Often in their conformist drive, modern man is unable to distinguish improvement from the path to improvement

By: Isa Pašalić, psychologist

In psychotherapy, a problem that people often encounter is that they are unable to distinguish relaxation from surrender. These two seemingly identical concepts have completely different meanings in their core and application. To encourage people to understand the difference, we must first understand their expectations of the therapeutic process. From most answers, we would be able to conclude that most people view the healing process as an uphill battle, where our effort at every moment inevitably leads to elevation and improvement.

With this, we come to the frequent confusion that arises among people, which is that they are unable to distinguish relaxation from surrender. They see relaxation as the ultimate goal of therapy and believe it should be strived for during every session. However, although most people are right to sense that relaxation is the ultimate goal of the therapeutic process, most people are unable to fully grasp the path to reaching that goal.

Reaching relaxation is through surrender, and surrender as such is not always pleasant. Surrender, although it sounds similar, has an absolutely different function than relaxation. Relaxation is an action whose ultimate goal is to evoke an emotion and feeling in our body that is pleasant and expected. However, surrender is an action that allows us to let go of the control we like to have over our body and emotional state and simply allow ourselves to reconcile with our inner feelings as they are, with our inner truth. Often, the very act of surrender is what has an exceptional healing effect on people, because through this, they allow their accumulated emotions and feelings to come out, and it was precisely this accumulation of ignored emotions that led people to the problem – it is the denial of truth.

There are cases where it is not enough to just surrender and expect the problem to be solved, but we must also undergo active action to resolve a problem in our lives. However, even in this process, surrender, or acceptance of the situation as it is, regardless of the pain this acceptance may cause us, is a crucial part of being able to assess what the problem is and what action would effectively resolve it with a clear head.

Traumatized individuals are capable of escaping into a dream world to escape the painful reality that lies beneath. This daydreaming can manifest as a superiority complex, where a person, to compensate for feelings of inferiority and weakness, invents reasons why they are superior to others. To generate change in such individuals, it is necessary to allow them to confront reality, which is not as perfect as they have created it to be. And to confront it, they need to be allowed to surrender. Surrender is the act of releasing the need for control over the situation and allowing the truth to reveal itself.

As before, we can apply all individual phenomena to society as well. Thus, a society that is aware that it suffers from certain problems has an obligation to confront the painful reality that lies beneath. We witness societies that have formed their national ideology around their superiority over other nations and societies. However, such an ideological arrangement creates a temporary and pleasant anesthesia before inevitable enlightenment. As with traumatized individuals, this superiority complex provides a temporary sense of control; however, it does not take into account the actual state, i.e., the truth.

To expect any change on a social level, we must allow ourselves to surrender and let the truth tell us the real situation and the social ailments that lead us to the problem. We must learn that we achieve relaxation, i.e., well-being, through surrender, i.e., by confronting our own weakness and incompetence.

Inventing colorful stories that support our illusion of superiority does not contribute to actual superiority. A poodle that wakes up one day, dissatisfied with its status as a poodle, and decides to imagine that it is a wolf from today on, does not actually become a wolf. Although such self-deception may lead to a temporary feeling of self-confidence, it does not change the fact that the poodle is still a poodle, and all the rules and boundaries that previously applied to poodles still apply to it, regardless of the sudden increase in self-confidence. On the other hand, such a poodle is more likely to put itself in danger because it has not properly analyzed its social position.

The concepts of relaxation and surrender are precisely linked to this phenomenon. Those who strive for relaxation and easy well-being are capable of lying to themselves to generate a feeling of improvement, regardless of whether it has anything to do with reality or not. However, people who are aware that the path to improvement is paved with sweat and pain quickly realize that surrender and confronting the truth is what gives people and society the greatest amount of freedom.

Conformism has accustomed us to forget that well-being is not a gift that comes out of the blue, but a careful confrontation and surrender to the truth and making decisions in accordance with the truth.