The Difference Between Resignation and Surrender
Teasing out the differences between resignation and similar emotions like surrender has become an ongoing and active meditation. News cycles, work pressure, and family health concerns have left me overwhelmed and depleted, yearning to disconnect and unable to sleep soundly.
When I wake in the middle of the night, my heart pounding and mind racing, I seek refuge in my yoga mat, arranging props to feel supported in long yin holds. I breathe through the discomfort and try to become aware of what I’m feeling in my body.
One difference I’ve uncovered between resignation and surrender is a difference in agency. A difference between passive acceptance and active yielding.
When I feel resigned, the story I’m telling myself is that I am powerless, that my actions have no effect, that change is not possible. It can often be accompanied by feelings of numbness, hopelessness, grief or anguish, even a slow-burning and all-consuming rage.
For my sanity, my sleep, and the world I want to live in, after feeling my resignation, I need to process it. Shift something. Anything to get it up out of my body.
Resign to Rise is one of 87 labyrinths I designed to process each emotion and experience in Brené Brown’s book Atlas of the Heart.
I drew this initial sketch not here — in my writing nook with Dangermouse curled up in my lap — but at Chico Feo in Folly Beach, listening to an amazing lineup of musicians during one of their open mic nights.
So, as I contemplated which labyrinth pattern to bring to Emergence, a Burning Man event held just outside nearby Charleston, the outlines of this processional labyrinth started to glow for me.
It meets the right mix of timeliness, synchronicity, and connection.
Entering from the left in this sketch, a walker would weave their way through the stone blocks at the top of the well, then get sucked down into a maelstrom at the bottom of the well.
Just when it seems like there’s nowhere to go, an opportunity presents itself to change direction, spiraling back out and up through the body of a winged creature. I couldn’t make up my mind between a butterfly or a dragonfly, so the sketch has elements of both.
I remember chatting with other patrons at the family-style benches under the trees that I couldn’t just leave myself drowned at the bottom. All the journaling I’d done on this emotion was already pulling me toward some kind of escape.
Once I selected this pattern, I shared it with Jenifer — Hootie, if you’ve met her at a burn — who sits on the Emergence Board to plan the event. She gave me the idea of turning the winged creature into a phoenix, and the water-to-fire transformation seemed an ideal complement for a burn.
I brought a photo of my sketch into Procreate on my new iPad, flipped the orientation, and began tracing it, using colors to represent the strings of lights I will be using to outline it. I will be using the same construction technique I used to build Spiral Beyond Shame at Alchemy last October, and my next activity will be to assess and augment my box of lights…
A Solar LED Labyrinth Installation
Emergence | March 20-24, 2025 | Near Charleston, SC
When you feel like time has stopped, the only way forward is through. When you feel change is unlikely or even inconceivable, the only way forward is through. When you feel powerless, trapped, and drowned at the bottom of a well, the only way forward is through. And up. And ablaze.
This processional labyrinth pattern is not a maze, with false turns and choices. There's only one way in and one way out. Step through the labyrinth’s portals and notice something change. Could the phoenix be you? You may feel lost, but you have been on the right path the whole time. Come for the lights, stay for the metamorphosis.
Walk this labyrinth built of rope and solar LED strings, which lights up as the sun goes down. This labyrinth pattern is one of 87 created by the artist Charms to process each of the emotions and experiences in Brené Brown’s book “Atlas of the Heart”.