Confidence Classic: Finding The COURAGE To Let Go With Kute Blackson Transformational Teacher & Best Selling Author
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When I started podcasting, an online store was the furthest thing from my mind. Now I'm selling my group coaching on the regular and it is just so easy all because I use Shopify.

Most people never crack open to surrender because they missed the phase in the middle. The phase in the middle is grieving. Surrender is a death. It's a death of your ego. It's a death of who you thought you were. It's a death of a phase of your life like, well, I'm no longer 20. I'm 30. I'm 40. I'm 50. It's a death of a dream, a death of a job. It's a death of something. And so...

To truly move on into, I'm going to embrace the new. You have to be willing to grieve for the old. And most of us never truly let ourselves grieve and we want to move on and surrender. And that's why we can't open our hearts to surrender because we're not truly letting go and grieving and honoring what was. Come on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goal.

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I'm so excited for you to meet my guest today. They say when the student is ready, the teacher appears. That is the case today. We've got Coot Blackson. He's a beloved inspirational speaker, transformational teacher. He speaks at countless events. He organizes around the world as well as outside events in

including the YPO and EO. He is a member of the Transformational Leadership Council, a select group of one of 100 of the world's foremost authorities in the personal development industry. Winner of the 2019 Unity New Thought Walden Award, Blackson is widely considered a next generation leader in the field of personal development. His mission is simple, to awaken and inspire people across the

planet to access inner freedom, live authentically, and fulfill their true life's purpose. Koot, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having me. Okay, I want to get right into your book, Surrender, okay? Because I am the person, I am the type A overachiever my entire life, and I want to wrap my head around the idea of surrender, but I don't even know where to begin. Am I crazy or do you hear this all the time? No.

I think it's quite normal, to be honest. I would say you'd be more crazy if we started the conversation by saying, yeah, surrender's easy. I love surrender. It's a piece of cake. That would be more unusual. I think more normal. And I'll break down why. We can go deep into why that is. So it's really...

It's probably you and 7.4, 9, 9, 9, 9, other billion people on the planet have that experience. But yeah, look, surrender, I'm really excited about the theme of surrender. I'm really passionate about it. For me, it's a calling. This was not the book I thought I was going to write. So for disclosure, I had to surrender to the book that was seeking to be written because I wanted to write a whole different kind of book. I wanted to write a book that...

The book that I thought would sell a book I thought would be a book I thought people would want, because when you say surrender, people tend to go, oh, shit, and run away. But it was the book that was seeking to be written. So when I surrendered to that, everything flowed. So it's for me.

Surrender, I believe, is actually the most powerful thing that we can do. I just want to start off there. Surrender, I think, is the key to your next level. Surrender is the real secret to authentic manifestation. Surrender is the password for freedom. If you look at the great ones, and so if you type A achievers out there, you look at the truly great ones, Jesus, Buddha, Bapu,

Bruce Lee, Gandhi, Muhammad Ali, Bob Marley, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King. I mean, dare I say Elon Musk. On some level, they all surrendered themselves. And in the surrender to a deeper vision, in their surrender to the universe, to life, to their deeper calling, they surrendered.

they were able to transcend their own ego's human limitations and they tapped into another dimension of potential, another dimension of power. And I believe that

that's when they were able to access the greatness and life was able to use them in ways that perhaps was beyond what they even imagined for themselves. And so there's so many misconceptions, I think, in our culture today that surrender is weak.

that surrender is passive, which is why we're afraid of surrendering. Surrender means giving up, waving the white flag, selling everything, moving to the Himalayas. Who the hell wants to do that? Surrender means being a victim, being left behind, being a doormat, being taken advantage of, that if you surrender, you won't manifest your goals, dreams, and desires. You're going to be homeless. You're going to be broke. If you surrender, you're going to get less than in life. And I'm actually saying no. If you surrender, what if you didn't get less than

but you got more, more than you could actually imagine and project with your mind, with your will, with your personality, with your ego's capacity to create your life. Because the mind and the ego,

which we can talk about too, is limited in its ability to see what's possible, is limited in its ability to see what is beyond. And so surrender is a letting go of control, or I should say the illusion of control, because we think we're in control. And even when we think we're in control, many times we're really not. We just have the illusion. And so control is the master addiction. And

It's the ego's strategy to try to control everything because the ego's job is what we think we are, what we've been conditioned that we are. The ego's job is to reinforce its existence, to keep us safe and prevent us from getting hurt again like we were hurt when we were children. That's why we tend to control everything because if I can control everything, then I'll never be hurt ever again. It's so limited.

And it ends up limiting us. And often we end up being controlled in the drive to control. So surrender is letting go of control in a certain sense, controlling everything. It's a letting go of trying to force and manipulate life to fit into, once again, our limited idea of how we think it should be. It's limited because...

