Surrender is a way of collaborating with fate 🪢

I think surrender is a way of collaborating with fate to make its (retro)causality more likely to influence the present effect (which ends up feeling really good).

In the normal way we think of time, the past has an extremely strong influence on the present, but you can still change it through greater awareness and surrender. For example, if you've been hurt in a relationship, you can change the likelihood of present reactivity through forgiveness. 

What if we think of “fate” in a similar way, but in reverse? The more we presently surrender to fate’s future pull—which usually shows up as gut instinct, intuition, synchronicity—the more likely it is to happen. And the present becomes an immensely enjoyable sensation of flow even when it’s extremely hard work. You may have felt this in a life calling that demands hard work and sacrifice—like being a mother, doctor, artist, community servant. 

Or you may have felt this in a Relateful session, experiencing something deeply unsettling, uncomfortable, or challenging, but with a sense of purpose and fulfillment. Even the most challenging relating becomes meaningful and satisfying in the surrender of “I wouldn’t want it any other way”. The moment is its own reward. Different potential futures or pasts that might come from this mean less than the feeling of alignment, grace, and gratitude.

Ultimately, outcomes become secondary to the process of staying in flow. We’re driven to maintain the beautiful balance between history and fate, seeking futures and pasts that help us stay in transformation, rather than achieve a particular outcome. We’re more free to see these outcomes and directions as limited constructions of our particular worldview and be open to feedback about our blindspots. We’re better at collaborating. We seek influence from beyond ourselves—other people, fate, other conceptions of time even when they don’t seem to make much sense or feel too philosophical to have practical implications—and end up bigger. Our vision and sense of potential grows; we’re more able to do complex things individuals can’t do alone.

Surrendering to fate doesn’t just influence the present—it transforms it into a deeply satisfying and meaningful journey, where every moment is its own reward. Ironically, in doing so, we become far more effective and powerful leaders, communicators, partners, even as we’re more willing to be inadequate and weak, followers, inarticulate, unseen and alone.

With love, Jordan