Surrendering can feel a lot like doing something with your non-dominant hand—messy, uncomfortable, frustrating.
In this episode, we explore what happens when we step outside our familiar patterns and discover just how uncomfortable change can be. I share a story from a recent coaching session with a client who was practicing letting go of control through a simple exercise: coloring with her non-dominant hand and giving herself permission to be messy and imperfect.
Her experience reminded me of how often we respond to discomfort by going back to what we know—even when we know our old patterns aren't serving us. We reach for control, self-reliance, worry, or perfectionism because they're familiar. We tell ourselves, "That's just the way I am."
That experience also brought me to the story of the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:16–22. Jesus asked him to surrender the very thing he wasn't willing to let go of. And his response challenges us to consider what we might be holding onto today.
What if the thing God is asking you to surrender isn't meant to deprive you, but to make room for something greater?
In this episode, we'll reflect on:
🎨 Why change and growth often feel uncomfortable 🔄 The temptation to return to familiar patterns 🤲 Control, self-reliance, fear, and worry as things we may need to surrender 📖 The story of the rich young ruler and what it teaches us about letting go 🌱 How to practice surrender in small, low-stakes ways 🙏 What it looks like to follow God even when it feels awkward and unfamiliar
You don't have to have everything figured out. You may simply need to be willing to put down what you're holding and let God lead.
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Have you ever tried doing something simple with your non-dominant hand?
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Maybe you've tried writing your name or brushing your teeth.
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Maybe it's opening a jar, or in one of my client's cases, she
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tried coloring with her non-dominant hand. And it's amazing
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how quickly something that normally feels so effortless suddenly becomes
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awkward and difficult. Like your hand doesn't wanna quite
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cooperate. And she was saying, you know, her lines weren't as
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smooth. It was forcing her to slow down and she became just so
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much more aware every movement.
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And she started to say, after a while, she was thinking, why am I doing
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this? I could do this so much faster, so much more
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beautiful if I just use the hand that I'm used to.
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And strangely enough, my conversation with her had me thinking about
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surrender. And that's exactly what we're going to talk about today.
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Welcome to the Nourish to Bloom podcast, where your faith meets your
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health. I'm your host, Kara Trachta, a registered dietitian and
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certified Catholic coach, and I'm here to help you cultivate a deeper connection
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with your body, your spirit, and the nourishment that sustains them both.
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In a world filled with noise and confusion about food,
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health, and body image, this podcast offers truth and healing from
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a Christ-centered perspective. Together, we'll untangle the deep
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roots of diet culture and discover what it means to truly care
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for ourselves. through joyful nourishment of mind, body, and
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soul. We're here to dive into the transformative power of intuitive eating
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coupled with the rich teachings of our Christian faith. With every
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episode, I'll be cheering you on, offering insights, inspiration,
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and practical tools to help you heal your relationship with food
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and embrace the beauty of your body as a temple of the Holy Spirit
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with confidence and courage that can only be found in
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Christ. Join me as we journey together towards a more holistic
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approach to wellness, one that honors the wisdom of your body as
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God's creation, the teachings of our faith, and the unique
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purpose you're called to fulfill. You were made
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to bloom, to come into full beauty and health in
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order to bear good fruit for the Lord with your life. So if you're ready
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to nourish your body, feed your soul, and bloom into the best version of
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yourself, then you're in the right place, and I'm so happy you're here.
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Welcome to Nourish to Bloom, where every day is a sacred
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invitation to thrive. Hey there, welcome back to the
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Nourish to Bloom podcast. Happy to be spending time here with you
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today. I hope that you are having a beautiful and blessed week,
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and I'm really happy to talk to you about
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surrender today. It's always a topic that the Lord
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calls me back to again and again and again, and tries to teach
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me more about every time, because y'all, surrender
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is challenging. It is one of those things that
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we may do well for a little bit, and then we, like, pull back, and
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then we surrender again, and then we pull back. And it is just—
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surrender is just that pathway and that doorway to so much
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peace and freedom. And so I love to circle back and talk about
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surrender and share it in ways that I think might be
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more practical or a different perspective than maybe what you've
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thought about surrender. And I have this beautiful
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client example that I wanted to share that led to the creation
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of this podcast. And so I've been working with a woman who
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is a choleric temperament, and so she is a doer.
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She likes to get things done. She enjoys
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the accomplishment and the recognition that she gets from doing
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things done. She enjoys that satisfaction and the praise
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that can come with achieving something. There are a lot of
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strengths that come with a choleric personality— that determination, that
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leadership, decisiveness, initiative. Trust me,
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as a sanguine, I would love to be paired with a choleric to get
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things done. But just like every single temperament, it can have a
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downside. And for her, one of the challenges that was coming up in coaching
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is what happens when things are outside of her control.
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She doesn't particularly like feeling uncomfortable. She likes to know
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what's happening. She likes to know what the plan is and knowing that
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she can do something about the outcome.
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But it shows up in different ways at work with her
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maybe not being as cooperative, or there's a
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little bit of tension between her and coworkers. And so one of the things
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that we've been really diving into in her coaching sessions
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is learning how to let go of control.