When we set goals just from the ego and the mind, we're not able to see the amazing infinite possibilities. We just see a small perspective and we get so attached to what we think we want. We get so attached to our goals, our dreams and desires. Like, no, it's got to be this. No, this person has to be the one. And maybe they're not, but in our effort to force something to be.

We don't realize we're limiting the universe. We're limiting the infinite. We're limiting the divine. We're limiting nature. We're limiting life. And so surrender is taking the limitations off of life. It's letting go of the idea of who we think we should be, how we think life should be so that we can be truly available, truly open to allow, to be receptive, to allow the life that is authentically seeking to happen to reveal itself.

And it doesn't mean that you sit there and do nothing for the Taipei folks out there. It doesn't mean you sit there and I'm surrendered. I'm just going to sit on the couch and like sales are going to magically happen. I'm surrendered. I'm going to sit on the couch and like my soulmate is going to just knock on my door from the middle of nowhere. No, surrender means feeling. It's a shift from the question just to kind of complete the context. The old ego based model of creating life is what do I want? What do I want? What do I want? And it's forced drive. What do I want? Pushing, pushing, forced drive.

The challenge is ego is limited. You can create life from the ego, but it will always be limited. The shift in the question is from what do I want to a bigger question. It's an infinite question. And that question is, what is it that life, what is it that the universe, what is it that my soul, what is it that life is seeking to express through me? And to feel what that is, to feel the deepest impulse of what life is seeking to express and to feel that, to attune to that, to align with that energy

And then once you're in alignment, you're like, this is what's true. This is what is in my integrity. This is what's authentic. Then you can align your thoughts, your feelings, your strategy, your planning, your go-getter personality, your actions now in alignment with what's authentic rather than chasing something that is really not real, not authentic. And so it might mean when you surrender that you work harder than you ever worked.

But what you're working for is like, you think Jesus didn't work hard? Do you think Bruce Lee didn't work hard? Do you think Muhammad Ali didn't? Like, do you think Mother Teresa was lazy and didn't work hard? They worked like 24-7. Mandela, Martin Luther King, nonstop, 24-7.

but they were in alignment with the deeper vision of what was true. And maybe like, let's look at Mandela. Mandela surrendered. That took him to what, 26, 27 years in prison, somewhere kind of unexpected. So we could say,

should he have not spent 26, 27 years in prison? Should he, what if he didn't? Two things, would the consciousness of the world have been ready for and rallied behind him in the way that it did? And would he have developed, like to spend 27 years in prison, you have to go really deep in yourself. And so perhaps that was the universe's way of preparing him to develop the mental, emotional, spiritual soul force that he could come out and

And be that empathetic and visionary and compassionate to be able to move the world. So what if he didn't, you know? And so I think surrendering is that openness and availability. This is so tricky and so contrary to how we've lived and

been raised, right. And been taught from our parents, just culture, society, right. Like what, what's the right thing to do. I built my entire life. I built a lot of success in my career in corporate America from the grind, from the, I can control it. And if I can't, I'll go out and find another way to control it and I can make it happen.

And it were coot for a long time. Okay. For a long time until it didn't. And I know you talk about this a lot. Most people want to surrender when they hit rock bottom. That's what happened to me. Right. I got fired from my C-suite job, unexpectedly single mom. All of a sudden I had nothing. I felt like I had nothing. And I had to basically throw my arms up and say, where do I go now? I don't know what to do. I will. I didn't call that surrender.

I still don't even really understand it well enough, even though I've studied you so much. It's not tangible enough to me. But I'll tell you, the series of events that occurred when I maybe sort of surrendered in some way is incredible what's happened to me since I've been fired. But I toggle back and forth.

That's natural. It's awful. It's awful. No, no. It's part of the process of life. You're like, you're so on course. Just know. Here's what I would say. Part of surrender isn't just, oh, I'm fully surrendered now. I read The Magic of Surrender. No. Part of real surrender is the ability to not even force yourself to surrender. Like,

I'm going to make myself surrender because this becomes another ego strategy to control the process of surrender, which then keeps you doubly screwed, doubly not surrendered. So now my ego says, surrender. I'm going to control surrender. Now you're doubly stuck. So if you can just even begin by recognizing, I'm not freaking surrendering right now. I'm doing my control thing right now. And I'll explain why. Wow. Okay. Observe that. And

rather than forcing and judging and like, what's wrong with me? If you can just surrender to the fact that in this moment, you're not surrendered. That's actually a deeper level of surrender where you can be with, wow, I'm not surrendered right now. And I don't have to judge my, just notice that and be with that and acknowledge that and surrender to that. You may not be fully surrendered in this moment and it's okay. And if you can just meet yourself in

in that space with a bit of compassion, then there can be a relaxation rather than surrender, surrender. But no, surrender. I need to surrender. No, I should be sure I'm right. It's like, I'm not surrendered right now. Let me just be with that. So here's the thing. I think this might help as well. I'm going to kind of break down the anatomy of why we don't surrender. And I think this understanding will really help. What I'll say actually before I do that is life is a process of surrender. It's

So on some level, you can't not surrender. It's just how you're going to go about that. Are you going to part, how are you going to participate with the process of life that is happening? Because the moment you're born, we begin to age. We, you know, then we turn 50, 60, hair falls out, wrinkles, you can't turn back time.

