8 of Marianne Williamson’s A Course In Weight Loss stresses the utmost importance of practicing spiritual surrender. The goal is to get us surrendering to the divine and calling on the power that dwells within us all before disaster strikes. This is how we can begin to deconstruct and dissolve the emotions that lead to emotional overeating.
Lesson 8 calls for practicing spiritual surrender by handwriting a prayer 30 times morning and night for three days. The prayer is:
Dear God, please feed my hunger and restore my right mind. Teach me how to love.
When I first read lesson 8, I had a strong and immediate response. It was, “I’m not doing that.”
I thought the assignment was silly and unnecessarily time-consuming. But then something my friend, Kathy says came to mind and that’s more or less that it is often the things we have an adverse response to that we need most. Then I also realized this wasn’t that different than reciting “I have a choice” forty times for forty days while setting an intention for my mala. I also committed to doing every lesson in this book. So I picked a journal that I had been “saving” for a special occasion, gifted to me by another friend. It is leather bound with the impression of a magnificent tree, and has beautiful parchment pages. I knew this was the proper place to put my prayers.
And so, feeling slightly foolish, I sat and wrote my prayer thirty times, an image of Bart Simpson at the blackboard coming to mind. Then I did it the following evening, the next morning and so on until I was done.
This is not a religious blog, nor do I write about prayer here, so please bear with me if this isn’t your cup of tea.
I learned that the prayer is not unlike an intention. Throughout the act of repetition I began to really dissect the plea. I use food to feed my hunger, although my hunger is not for food. I still don’t know completely what I’m hungry for, but I know I am not in my right mind when I attempt to satiate my hunger with food. It has something to do with love, particularly the lack of love I have for myself.
Through the repetition I found some strength and ease. Then I disregarded it until I began to write about this lesson. I didn’t practice surrendering enough to make it habit. It would be amazing if I could surrender during difficult moments at the very least, but that is when I find it is hardest because I’m in some sort of blackout, autopilot state (more on that when I recap lesson 9). Surrendering when things are going well doesn’t even occur to me. This is why this lesson requires mental discipline. Through the process of writing about spiritual surrender, I have come to understand it more.
The book makes a point of reminding us that if one antibiotic doesn’t knock out an infection, it doesn’t mean it’s not working. “Prayer is spiritual medicine,” Williamson wrote.
“[Prayer] boosts your spiritual immune system by increasing the depth of your surrender. Whether or not you believe it works is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what you think about surrendering to the divine. All that matters is that you surrender.“
Williamson continues to say that, “In all things, spiritual surrender marks the end of struggle and the beginning of true ease.” The point is to establish the mental discipline of calling on a higher power as a regular practice to cultivate and maintain serenity, not just in hours of need. The lesson is meant to dismantle our resistance to doing that.
“Spiritual surrender is a full-throttle willingness to let go of everything – every thought, every pattern, and every desire – that blocks love from entering into you and extending through you.”
It is a beautiful concept. I also happen to know it works. The problem is remembering to surrender. In times of struggle we often become so protective, and go so far inward, or leave our bodies completely, that surrendering or calling on something higher than ourselves does not occur to us. We become entirely narrow-minded and focused on survival.
Therefore, spiritual surrender will take a lot more discipline on my part in order for it to become a part of my daily practice.
How do you practice spiritual surrender? Any words of advice?
Kathy is a very wise friend.
Yes, she is.