Back in late 2000 I experienced my first surrender. After 21 years of depression, addictions, pain and broken relationships, I was confronted with a choice: change or die. I decided to change. That choice was a surrender as I let go of my old ways and decided to do life very differently. After a massive shift in the way I think and behave, I found ways to connect to my heart so that I can feel, empathize and connect with people in ways I never thought possible.
I've since realized that this pivotal surrender in my life was associated to my heart chakra and that there are many more surrenders left to experience. There are seven key surrenders that I feel must be made in order for us to fully turn on the powers of spirit in our lives. The major leaps of growth come in the form of surrender, when we let go of the old paradigms of how we think we should live life and embrace a completely new one. These surrenders often come in the form of a leap of faith as we often don't know what is on the other side of the changes that we make.
In my book 'Graduating Life with Honours' I introduce an idea that the seven chakras are the seven connections between our spiritual body and our physical body. They provide a conduit for energy to flow between the spiritual realm and the physical. These conduits are currently small and allow some flow, which makes life rather challenging. However, when we fully open these portals we invite spirit to fully engage in the physical realm, that is when the magic starts to happen. Miracles literally unfold in our lives every day when our chakras are open. But what does that really mean?
Is it possible that this physical realm was created by spirit and we are in the process of colonizing this realm? Is it possible that to fully engage in the physical realm requires that we open up the taps on our chakras so that spirit's power and authority can be fully expressed within this realm? I've realized that we have work to do and that there are seven key surrenders that are required in order for the magic to really start to flow.
I want to be clear that I'm exploring these in the order that they were presented to me and that I surrendered. I'm not exploring the chakras in order. If you want to learn more about the order of the chakras, you can look them up here. Warning: I don't see the chakras in the same way that others do as many who read my book can attest.
Heart
While the heart is the middle chakra, it was the first that I opened fully and is the one that started my spiritual journey. I met an indigenous shaman a few years back in Calgary. I did not even say a word to him yet and he commented on how big my heart was. He could see right away how much work I've put into opening my heart and I was humbling to have a complete stranger 'see' that work as the energy busted forth from my vessel. In my view, this is the first surrender and it is an important one.
When we open our heart, we tap into the power of empathy, compassion, love, feeling, peace, prosperity and joy. These are the foundations of all the work that we have to do here and requires that we fully open this portal so that we have all the energy available to us to do that work. The heart is the middle chakra and when we go up from there we deal with the more spiritual aspects of our existence here and when we go down we deal with more of the earthly aspects.
The heart chakra brings balance to the two and makes the next six surrenders easier and possible.
Root
The root chakra is our connection to Mother Earth and grounds us to her. In 2007 we did our second surrender when we realized that we are to be connected to Mother Earth, so we moved out of the city, unplugged from the grid and committed our lives to having a direct relationship with her. We surrendered the fictional constructs that kept us detached from our mother and required that we completely change our lives once again and build a healthy relationship with Mother Earth and accept responsibility for being a steward as well. When we did this, our root chakra opened up as we now have the capacity to connect in ways we never thought possible.
This second surrender was a tough one as the colonial systems that have grown up around us detached us from Mother Earth. I had little concept of how important this connection was until we surrendered our old ways, got out here and reconnected. By doing this, we quickly found ourselves realizing that our bodies are the land and always has been. We were lost children and are now found again. I AM the LAND and the LAND IS ME! I needed to make this surrender to reconnect and open this connection to a very powerful spiritual being, Mother Earth. This surrender ensure that our physical needs are met and grounds the spiritual work that I do as well. My body is sacred and the temple for spirit while it is in this physical realm. So too is Mother Earth as she provides all I need for that vessel.
Crown
This third surrender that I did came when I asked myself a very important question; am I a man looking for spiritual enlightenment or am I a spiritual being having a physical experience? When I worked through this question in my book 'Graduating Life with Honours', I found myself realizing that I AM a spiritual being, immortal, non corporeal and divine. My connection to spirit took a quantum leap forward and as a result I found myself being blessed with inspired thoughts and insights at levels that I never received before.
Being connected to Creator at such a deep and intimate way was a bit unnerving at first as I did not know what to do with these random thoughts and ideas that popped into my head. At first I ignored them, but over time I learned to trust them and found on many occasions that if I would have listened, things would have gone much easier and better.
When we open the Crown chakra for it's full potential, spirit can guide us through our lives. While I was working on this post I question; why is there not a chakra for the ears? That is because using the ears requires a two step process. The first is the physical act of hearing, but the second is the harder work of listening. Listening happens in our brain and when the Crown chakra is open, that is when listening takes on a whole new level. Listening to others, especially spirit, so that we can really 'hear' what they are saying is a spiritual gift that comes forth when this portal is fully engaged.