Then we die. We can surrender now. We can surrender tomorrow. We can surrender at the moment of death of those that believe in another lifetime. We're going to surrender. So surrender is the process of life. And so here's what happens and why it's difficult for us as human beings. Or I should say, why surrender seems difficult. And I'm going to say why I say seems in a second. It seems difficult. And to a degree, it is. But here's why. You have a kid. You mentioned you have a kid. As children, we're

We're born free. Like when your kid is born, they're just like these light beings of divine energy. They're not like, they're just being light, being pure. They're kind of surrendered. They poop when they feel like pooping and they don't judge themselves. What's wrong with me? I'm pooping. They cry when they feel like crying. Why did I cry? I'm waking my mother up. They're just being whatever they're being.

Right. And you're pissed off, upset type. They're just still just Googling and smiling and they surrender to whatever it is that's happening. Whatever it is that they are, they'll run, they'll bang their head, they'll cry, then they're over it and they move on. They're not still four days later thinking about, oh, the time I banged my head four days ago on that coffee table. They're just in the natural flow of living the flow of the essence.

They're surrendered. So what happens? It's like, we were all that free once, but what the hell happened to us all as human beings as we hit 20 and 30 and 40? We incarnate and we were born into a preset pattern of conditioning. We met our parents. Our parents are conditioned based on their childhood and their parents and their parents and ancestral. Now we're born into a kind of ancestral conditioning from our generations. And

maybe dad was an alcoholic, maybe mom had mental health issues, maybe they were fighting all the time, maybe there was trauma, abuse, dysfunction in the family. Maybe they were great people, but they just didn't know how to meet our emotional needs. And that was painful. So two things happen in terms of why and how ego, ego, which is the source of resistance, why ego gets created. If we understand this, it can shift your relationship. The first thing is we

we begin as children unconsciously to learn a defense mechanism strategy to shut down, disconnect, and not feel the pain that's going on around us. So we start suppressing, suppressing, suppressing, suppressing, suppressing layers and layers of unfelt feeling, anger, hurt, pain, guilt, shame, fear, helplessness. We start suppressing that in order to function and survive. Layers and layers and layers of unfelt feeling begin to build up and our true light, our true essence gets kind of hidden and buried underneath the unfelt layers of emotion.

And also in that we learn all sorts of defense mechanisms and strategies in order to not feel. So now we become, we erect walls around our heart. It's a survival mechanism. Walls around the heart. We begin to disconnect. We begin to shut down. We begin to, you know, analyze, go into our minds. We begin to go into like overachiever mode because if I can overachieve, then I don't have to deal with my feelings. I don't have to feel helpless. I don't have to feel, you know, whatever it is that we're feeling. Often it's helplessness, it's pain. So now we've become this thing, this...

this defensive mechanism thing that we hold on to tightly and now we're driving life this way. It worked for us when we were five.

And we become this thing, we hold tightly onto that in order to never feel that pain again. Worked for us when we were five, but now we're 25 and we're in a relationship. And now we're doing the same thing. Now we're 35 in a relationship, doing the same thing. And that defense mechanism is holding on ego, holding on. We're holding on so tightly to that way of being in order to never feel that pain again. Hence, we are controlling who we're being and how we're being. And if we think if we can control all these elements, I'm never going to feel how I feel.

how helpless and how painful it was when I was five and seven, et cetera, et cetera. So if we can just understand, that's how ego starts getting created. Ego, which is the source of resistance, is, it's not a thing. Ego is a process.

Ego is a process of identification. Identification with ourselves as name, form, body, with ourselves as that way of being. So for instance, as children, we learned also, who do I need to be in order to get love, validation, and approval from my parents?

Oh, for me as a kid, I'm a preacher's kid. I learned, oh, if I'm responsible, if I get all A's, if I'm good, if I take care of everyone, if I smile, if I'm nice, if I never have to feel negative, everybody loves me. Shit, let me just do more of that. So, you know, I disconnected and betrayed parts of myself. So we learned to develop all sorts of roles.

masks, personas, and identity that we learn to become that we think now we can taught ourselves to be this person, Coot, right? Or John or Sue's Donald or who, whatever our name is. We learn to become this person and we hold so tightly onto that, that gets reinforced by teachers and parents, society and those around us. We think

That's who we are. The version of ourselves that we've been patterned and conditioned to be to avoid pain and get love. And now we've become this persona, the overachiever, the successful one, the driven one, the whatever you want to call it, the independent one. And so now we've become this person. We hold so tightly onto that and we think that's who we are.

