Writing Prompt: Sweet Surrender

 Prompt: What do you want to surrender?

Sweet Surrender

When I think about something I want to let go of, to surrender, I immediately think about all the wasted hours I spend worrying. My worry mostly centers around things that are uncertain, or are in the future, or are things I don’t have control over. But I also worry about taking chances, changing up comfortable routines, indeed, I worry about most kinds of change. This has dogged me for a long time.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking to sponsor Shawn about all this, and my troubles just letting go, surrendering this harmful anxious habit of worry, and simply trusting in something greater than myself to handle things and give me peace. We are trying an experiment this week: to list three situations where I will ask for my Higher Power for guidance in letting go of a particular fear or worry. 

I know the first situation where I need help: I am currently extremely worried about an increase in cognitive impairment I am experiencing that is caused I believe from this new cancer fighting medication I am taking. Brain fog is a well known side effect which results from the suppression of estrogen this medication causes. My short term memory is getting worse, and I’m forgetting things. This frightens me.

But this morning as I was waking up, I silently asked my Higher Power to give me strength to let go of all the obsessive worrying about my medication. I thought about how I do have an appointment with my medical oncologist next week to go over things, and possibly get switched to a different medication. By surrendering this worry to the doctor to figure out, I can let go of the paralyzing fear that grips me.

I’m realizing that I’m finally writing again, I’m using this space here to unpack things and settle my nerves. How I miss my written words, I need to make a concerted effort as part of my surrendering to record my thoughts and feelings about that. 

I am really hopeful that today I’ll get some semblance of peace from less worry about my meds. Help is on the way, a power greater than myself (the oncologist) is stepping in to run the show, to restore me to sanity. I just took a deep breath and it felt good and grounding. Letting go can offer such relief! Why do I struggle so hard to do just that?

Now, I can so easily go down a rabbit hole of Why do I do this? And Why do I do that? But that ends up getting me nowhere. Overthinking breeds chaos, I am finding, and actually more anxiety. Let’s keep things simple, shall we? Ah, sweet surrender. Here, Higher Power, take my worry about medicine away. I hand it to you, oh wise one. And promise you’ll fight me off when I try to grab it back.