Third Eye
I still have a few to open yet, the third eye being the big one. But let me speculate what life would be like when this portal is fully opened and engaged. Just as with the ears, the eyes don't really have a chakra for themselves either. Instead the third eye, located in the middle of our brain just behind the forehead allows us to 'see' that which our eyes cannot 'see'. I don't seem to 'see' much right now, but I do have family and friends who 'see' a lot. Their third eye is fully open or well on its way to being open.
To be honest, I'm not sure what this surrender would look like. I speculate that it would be in line with not trusting my eyes to see everything and instead allow for the possibility to see things that most people don't even believe in. The capacity to see beyond the physical and peer into a world that spirit has manifested. I've been working on checking my brain at the door as I've heard people say that they 'see' something and then when the brain questions it, it disappears.
I will admit that when it comes to violence, behaviours and other critical issues that I experienced through my own surrenders is easy for me to 'see' in others as I experienced them in myself as well. I think it also allows me to see what others do, especially corporations and governments that others cannot 'see' for themselves. But I work hard to check my brain and allow my third eye to see what my physical eyes cannot. This requires a leap of faith as any surrender can be easily sabotaged by the false ego / brain.
Throat
For the longest time I thought that I had no voice. I grew up hearing that kids were to be seen and not heard. Even through some of my earlier surrenders I still felt like I had no voice. When I sat down to write this post I had to give this surrender some deep thought as I felt that I had not worked on this surrender.
That is when inspired thought, through my crown, came shooting in and said 'YES YOU DID'. Okay, time for some work. Then I remembered my conversations with Ben Stewart when we were talking about making the film UNGRIP. At one point I said 'no' to him and refused to do the film. It took almost a year for me to change my mind and realize that my story had to be told. The surrender came when I agreed to do the film despite the fear and anxiety I felt.
I got my voice and as a result I am now heard around the world. I've done similar worth through Facebook and here on Steemit as well. When I talk, people listen ... the ones with the ears to 'hear' at least. There were many times where I felt like I did not have a voice because people were not hearing me. I've since realized there is nothing wrong with my voice, it is their hearing that is the challenge. As more and more people work through their own surrendering, these barriers will quickly fall away and then we can really get to work!
Solar Plexus
This past week I had a very powerful surrender and I felt this open up for me. I experienced a strong reaction to a challenge I had with my neighbour and my guts were dry heaving as I brought up a lot of stuff that I thought I had long since let go of. The fire within comes from this portal as does that gut instinct and feelings about right and wrong. The sixth sense we experience when we feel like things are going good or not, comes from this chakra.
To surrender at this level again requires that we park the brain for a little while and 'feel' our way through situations in our lives. As this chakra is close to Mother Earth as well, I am starting to find that I can feel the plants and animals through this point as well. As my latest surrender is still very fresh, I don't think I can provide an objective description of what life is like after we do this surrender. But so far I find myself wanting to trust my gut more and more as my brain continues to get me into trouble, especially when I don't listen to what spirit is telling me through these powerful portals. I see this as my early warning, detection and bull shit meter.
Sacral
This surrender has multiple facets to it. In one way I find this portal special as it is the portal that other spiritual beings travel through in order to connect to their vessel within mother's womb. I've spoken about the special powers that women have as their vessel is responsible for ensuring that we can continue bringing other spiritual beings here to experience life and they are responsible for constructing the vessel and starting the heart for the spiritual being to command.
But this is also the root of creativity and for the longest time I felt lacking in this area. But I must admit that my other surrenders forced me to make a surrender here too as I need a great deal of creativity to make the transitions that we have made over the past 20 years. I am a talented author, story teller and researcher as I forced myself to expand my familiarity zone to include all aspects of life as I create tools, deconstruct the colonial system and stand in the spiritual jurisdiction of I AM. Being creative to solve all kinds of problems has been a boon to our journey here on Mother Earth.
This work was inspired by spirit and channeled through me as a result of working on all my surrenders. I've surrendered over and over again in my life and each one had a powerful lesson and result. I did not realize until this very moment just how much work I've actually done.
I still have lots of work left to do. However, I dedicate my life to doing this work and sharing it with others. A dear friend recently called me a powerful spiritual being. While it is very difficult to hear and accept those words, I must conclude they feel that way because of all the surrendering that I've done in my life. There are lots of little ones, but these big surrenders are life altering, disruptive and extremely powerful. Most people are afraid to do this level of work, but if we really want to fully welcome spirit into our lives, this work is mandatory and requires constant leaps of faith.
Please remember that these seven surrenders takes YEARS to accomplish. This is a life long journey and we are all at different stages along that same journey. This is not a matter of flipping a switch and turning on the light. The Seven Surrenders is why I feel we are here as life is all about relationships!
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