But it's not. It's just what we've been conditioned to be to survive. And that holding on is the survival mechanism to avoid pain and get love.

when we recognize, so we have to realize that we are conditioned and we're not who we think we are really. And that's why we often hit a limitation in our adulthood. That's what got us to that point, cannot get us to that next level, cannot get us to that level of true authentic greatness to fulfill our true soul's destiny. It gets us to a point, but we end up reaching the edge of the egos, who we think we are,

we end up reaching the end of the ego's capacity to manifest life. And that's often why

We have a breakdown. That's often why we get fired in the spiritual context. That's often why these events happen in life to break us down, to force us to surrender, not because we're doing anything wrong, but to force us to surrender so that we can go deeper and crack open and find who we really are. So ego isn't bad when we realize, ah,

ah, shit, what's stopping me from living in that flow? It's my ego, but I'm not my ego. It's my conditioning. And the degree to which we identify with ourselves as ego is the degree to which we are sometimes afraid of surrendering because it feels like, oh shit, if I surrender, I am dying. And it's terrifying for the ego. So if we can realize that,

and then have compassion for ourselves. Like, oh, what's resisting? And what's doing this dance? It's not me. It's just some of my conditioning. And I'm not my conditioning.

and I don't have to judge it, I don't have to fight it, I don't have to force it, beat it into submission of surrender. Maybe I can just meet that with some love. Maybe I can just meet my, if we can see ourselves doing our dance, then maybe I can see it has a positive intention. It's trying to get me love. Oh my God, it's like terrified of being hurt again. So I'm doing this dance.

And if we're able to see that and have the empathy and then meet ourselves with love and compassion and mercy and kindness so that when we are afraid, when we are acting out, when we are doing our thing, then we can hold ourselves and say, hey, it's okay. It's that loving, it's that compassion, it's that empathy that begins to allow that deeper egoic part of us to relax and then surrender can start happening naturally.

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All right, you told us you were going to break down the anatomy of surrender. What does that look like? So just first step is that understanding the nature of ego. That's, I think, why we don't surrender. That begins the anatomy of understanding why we are doing this, right? And so in terms of the phases of surrender,

At first, we are often, let's say, unconscious. We're just doing what we're doing, living what we're doing, thinking that we are who we are. This is me. This is life. And then we create life that often ends up limited in some way.

We're unconscious. Maybe then we begin to become a little conscious. We start questioning. Then maybe we start seeing, hmm, maybe there's a different way. And now we're going to denial, a bit more conscious denial. And so now we're living a bit more in denial. Then the next phase is we realize, hmm, maybe there's more to life than what I'm doing. Maybe there's more to me than what I've been living. Maybe who I am, you know, maybe someone listens to your podcast and they're like, maybe, maybe

Who I am is not who I really am. And I need to question who I am. We're afraid to question who we are because like, oh shit, if I question who I am, then who the hell am I? Ego freaks out, starts resisting. And so that next phase from denial is resistance. That's why we're resisting because it feels like who am I?

would I be if I'm not what I am and what I think I am, which is not really what I am, but like, who will I be? So resistance is a natural egoic human response. Okay. It's normal, completely normal. Most of us resist our entire lives and then we die. Right. And so resistance is natural to meet that with compassion and empathy and love and

is the key to melt that resistance so that we can then allow ourselves to feel some of the pain, those feelings, those emotions, the pain, the hurt, the fear, so we can start feeling those feelings and releasing those feelings. Because as we heal and release some of those feelings that we have been trained to suppress from childhood,

then we no longer have to stay in ego to hold on to not feeling those feelings again. And that's where the transformational process is. That's what the transformational healing process is really about with the therapist, with the guide, with the coach, through seminar, et cetera, et cetera. So feeling those feelings. So now we're in resistance. After resisting, what we tend to do in the next phase of surrender is we start negotiating. Well, maybe I can...

Keep eating donuts in the morning and milkshakes and, you know, Big Macs and work out once a week and be healthy. You know, maybe my partner, even though they're abusive and they've been like this for 10 years and it's a terrible relationship. Maybe if I change, they'll change. Maybe, you know, they've got potential. So we start negotiating with life. Maybe when I'm 72, then I can finally launch that book and live my purpose. We end up negotiating our lives away, so many of us, and then we die. And that's the pain.

because when you negotiate with life and negotiate your destiny, to me that is already living dead. And so there reaches a point in that negotiation phase where we begin to realize, no matter how much I negotiate, it's not changing. I am what I am. I'm an alcoholic. My partner is what they are. This is the situation. It is what it is. And so now we start getting into reality.

That is a necessary phase. What helps in this phase to really move into reality is the willingness to tell the truth. One of the things that keeps us stuck from truly surrendering are all the lies that we tell ourselves. We stay in relationships that we know aren't right for whatever the reason. We work jobs that we know is not the true expression of our soul's purpose. Out of fear, out of safety, out of comfort kills us inside.

