The (Fucked Up) Art of Surrender
It wasn't soft, serene, or full of trust.
When I think of surrender, I picture—as society tells me to—Ophelia. Soft, serene, floating silently in the water. She’s the image of everything we’re told femininity should be: fragile, compliant, quiet. Her death, a tragic retreat into silence, is often romanticized as beautiful.
But what if that’s… bullshit?
What if surrender doesn’t look like floating peacefully downstream? What if it’s claw marks and ragged breaths, chaos and destruction? What if, instead of retreating into silence, surrender is the act of—sometimes aggressively—breaking free?
This idea comes up often in my work. When clients hit a hard place, they try to ‘trust and surrender’—to let go gracefully, the way they’ve been taught to believe they should.
But I remind them that surrender isn’t always soft or easy.
There’s another side to it.
Surrender can be messy. It can be raw.
Sometimes it’s not about letting go gently—it’s about reaching the breaking point where you can’t hold on any longer.
It’s about something far more primal.
Surrender, for me, is often feral.
In 2015, I finally ended a verbally abusive relationship filled with manipulation, cheating, and a lot of pain. The day I drew the line in the sand wasn’t calm or composed. It wasn’t some moment of empowerment where I stood tall, proud, and unwavering.
It was fucking chaos.
I was a wild animal finally waking up after years of tranquilizers—hissing, clawing at her cage. The rain poured as I packed my belongings, and it felt like my own personal baptism—cleansing me of the ‘nice, polite girl’ I had been trying to be and releasing the rage within.
It wasn’t surrendering to the unknown and stepping into something new.
I was tearing it all apart and not looking back.
It felt like an eruption, maybe even a death of sorts.
This long-repressed rage bubbling up inside of me.
Rage I had felt every time a guy grabbed me inappropriately at a bar, and I stayed silent because I didn’t want to be “that girl.”
Rage I had felt when my boss asked me to clean his oil spill from his salad off the upholstered chair because, I’d know how to clean it better than he would.
Rage I had felt when I forced a polite laugh at a condescending remark about my intelligence from my friend’s father over dinner, even though he was the ignorant sexist.
Rage I had felt every time I smiled through the sting, stayed silent to keep the peace, and swallowed my rage because I was too afraid of being called “too much.”
These moments add up. They simmer beneath the surface until they boil over, until you’re clawing your way out of the cage you’ve been told to stay in.
Deep down, I believed my rage was a problem.
Not because it made me unlovable, but because it made me feel like I wasn’t “in my feminine energy.” I thought if I could just soften, be more peaceful, go with the flow, everything would fall into place.
But now I see the lie in that story.
Rage isn’t the opposite of surrender.
It’s the catalyst for it.
Rage is what breaks down the walls and clears the way. Destruction is the aftermath. And surrender is what you find when the dust settles—the moment you decide to stop fighting the truth and start trusting it.
You don’t have to suppress anything in the name of surrender.
Messy emotions are part of the process. Rage, grief, frustration—these are your body’s way of speaking to you, of telling you what isn’t working. Honoring them isn’t weakness; it’s strength. It’s the first step toward release.
That day I left wasn’t peaceful. It was primal.
And in hindsight, it was one of the most “feminine” things I’ve ever done—not because it was sweet or serene, but because it was honest.
Surrender, for me, is a storm—a brewing and a breaking point where the pressure builds until the skies open, and everything is torn apart.
It’s not yet—or maybe, ever—graceful or gentle. It’s messy, loud, and unstoppable.
But in the stillness after the storm, the clouds part, the sun reappears—
And there’s clarity.
Clarity so I could finally feel what had been buried under all the noise—
What I wanted, what I needed, and what I refused to tolerate anymore.
Surrender isn’t about suppressing the chaos.
It’s not floating downstream, not retreating into silence.
It’s about letting the chaos move through you.
It’s about standing in the wreckage, dripping, dirty, and raw…
And finding the courage to ask: What now?
"Rage isn’t the opposite of surrender. It’s the catalyst for it." Aries sun says FUCKING RIGHT. I love this so so so so much. Thank you for sharing with us ♡!!!!!