The Power of Surrender

When I teach people how to prepare for their psychedelic journeys, one key factor is the practice of surrender. While it may sound paradoxical, learning to let go and allow whatever arises can enhance one’s sense of control and empowerment. By surrendering to the present moment without rigid expectations, you open yourself up to profound insights and healing.

What is Surrender?

To understand the role of surrender in psychedelic experiences, we first need to clarify what surrender really means. It is a concept that’s often misunderstood or confused with submission.

Submission implies defeat, the forced relinquishing of your power to an external authority. However, surrender can also be defined as the active process of consciously letting go of rigid control from within. Genuine surrender isn’t about giving up or becoming passive. It’s about allowing whatever arises into your present experience to rise without resistance or judgment. It means opening yourself with vulnerability, free of preconceived expectations about how things “should” be. The core principle is cultivating openness and gentleness toward your present moment reality, whatever that entails. 

Surrendering to the Psychedelic Journey

During a psychedelic journey, you may encounter challenging thoughts, emotions, or sensory experiences that feel overwhelming if you try to control or avoid them. Surrendering means having the courage to fully experience whatever comes up, and embracing it with gentle acceptance rather than inner struggle.

Surrendering takes practice. When you stop fighting against your immediate reality, you cease feeding energy into the resistance patterns that cause suffering. As you surrender individual threads of control, a deeper presence emerges, a felt sense of connection to something greater.

New insights and perspectives can naturally arise from this more expansive state of awareness. Instead of being trapped in your usual mental narratives, you become more open, flexible, and responsive to the unfolding moment in the unknown world.

More importantly, surrender is not something being done to you, but a skill and quality of consciousness you develop through steady commitment. Anyone can learn to surrender more fully, regardless of their life circumstances. This humble practice can be incredibly empowering.

The Benefits of Surrender in Psychedelic Experiences

Now that we’ve clarified what surrender means, why is surrender in psychedelic experiences so important?  Numerous studies and firsthand accounts highlight how surrendering to the present experience amplifies therapeutic results. Surrendering helps you work with, rather than against, the effects of psychedelics. The medicine tends to dissolve cognitive controls and defenses. Often, fighting this process leads to difficult looping thoughts and emotionally fraught resistance.

However, when you surrender into a more expansive state, you become more open, receptive, and able to navigate the experience much more easily and gently. This openness allows the insights and emotional release to unfold more organically.

One intention that I use and often recommend to others is the intention of asking the medicine, “What’s next?” This intention covers a lot of bases. Throwing your intention into the hands of the medicine is a good start to your journey in a state of surrender. How so? You’re throwing it out there that you don’t know what you need to work on specifically. You’re also surrendering that you have no idea how to prioritize what you do need to work on. Let the medicine take the wheel and show you what to focus on to discover, heal, and grow.

It’s important to note that setting intentions is a very personal process. Your specific intentions will vary based on your life experiences, beliefs, goals, and an endless number of other things that make you who you are. Ensure you’re approaching these psychedelic experiences with respect and caution. 

A therapist who has experience working with psychedelic medicines is an invaluable source of guidance and support. An experienced facilitator understands the importance of trust and safety in allowing journeyers to surrender to the medicine and their psyche.