And so to me, there is no real surrender. There is no real healing. There is no true transformation without the truth. The truth will set us free. To me, truth is real spiritual practice. Truth is real therapy. Truth is real yoga. If we're willing to tell the truth, your entire life will begin transforming. So the question number one to start asking in this phase of acceptance is, what lies am I telling myself? To change reality, you have to see reality for what it is.

See it for what it is. Accept it for what it is. Be with it as it is exactly. Not as you want it to be, not as it could be. This is what it is. I have an alcohol problem. This is what it is. I'm in an abusive, toxic relationship. This is what it is. I hate my job. No judgment, reality. The truth will set you free. So what lies am I telling myself? Step one. Sometimes we're afraid to tell ourselves the truth.

Because we're afraid, oh, shit, if I tell myself the truth, what's the consequence? And so the ego, in its sneakiness, starts playing a game of confusion. Well, I'm not really sure if this relationship is right. I don't know. Maybe he can, maybe she can, maybe...

We damn well know it's not right. And the moment we break up, I've had this experience where I was like, is she right? Is she the one? Is she not? The moment I broke up, I told my best friend, I knew that was never going to work. My best friend asked me, well, when did you know?

Literally, I remember there was a relationship I had. Literally, I met this woman in the parking lot. My intuition said, no. Stay, no. It was very subtle. And sure enough, I went on a date. We ended up in a relationship. It was the disaster. And I knew, I knew, you know, I knew there's a part of us

that knows everything deep down because at the deepest level, we're connected to everything. And so the ego plays this game of confusion. And so we have to look at what lies am I telling myself? What am I pretending to not know? But when we ask ourselves the question around truth, you have to want the truth more than you want what you have.

You have to want the truth more than you want what you think you want. Real freedom isn't free. It requires that you let go of what's no longer relying, what's no longer working. And that's where the next level of our lives, to go to the real next level, real level of super achieving. Like to me, Mandela was a super achiever. That was not a life that you could have strategized and planned. It went beat. That's like true super human achievement. In surrender, that's what's possible. Be

beyond your imagination, beyond what you can imagine for yourself. And so we have to be willing to just acknowledge the truth. And I tell people, be willing to actually take the pressure off of yourself from having to take any action. Take the pressure off. You don't have to take any action, but just tell the truth. Because sometimes the fear of taking action clouds our judgment, the ego's judgment, and we pretend to not know. So we say, okay, I don't have to take action. What does that mean? I hate my job. You don't have to leave.

Maybe you have kids and did it. I hate my job. Let that begin marinating. It will start a process inside. I'm no longer in love with my partner, with my wife, with my husband, with my boyfriend. You don't have to break up. Just let the truth marinate. It will begin a process. So what lies am I telling myself? What am I pretending to not know? And what is the pain? What is the cost of the lie I'm telling myself? When we tell ourselves a lie, we betray our truth.

There is a cost and we will feel pain. It's meant to be painful when we lie to ourselves. It's not meant to feel good. So I say the pain is a blessing. The pain is a signal. The pain is feedback that we're not living in alignment. What we tend to do as human beings is we distract ourselves from the pain.

We sex it away, drink it away, smoke it away, social media it away, work it away, travel it away, shop it away so that we don't have to feel the pain. And that just perpetuates the dynamic even more. And so thirdly, I tell people, feel the pain of the misalignment. Not wallow in it, but just feel it. Don't deny it. Just breathe it and feel it. That starts to process inside. So now we're in acceptance.

Okay, this is what it is. This is the situation. This is what's going on. This is who my partner is. This is who my father is. This is who my kid is. Acceptance. The next phase, people think, oh, after acceptance, what now? A lot of people stay stuck in acceptance, but acceptance...

Surrender, real surrender is like, you can be an acceptance, like, okay, this is who my partner is. This is who my husband is. I don't like who he is. I'm a little pissed off that he's that way. I feel like, I feel it's unfair and I'm going to hold back my love until they change, but I'm not going to leave, but I accept that this is what they are. All right. And so sometimes we're like, I'm not playing, but I'm going to be on the field. And you know, that's a form of acceptance, a toleration, shall I say.

True surrender is the open-hearted participation of the process of life. Like when you roll your sleeves up and say, "Okay, it's raining outside. It sucks that it's raining. I wanted to go out with my kid, but let's go out and dance in the rain." Or let's invite the family in for a dinner and into a dinner at home and play games together and connect as a family. And like, let's make the best of this experience.

And use this experience rather than be used by this experience. And so surrender is the open-hearted participation to the process of life that's happening. It requires two things. The belief and understanding that life is always working for your highest good, even if you can't see it right now. That's number one. Number two, the spiritual understanding that you and I, we are souls.

