Hello and welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we're getting a little better at life.

I'm your host, Corey Muscarra.

And in today's episode we're going to talk about fear and surrender.

More to come on that in a moment, first let's settle in together with the sound of the bells.

Okay, so let's talk about surrender.

This tends to be a complicated word because many of us view surrender as a form of weakness and giving up.

I think we have moved beyond that idea for the most part, especially if you've touched into the personal growth slash spiritual space.

But in general, I don't think surrender is the thing we typically think of when we are looking toward our highest form of growth.

And I would argue quite the opposite that it is the only way to get to the highest form of growth, self-actualization and alignment.

And it is true that surrender is a form of giving up, but it's not in the way that you think.

It's not giving up in a sense of quitting or raising the white flag.

It's giving up our ego's ideas of how to lead our life.

The part of us that has been trying to stay in control that has been trying to lead with our ideas and beliefs and thoughts and other people's perspectives of who we should be.

And if I do this and I cross up these check boxes, then I will have a film and I'll be happy.

I'll be given the dream that I was told I would get, you know, it's becoming disillusioned by that being the thing that can lead our life, giving up that and finally trusting and surrendering to the deeper whispers of truth that can serve as your souls.

And our compass.

Now, if you listen to this podcast, you know, I'm not here to demonize the ego because it serves a certain role.

It is looking out for you. It is trying to protect you. It's trying to help you get safety and love and connection.

And at certain points in your life, it was all you had.

And those are the points where it was developed. These places where you experienced core wounds of disconnection, the ego had to come in and it had to create a new blueprint for how to make sure that never happens again.

But it is distorted because it is a two-year-old, three-year-old, four-year-old, five-year-old, six-year-old version of you giving its best ideas based on what it knows about the human experience from that age for what to do.

And it can take you a decent way. It can protect you. It can tell you when to retreat. It can tell you when to cling. It can do all these things that you probably know as your own patterns, but it can never take you to full completeness because it's original wound.

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