What is Bravery? Can Surrendering Be Brave?

What is Bravery? Can Surrendering Be Brave? (By Kelli Walker)

When trials and tribulations inevitably occur in life, we tend to want to fight them. According to our society and our customs, fighting tooth and nail against adversity is the “brave” or “courageous” thing to do. However, while fight and grit certainly have their place, even with anxiety, sometimes surrendering is best and it can take just as much bravery as fighting.

This truth has been hammered home to me lately as I’ve watched my mom dying from cancer. She was recently put on hospice for end of life care and pain management. Yet some in her support network still continue to tell her things like “never stop fighting” or “you never know what might happen.”

I understand the tendency to say those things, to feel those things – cancer is tough, everyone is just doing their best in a crappy situation. However, I can see the guilt on my mom’s face whenever she hears those words: “never stop fighting”, it makes her feel as if she should be doing more. In this case, fighting actually looks more like denial; fighting blinds my mom and others to the truth that she is, in fact, dying and prevents her from tying up loose ends or saying goodbye. In this case, surrendering is incredibly brave; being willing to look straight at the raw, painful truth is no easy feat, but doing so is what will allow my mom to move forward and find peace.

In a perhaps (perhaps not) less gloomy way, the same is true of fighting versus surrendering to anxiety. I used to think fighting anxiety was the brave way to go about dealing with it, but maybe continuing to go to the gym every morning for my daily exercise-induced panic attack or continuing to hide my struggle from everyone because I was afraid of appearing weak was maybe not brave so much as stubborn. Fighting panic attacks and endless “what if…” thoughts were really just a super fun form of denial.

Surrendering to anxiety takes incredible courage because it can be a painful truth, but surrendering is often necessary in order to move past anxiety. Surrendering is simply acknowledging the reality of a situation, and once we do that, we’re able to move forward. It’s hard to admit that anxiety is affecting or limiting our life (been there, done that, got the t-shirt), but once we do, it makes it a whole lot easier to move toward the life we want.

Sometimes fight and grit are helpful – you’ll know when because it won’t feel bad or shameful, it will feel empowering – but sometimes, especially when it comes to anxiety, surrendering is invaluable. Surrender doesn’t necessarily make anxiety go away in that moment, but it brings a sense of peace and clarity so that we can transcend the anxiety, whereas fighting the anxiety keeps us feeling stuck, or even worse, like we’re sinking.

If you are struggling with anxiety, you don’t need to fight it tooth and nail anymore; you’re still brave if you give up the fight. Instead, surrender to the fact that you are struggling with anxiety so that you can finally begin to move forward.


Kelli Walker

About the Author:
Kelli Walker, R.N., M.S.N., CSMC 
Kelli knows anxiety. For over 15 years she struggled with generalized anxiety, OCD, and panic disorder. It was only after becoming housebound and completely limited by her anxiety that she made it a priority to finally understand and address it. Kelli now works as a coach helping people move past their own anxiety in the way she did: by understanding anxiety’s true nature and the ways that we innocently get stuck in the cycle of fear and worry. Kelli is co-host of The Anxiety Coaches Podcast, has been featured in Cosmopolitan Magazine and has presented at several summits. Kelli enjoys Nutella, her dogs, world travel, hiking, kayaking and ultimate frisbee. To learn more about Kelli and her work visit www.panicandanxietycoach.com

 

3 Comments

Jenn

I love this. I have watched a friend learn to surrender when her husband had cancer. I work in the NICU and the parents who thrive are the ones who surrender to the situation. They don’t stop fighting but they start fighting for what they can actually fight for instead of the fact that their baby is sick.

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If we want to meet their learning needs, we first have to meet their relational ones. If we want them to be open to learning, they first have to open to the adult they are learning from - and they won’t be open if they don’t feel seen, safe, and cared for. It’s not always easy, it’s just how it is.♥️
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We know there are too many kids struggling right now, including those from loving, responsive families and in loving, responsive schools. 

One of the places these struggles will show themselves is at school, even in the most loving responsive ones. Sometimes these struggles show themselves with a roar, sometimes with nothing at all.

Too many kids are feeling no sense at all that they matter. They don’t feel they are doing something that matters, and they don’t feel that they matter to others.

Too many of them will go weeks at school without hearing their name in a way that makes them feel seen, cared for, and valued.

Too many of them are showing up at school but are noticed more when they don’t, even if only by the unticked box beside their name.

For too many kids, we are asking them to show up when they don’t feel like they have anything to offer, or anything at all to show up for. Why wouldn’t they struggle?

This week I had the greatest privilege of speaking to a room of 300 school well-being staff about how to support all children, how to catch the ones who are struggling, and what we can do to buffer, protect and heal all young people at school.

If you are a parent of a young person who is struggling, I want you to know that schools are working hard to hold them, lovingly and safely.

I know there are also many parents who haven’t had this experience, and your children haven’t got what they need. I know that. I want you to know that change is happening. I want you to know what I see when I work with the wellbeing staff at these schools. They care. They really do. They are so invested in supporting your children, seeing the child behind the student and showing up big for all of them. The work is happening. There’s a lot to do, but it’s happening.

Yes we need more resources, and yes more people, and yes we’re asking more of our schools and teachers than ever, and yes the world is asking more of our kids than ever, but the work is happening.

Thank you to the Department of Education Queensland for working with me, and thank you to the wellbeing staff, teachers, and leadership who are giving everything they can to be there for our children. You matter.♥️

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