We are souls having a human experience. And as souls having a human experience, we incarnate into this human experience in order to learn, to grow, to evolve. That life is a school for your soul's evolution. And every experience in life, bad, challenging, difficult, heartbreak, divorce, betrayal, everything is part of the curriculum of

for your soul's evolution. If you really get that, you stop seeing life as this happened and that happened and resisting it. You move to a deeper dimension of asking yourself to...

Then you're able to surrender in the experience, not necessarily to the situation, but in the experience to go, huh, what is my soul seeking to learn in this experience right now? That's the surrender. What is my soul seeking to learn from this messed up relationship? What is my soul seeking to learn from being fired? What is my soul seeking to learn in this situation? The surrender isn't just like, I'm going to sit here in this situation and be a victim and just do nothing. It's

It's like, what is my soul seeking to learn so I can learn the lesson? And I'm going to surrender rather than resisting. I'm going to really surrender to learning the lesson where I am. Because when you learn the lesson where you are with who you're with, that's the key that unlocks the lock to the next level of experience. So surrender is that.

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Between acceptance and surrender, there is a missing face. And here is a secret to surrender that most people miss. Most people never crack open to surrender because they miss the face in the middle. The face in the middle is grieving. Most people miss the face of grieving because you see, surrender is a death.

It's a death of your ego. It's a death of who you thought you were. It's a death of like a phase of your life. Like, wow, I'm no longer 20. I'm 30, I'm 40, I'm 50. Wow, it's a death of that phase of one's youth to a different phase of one's life. It's a death of a dream, a death of a job, right? A death of maybe as a parent, like your kid becomes 18, 20, moves on. It's a death of a role. It's a death of something. And so to truly move on into...

I'm going to embrace the new. You have to be willing to grieve for the old. And most of us never truly let ourselves grieve and we want to move on and surrender. And that's why we can't open our hearts to surrender because we're not truly letting go and grieving and honoring what was.

True grieving and honoring what was allows you to fully release and let go. The challenges in our culture, we tend to avoid grief. We tend to avoid feelings like that. We tend to avoid that because we're afraid it will last forever. We're afraid it will never end. But if...

The thing I would just want people to know is all feelings are temporary. No feeling lasts forever. All feelings that we feel fully with awareness will begin to dissolve. And grief happens in stages and in layers. And if we can feel the grief...

then we can let those layers go. And I think one of the key things is around grieving. If you're able to take that label off of the grief or any feeling, take the label off, don't even call it grief, and just experience the sensation of that feeling in your body. This is like how to grieve or how to feel. Experience the sensation in your body.

Wow, it's warm, it's hot, it's tight. If you really be with the sensation of the grief in your body and allow yourself to just be with that without getting rid of it, without forcing it away, without suppressing it, without judging it, and you be with it fully as a sensation, not as a...

But with thinking about the feeling, not really being with the feeling so the feeling never dissolves because we're busy thinking and analyzing. But when we can feel the sensation, then the cycle of energy of that sensation of feeling begins to dissolve. And that's how we begin as we're with it, like a

Then we let go. So anyway, those are some thoughts. I like the real life example that you used of writing the book, right? That you actually had to surrender. Can you kind of walk us through what that situation was like for you when you realized you had to surrender and what you did? Yeah, you know, I was sitting there brainstorming, strategizing in my, I'm not going to say overachiever-ness too, I can relate to you, but in my desire to like write this massive bestseller and have an impact and, you know, number one, New York, what have you. And I was looking, okay, what are the best selling books out there?

Okay. You know, the magical art of tidying up. Right. We've all heard of that. Condo, merrily condo, condo everything. Then I was like, okay, the salt lot of not giving a F, right? Oh, that, that, that book. And so checking out all these books, I thought, oh, let me come up with something really clever. And I was strategizing with my mind and my brain and, you know, brought my editor in. We were brainstorming, wrote literally hundreds of ideas on the whiteboard.

All very intelligent, all very clever, all very sexy. Books I thought would sell, books I thought would be best, books I thought my audience would want. Books I thought that would, you know, grab people's attention and be bestsellers. And to be honest, when I looked at the list on this whiteboard, none of them felt authentic. None of them felt like they might make great books one day and I might do them, but none of them felt authentic.

They, none of them felt like, yes, this is what your soul is here to do. And the only word that stood out on this whiteboard that when I looked at it, I felt this, it's an energy. I felt this pull. So I invite people to feel how it feels in your body. Feel where you feel pulled because that deeper pull,

is what we get to surrender to. Because often we feel that intuition or that deeper pull. That deeper pull often is arising not from your mind or your logic or your conditioning, but from the unconditioned dimension of your true being. It's your soul speaking to you.

You know, like Mandela's soul was speaking to him. Gandhi's soul, like the soul is infinite. The mind is limited and conditioned. So I imagine if I wrote a book, it would have been okay, but not like how it is for the surrender book. And so I felt this pull and I felt this pull and it honestly, it just felt, it felt true. It felt true.

