Surrender, Dorothy ....

So the Wicked Witch of the West sky-wrote with her broom in The Wizard of Oz.

I've been thinking about the importance - and danger - of "surrender."

Healthy surrender occurs when we maintain our personal power, self control and sense of responsiblity -- and allow ourselves to open ourselves freely to love, to trusting someone trustworthy, to our art and craft, to the character we portray if we're acting, to a spiritual essence we allow to envelope us to feel safe and protected, or when we give up on a cause that is clearly lost in order to regain control.

Healthy surrender is strong, sensitive, loving, constructive, protective and productive. It enhances our lives.

When we laugh? We surrender to the humor we allow ourselves when we are open to perceive and experience it.

When we cry? We succumb to our deepest feelings of sadness, or disbelief, or joy, or appreciation.

Unhealthy surrender occurs when we release or turn over our personal power to someone or something, reliquishing our personal responsibility to them. The result is allowing the object of our unhealthy surrender to control us - and literally victimize us.

That "object" to which we surrender, that we allow to control us can come in the form of a religion, a person, an addiction, a negative feeling or scene we replay over and over again - refusing to release it and move on.

As important as it is to surrender - and it is important - the *way* in which we surrender, and to whom is even moreso.