A Short Piece On Finding The Courage To Surrender

About a year ago I went through a really rough and turbulent time in my life and a pivotal moment in my personal mental health journey, let me tell you – the year of the snake was a brutal bitch. During this time I was forced to confront my long-term on-again-off-again relationship with anxiety seriously, which required a substantial amount of work and strength that I could never have imagined I possessed nor had the patience for. The thing is that if you keep ignoring a deep set problem for long enough it eventually gets so loud, so raucous that you simply cannot ignore it anymore, even if you wanted to. 

My story with anxiety is a long one and I won’t bore you with all the details but I hope that in sharing a snippet of my experience I can help just one other person that might also be struggling or wounded on their own silent battlefield. 

I first experienced serious anxiety and panic attacks around the age of 20, this was a particularly heinous ordeal that saw me visiting the emergency room several times. Each time I was equally convinced of my impending death and eternal doom. There was nothing specific that could justify these outbursts of panic, but looking back now I understand that it was probably a build-up of severe worry trapped inside my mind that eventually manifested physically in my body. Cut to this time last year and I’m in a similar situation, because for too long I’d allowed worry and stress to build up in my body without doing anything about it. I assumed that I was strong enough to keep going, to keep my chin up and not to give in. I’d already been through this rodeo thrice you see, so surely I could manage another one. But then all at once, life threw me into an upheaval in the most vehemently tumultuous way. I’m talking about facing multiple major life changes all at once; my job, my husband’s job, our home, our financial situation – the security blanket had literally gone up in flames and I didn’t have an extinguisher. I was at my lowest, mentally and physically and this gave me no other option but to stop and to take a good hard look at my life and what was going on. 

And when I put on the breaks and gave myself the time to slow down, something profound happened. For the first time in my life, I surrendered, I stopped trying to fight, to pretend that everything was ok and put on an iron mask. And in the act of surrendering and asking for help, I actually learned what true strength really meant. Surrendering is no small feat, in fact it feels almost taboo, especially in a culture that embraces perseverance and champions hustle. In a society that has long glorified pushing through no matter what the cost. 

Surrendering did not happen easily, or all at once, my ego didn’t dissolve in one grand, groundbreaking epiphany. It happened slowly and reluctantly, a moment at a time and a day at a time, I had to gradually break it down. It was in fact the many, many small moments and a series of almost unremarkable actions that slowly made a difference for me; like allowing myself to rest after the most mundane activity like simply sending a text, it meant feeling the guilt rise up in my chest but choosing to switch off anyway. Or like going for a short walk outside, even for a few minutes to feel some fresh air on my face, even when my mind thought “What’s the use?!” “You have a bunch of other shit you really should be doing!!”, persisting that the couch was where I needed to be. It was writing down my thoughts without trying to make any actual sense of them but just releasing them from my brain so that they could exist somewhere that wasn’t inside my body. It was chatting with a friend and simply saying “I am not okay” and not really needing to explain anything else, not trying to fix anything but just being okay with not being okay. It was watching old, familiar tv series and films that were predictable and therefore made me feel safe when everything else felt uncertain (yes I did watch all the Disney films and almost every episode of The OC). 

It was slowly feeling ok with saying no when I didn’t have the capacity to do something, and saying it again and again and again, even when the fomo crept up on me and began to seep through my veins. Yes I was missing out but in my act of saying no, of not pleasing others I was actually learning to nurture myself. 

To be honest none of this really felt significant at the time but what I didn’t realise was that in taking each of these baby steps I was actually choosing myself, over and over again.  

And so I continued to choose myself, I asked my friends and family for help and support when I needed it. I started seeing not one but two therapists to help give me different tools to combat my anxiety and stress. I sought out a doctor and took some much needed time off (something I would never have done previously) in order to take care of myself. And after years of refusing to take medication I finally decided to allow myself the opportunity to try it out, because what’s the worst that could happen? If it didn’t work or feel right I could always just stop taking it. I started meditating daily even if only for 5 minutes, I spent more time outdoors and getting fresh air, I started writing again, I set clear boundaries when it came to my energy and needs – both in terms of work and relationships. Getting all this help and support, taking care of myself and having time to pause was literally life changing for me in the most positive way. I now have a totally different perspective on what it means to be healthy, successful and strong. I wrote this short piece somewhere in the first months of my healing journey and it sums up my experience much better than I could ever put into sentences now. It felt like the right time to share it and I hope that it encourages more discussions and openness about anxiety and mental health, but most of all that it’s ok to take a break and to ask for help when you don’t feel good (something that is often easier said than done). 

When I was a child I was a strong swimmer, at one point I was even the fastest swimmer in my school class. I won races because I had incredible stamina and I was strong. I always pushed myself to swim better and faster, teaching myself never to give up, no matter what. My goal was simple: keep going Alice, because then you will win. Winning meant that I was the fastest and the strongest and that made me feel invincible.

For a long time, I believed that being strong meant never giving up, to keep going and to push harder, in order to be faster and stronger than everyone else – even if it meant pretending everything was okay when it wasn’t. I thought that acknowledging my body’s stress signals or cries of exhaustion was a sign of weakness because this meant slowing down and would ultimately lead to failure, because I wouldn’t win. 

But then a time came when I found myself swimming as hard as I could against a current too strong for me, a current that would sweep me away no matter how hard I battled the waves. I was trapped in the riptide, but I still clung to my belief that I was strong. So I kept fighting those rough waves for a long time, I kept going, I didn’t give in even though this battle began to feel endless. I was still determined to win the race so I ignored the lifebuoy that bobbed past me and eventually I even ignored the lifeboat.

Until I got to a point where ignoring how I felt was no longer possible because exhaustion had taken over me. The current that I had fought for so long finally pulled me under, cold fingers curled around my limbs, tightening with each breath. I watched as the surface slipped away, as the world closed its eyes to me, leaving me alone to disappear into darkening depths. I was drowning. Stress and anxiety had quietly swept over me like an insidious disease, slowly consuming me until my mind and body could no longer take it. It wasn’t until this moment when I started drowning that I slowly began to realise that perhaps true strength isn’t about pretending to be okay. That being strong could be acknowledging when things are tough and having the courage to ask for help, when you desperately need it. That in fact, it requires a great deal of strength to embrace vulnerability instead of fearing it.

So eventually I stopped fighting, I gave in. And to my surprise I didn’t drown, but I started to float. At first, it was terrifying to float. When you’re so used to swimming hard for so long, surrendering feels frightening and alien. I was so afraid that if I stopped struggling, I would disappear beneath the waves and be lost forever. But as I allowed myself to float, a quiet relief began to sweep over me. Perhaps letting go didn’t mean failure? Perhaps it actually meant survival. It meant allowing myself the rest and help I had long denied. 

Learning to float began to teach me that strength isn’t always about relentless endurance. It’s about trusting yourself to know when to push forward and when to pause, when to fight and when to let the water carry you. Strength suddenly became my ability to navigate surrender with a sense of self-compassion and not shame. As I floated, I began to find my breath again. My body, once rigid with resistance, began to slowly soften. My mind, once consumed by the need to prove myself, began to slowly understand that strength could also be found in stillness, in self-care, in the simple act of admitting “I need help” and not being afraid to ask for it.

In the end I began to understand that in these moments of surrender, we can often find the courage to rise again, perhaps even stronger than we were before.

And so, I reached for a lifebuoy.
Not because I was weak, but because I was finally strong enough to save myself.