And that's when I felt the feeling of, oh, shit, that's the book. It's about surrender. And everything I had at first, I resisted. I was like, no, I don't want to write a book about surrender because, you know, who wants to surrender? And after my own ego kind of threw a bit of a tantrum, honestly, took a deep breath. And I just had to acknowledge the truth. And the truth is none of those books feel right. That's the book that feels true.

And in that moment, it was like a download, an epiphany happened. I started seeing the book. I started understanding how my entire childhood, my entire life had prepared me to write this book and deliver this message.

somewhat complex topic for the new generation. I started like, I felt on fire with it. And it wasn't for money. It wasn't for fact, it was just like, this is the book that I was born to write and everything came together. And I also saw that in a flashback in that moment, that the seed of the book was planted a few years ago that I wasn't even paying attention. And how that was, was in 2016, my mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer.

And she was the closest person to me on the planet. She was the reason I knew unconditional love in my lifetime. I mean, she was my everything. And so for her to be diagnosed, it was like,

Life has a way of humbling you when you're in your highest moments. And when she was diagnosed with stomach cancer, I started flying back and forth between LA and London every month for a week to be with her. And I would sit with her in chemo. I would hold her hand. We would have tea together. All the things I hadn't done since I was in my teens before I left for LA. And after kind of the initial realizing she's not going to make it,

I felt a lot of deep regret feeling the sense of like, shit, why did I wait till she was dying to take this time? There's so much more I wanted to do with my mom and why did I wait? And...

What started out as the worst year of my life turned out to be really the best year of my life because I got to just be with her and experience with her and surrender to the process with her. And every moment became precious. Every moment. Like I was so driven to get to some destination that I realized I missed all these moments. Like all these moments of just sitting and having tea with my mom, all these moments of like washing my mom, wash dishes, all these moments of just sitting in the park and throwing bread to the ducks because I didn't have time.

It was so sacred because I thought this could be the last time I ever hold my mother's hand again. This could be the last time I ever see her wash dishes again. My mother is Japanese, was Japanese, so she would make this sort of homemade sushi. And I thought this is the last time I could see her do that again or drink a cup of tea again. And the preciousness of the moment,

It was like surrendering to the moments and every moment, not just the destination. Then the doctor said, and I think this is where the book was planted. The doctor said about six months into the process, I got to be with her for a year, almost a year, which was a huge blessing because some people don't get that. The parents just die in a car accident and that's it. And so I'm very grateful for that. And the doctor said, basically they told us,

You're going to die. So get your affairs in order. It could be, it could be days, weeks, maybe months, but definitely not years. And so I had been making peace with this, but the reality is, you know, something else. And I remember feeling really heartbroken in that moment. And in the parking lot, I was in the car with my mom and I turned to my mom. Like, wow, I'm never going to see her. This, this, this is it.

And I looked to her and asked her two questions. I said, are you afraid? And this little Japanese woman looks me in the eyes. I tell you, and she says, no, I'm not afraid. Clear as day. I'm not afraid because I know I'm not this body. She goes, this body is just a temporary vehicle for my soul. And I'll be with you from the other side. So don't worry.

And I was like, wow, like the level of her conviction, you know, it was like in the, like, it's one thing to know when life is good, but when you're about to die and you still have that, it was powerful. So I said to her, mom, is there anything I can do for you in your final days to make your life easier? Like I wanted to be a good son. What do you need? What do you want? And she said, this is where I think the seed of the book was planted. She said, son, uh,

There's nothing I need and there's nothing I want. All I want is what God wants for my life. And in that moment, I realized that she was free. She was free, not dependent on anything in life. She was free because she surrendered. She wasn't attached to living. She wasn't attached to dying. She was truly open to everything.

the highest good for her soul's journey. I mean, truly open to that. And in that was her freedom. And I realized this is why she didn't cry this whole year. Emotional woman, didn't cry, didn't complain, didn't feel like a victim. She was at peace. And I really, I got surrender in that moment in life, how it's lived in daily life. I saw it.

in the face of my mother, you know, and it was a really profound moment. So that's kind of how the book came about. And it wasn't expected, you know, wasn't expected. Like nothing about the book was expected. The publisher showed me the book cover. At first I was like, hell no, that's not the book cover. And then I had to surrender. And I thought, that's the book cover, you know, the title of the book. When I wrote the book, I was working with my editor. And again, I was trying to come up with sexy titles, you know,

We had hundreds of sexy titles. I mean, if I told you the titles, some of them are so funny. And we came up with this title, Magical Surrender. I was like, ah, that's too easy. No, no, it's got to be. And I was like, no. Like the book had a soul of its own, an intelligence of its own. And I think if we're willing to trust life,

has an intelligence of its own. It has a magic of its own. Life has been around for billions and billions and billions of years. It has an intelligence, you know? And so if we look at the best things in our life that have happened, we did not plan them. They just happened. Oh, I'm going to plan to meet my soulmate at this time. And, you know, in a coffee, it just happens. If you look at the things that didn't go according to plan,

And see how many of them turned out better than you could have imagined. Now, someone might say, no, but I was homeless. I lost everything. Yeah, but if you look at even the worst thing that happened that you thought was the worst thing in the moment, because from the ego's perspective, we're not able to often see why something is happening in the moment, only in retrospect.