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And it's not like we can, you know,
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dive into this, like, into the deep end with it. So
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one of the things that we have worked on is trying to figure out how
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we can practice letting go of control in a
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small, low-stakes way, not some huge life-altering
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situation, but how can we start to build this
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practice of— Learning to know that not everything has
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to be within her control. And if we
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do this in this small, low-stakes way, it helps her to practice being
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uncomfortable. It helps her to practice not feeling like she has to get
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everything right. It gives her permission to be messy,
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permission to make mistakes and learn to be okay
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with that. And it helps her to practice
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something to be imperfect without immediately going in to fix
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it. And so one of the ideas that we came up with as a way
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for her to, to kind of practice this was coloring with her
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non-dominant hand. And that brought up a lot of
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anxiety for her because she loves to
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color, but she also likes things to look very pretty and ordered and perfect,
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right? And so we talked about practicing and giving herself that permission
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to color with her non-dominant hand. And not only that, but
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using atypical colors for things. So the whole
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goal of this was, you know, not trying to make the
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picture look right. The goal was simply to inculcate— was simply to
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color and to be in that moment and to enjoy the
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process, not necessarily the outcome.
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And so this coloring with her non-dominant hand meant that there was going to be
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imperfect lines, that there was no right colors,
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there was no fixing it, but just letting it be what it was.
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And just going through and getting curious about that
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process and how things felt while she was doing that. And
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so in one of our recent sessions, she brought that picture
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to this session and she showed it to me. And we would talk through
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what that exercise was actually like for her.
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And one of the things that she said, it really stood out to me.
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And she said that there were moments when she desperately wanted to switch back to
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her dominant hand. Mm-hmm. Because it would be easier, it
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would be faster, she could get it done, it would look better.
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And as she's telling me this, I, you know, I had that thought of like,
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oh yeah, I, I know that. Like, I know how that feels. I know
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how other people kind of say the same thing,
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right? So isn't that often what we're trying
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to change, right? Like, how often do we do this when we are trying to
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make changes or try something new? When we are
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trying to maybe respond differently,
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or we're learning to trust instead of worry, when we're seeking that
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surrender instead of control, when we're working
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to, you know, try to become someone who is patient and more
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peaceful and more trusting, if we're trying to build new health
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habits, if we're trying to take the next step on what the
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Lord is calling us to, if we're trying or entering a
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new phase of of parenting.
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These are all the things that it requires of us, and then it gets uncomfortable,
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right? We don't know, we don't know how to navigate this. It becomes
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uncomfortable, and somewhere along the way we think like,
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this isn't working, this isn't natural for me, or
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this is too hard. It would just be easier. I would be
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better off just going back to what I was doing before.
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And so we switch back to our quote-unquote dominant hand. We go
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back to our old patterns of doing things, our old ways of thinking,
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our old coping mechanisms, our old habits. And
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because those things are familiar, they feel right,
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even though when we necessarily know they're not good for us.
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Sometimes we convince ourselves that this is simply who we are, that this is
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just the way that I am. I'm a constant worrier, or I,
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I'm, I'm a control freak, or I just always need to know
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what's going on, or I have to do everything myself.
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And maybe those things have become so familiar that we mistake that familiar—
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familiarity for our identity.
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And all of this reminded me of a story in Matthew
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chapter 19 where a young man comes to Jesus and asks a
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pretty profound question. You know, Lord, what must I do to have eternal life?
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And Jesus points him towards the commandments, and the young man responds
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that he has kept them. And, and he then asks essentially, you know,
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what else can I do? And Jesus gave him an answer that I
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don't think he was expecting, and ultimately he didn't really like.
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He tells the, the young man to, to sell his possessions
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and give the money to the poor, and then come follow him,
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and then his treasure will be in heaven. And Scripture
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tells us that when the young man heard this, he went away sad because he
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had many possessions. And so I
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think it's important to notice something about this story. The young man wasn't
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necessarily lacking in religious effort. He was
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asking Jesus what else he could do. And Jesus put his
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finger on something deeper. He asked something
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more of him. And ultimately, this young man, there was
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something there that he was not willing to surrender. There was
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something that he was holding on to, something that had a claim over his
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heart. And his possessions could
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represent more than these material things. And I think that's where this story
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meets us today. These possessions can be these
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metaphors for us because most of us probably don't have
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this exact same struggle as a young man with all these possessions, right? But we
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definitely have things we don't want to surrender. And that's what these possessions are
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metaphors for, these things that we want to hold on to that the Lord is
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asking us to To, to give
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away, to come and follow him, to, to then
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receive our true treasure. But we hold on to things like
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control or self-reliance. Maybe you're holding on to
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fear or worry or a need to know what's coming
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next. Maybe you're holding on to your
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reputation or your plans or an insistence that
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things have to happen a certain way. And so it's sometimes
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like Jesus is kind of pushing on us in
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that same spot on that very thing and says,
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please give it to me. Hand it over to me. Let
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me have it. Let me take it. And our response is
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sometimes, but Lord, I know how to do this. Like, I can manage this.