But sometimes even the worst thing that happened that forced maybe someone to move home or to move countries or to what have you, in the moment looked like the worst thing. But then a decade later, we start seeing, wow, if that didn't happen, I wouldn't have ended up over here, over here and met that person. So I think surrender is the willingness to allow life.

to lead us and allow life to show us because life has an intelligence and people often say, well, how do I trust life? How do I trust? I'm like, how do you not trust life? Every moment of our lives, life is, is, is proving to us. Like right now, you and I were sitting here and we're breathing. We've been having this beautiful conversation and I'm breathing. You're breathing. Everyone listening is breathing. We're not sitting here going, Oh, Oh,

How do I breathe? I got to breathe. It's just happened. And so what is it that is breathing us? Let's be with that. Let's meditate on it.

Something is breathing us right now. And that same something that's breathing you and breathing me is breathing all existence. And that same life force, that same something that's breathing you is processing and functioning the trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of cells in your body, coordinating your liver and your kidneys and your eyes and color and speech and sound and brainwaves and nervous system.

I mean, and so many more complexities inside of us that we're not even aware of. The same intelligence of life is function of the sun, the star, the moons, all of existence. Whatever we want to call it, call it whatever, but it's something. And we don't trust it. Like you ate this morning. I ate this morning. What did I have? I had some cereal, some eggs. Eat the cereal. My hand doesn't become cereal. There's an intelligence inside. And so...

I think surrender is trusting this intelligence. Surrender is trusting the innate intelligence that's inside of us to show us, to reveal itself. And I think when we do that, life has a way of, I have found, to me, I call the book the magic of surrender because life has a way, the magic is that which is beyond what we can imagine. We all want magic. I want magic. Who wants magic?

I want some magic, that which is beyond what I can imagine, but we don't want to surrender. We want to hold on to the old, but the next level of our life requires the next level of us, which requires letting go of what's no longer aligned. And often we don't realize that

when we hold on. It's the holding on. We're the one that's blocking our blessing. Like for instance, I was speaking to a client and they're like, I really want to manifest my soulmate, this amazing, juicy, alive, vibrant relationship, but they're staying in a toxic relationship and waiting for their soulmate to show up in order to let go. You know, how does that happen?

And so surrender is letting go of what's not aligned, letting go of what's no longer of vibration. Because holding on is your affirmation of your lack of trust in the universe. And that's what you'll attract even more, right? When we let go, we're affirming, universe, I trust you. I trust life. I trust the universe.

As we let go, we shift our vibration. We raise our vibration. We bring ourselves into more alignment with what we do want. And we unclutter our energy system and our lives to create the space for new blessings. And yes,

I will say you will lose people when you surrender. You will lose things when you surrender. But what I will say is who you lose and what you lose was not truly in alignment with your highest anyway. Because what is truly yours will be yours and cannot not be yours. And what is not yours can never be yours even if you try to force it. Let's talk about goals for a minute. How are you tracking with the ones you set for your business earlier this year? Are you close? If not, do you know why you haven't hit them yet?

I mean, let's be honest. It's so important to track our goals, to set goals. Goal setting is where it all happens, taking us from where we currently are to where we know we can be. This podcast included, we got major goals and every day we are getting bigger.

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Go to constantcontact.com for your free trial today. I'm going to replay the last five minutes there probably 100 times. I'm so grateful that you wrote this book, The Magic of Surrender. It is so needed. It's literally speaking truth into me right now. Tell us, how can we find the book and how can we find you? Awesome. Thank you so much. The book is available on Amazon. So as of May the 3rd, the paperback version came out on Amazon. So I would just say, go get the paperback version

because it has some cool things in it too. And then I'm going to do something special. For those that get the paperback, I did a free live event on May the 14th. I'm going to give people access to the replay. So when you get the paperback version specifically, go to www.kootblackson.com.

Reinvent Seminar. Go there, enter your name, your email, and your receipt info. We'll give you access to the replays and a bunch of free gifts. Also, if people want to know more, my website, keeplaxon.com. If people want to dive in to a deeper transformation experience twice a year, I facilitate a 12-day event in Bali in July and December. It's called Boundless Bliss Bali. And so www.boundlessblissbali.com.

And the Instagram and Facebook, just my name. Say hi. Koot, thank you so much for the work you're doing. Keep up this amazing work. It is so needed. Go right now, guys. Check out the book, The Magic of Surrender. You will be thanking me later. Until next week, keep creating your confidence.

No one succeeds alone. You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it. I'm on this journey with me.