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Lord, I know how to worry about this really, really well.
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Or, I know how to make this happen. Or, I better
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protect myself. Or, I know how to keep everything under
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control. But what Jesus is saying is,
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follow me. And if we pause,
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we can see how Him
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asking us to follow Him, Him asking us to go into these places
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that are uncomfortable, or where we have to let go of these, these
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quote-unquote possessions, it can be a little bit like coloring with our non-dominant hand.
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It's awkward or difficult, uncomfortable
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or messy. We don't feel capable or competent,
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and we don't feel like we have control. And so we desperately want to
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switch back because we know that we could at least
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try our hardest to get it done. And if we don't, then we
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have the excuse of, well, this was just not meant to be, or that's just
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the way I am. But instead,
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what if we were to kind of flip this script? And what if the
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discomfort isn't evidence that we're doing something wrong?
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What if sometimes the discomfort is evidence that we're learning something
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new, or we're turning the page and writing the next
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chapter in, in, on our blank page of
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God's plan for our lives? What if the awkwardness
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is part of surrendering? Because surrendering definitely
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doesn't feel peaceful
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at first, right? Sometimes surrender feels like we're
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losing our grip. Sometimes faith feels
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less like confidently walking forward and more like us just
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realizing we don't have control over the outcome no matter how hard we try.
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Sometimes trusting God means allowing ourselves to be uncomfortable
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without immediately reaching for the thing that Would make us feel like we're in
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control again. And maybe that's what the
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invitation is, not necessarily to surrender
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everything all at once, but to practice, to start with something
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small, a low-stakes situation like I've done with my
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coaching client with coloring with her non-dominant hand.
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We can, we can practice with something where we can notice our instinct to do,
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to take control and then choose something different.
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Maybe you don't immediately send the text because you're anxious about how
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someone will respond. Maybe you don't rehearse every
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possible outcome. Maybe you let someone else do
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something without correcting how they do it.
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Maybe you leave something unfinished or you allow something to
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be imperfect. Maybe, and this one's a
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tough one, maybe you sit with the uncertainty instead of immediately trying to
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solve it. And you pray
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this beautiful prayer of surrender. Oh Jesus, I
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surrender myself to you. Take care of everything.
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And then you let yourself use that non-dominant hand. You
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try that new thing. You work on building that new habit. You
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practice responding in a different way.
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Because the thing about the coloring exercise is that my client didn't
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suddenly become comfortable using her non-dominant hand. She still wanted
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to switch back, and she noticed that desire, but she stayed
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with it. She, she trusted that she could learn something
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from this experiment and that that something was going to lead
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her to being able to do this in, in higher stakes areas of her life.
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And I think that there's something really important about that. Because growth doesn't
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always mean that the old impulse disappears.
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Sometimes growth is we just notice the impulse and then choose differently.
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We may still want control. We may still want to worry and, and
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stress about the situation. We may still want to go back to what's
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familiar. We may still be thinking, I could do this
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better myself. But perhaps faith is
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learning to recognize that voice without automatically obeying it.
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That young man in Matthew walked away because he wasn't ready to surrender
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what he was holding. And so I wonder why
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Jesus might be asking you to surrender today. What is that thing
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that you're gripping so tightly? What is the thing that you keep telling
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yourself you need in order to be okay, or that you need in order to
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start? What is the thing that makes you say,
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I can trust God with this, But not that.
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Because sometimes the very thing that we're most reluctant to give God is the very
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thing that's keeping us from experiencing the freedom that He's offering.
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Jesus wasn't asking the young man to give up something because He wanted to deprive
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him, because we see that He was inviting him to something
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greater. And that's what
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surrender can be for us, not just giving something up, but
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making room for something so much better than we can imagine.
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Room for trust, room for freedom, room for God to work and
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move in our lives. So this week,
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take some time and ask yourself, where am I reaching for my
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dominant hand? Where am I automatically returning to old
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patterns because it's easier or more comfortable?
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What's one thing I can practice surrendering in one small,
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low-stakes way? Because remember, you don't have to change
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everything today. And you don't have
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to be perfectly trusting, because I know that that's hard too. And the Lord is
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patient, and he's there, and he's just waiting. You don't have to
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eliminate every anxious thought or need for control.
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Just practice. Just notice.
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Notice the impulse to switch back. And instead,
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just pause. Breathe. Pray.
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Oh, Jesus, I surrender myself to you. Take care of everything.
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Because maybe that goal isn't really to become good at using our
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non-dominant hand, but maybe the goal is to discover that we don't
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need to be in control of everything in order to be okay.
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It's learning that God is going to meet us in our mess. When
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our lines aren't straight, when the colors don't make sense, when the
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picture of our lives doesn't look the way we thought it would,
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that is where that surrender can begin.
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Thank you so much for joining me today. Remember, until next
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time, you don't have to have everything figured out to take that next step of
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faith. Sometimes you just have to be willing to put down
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whatever it is that you're holding. And trust where God
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is leading you. I pray that you have a beautiful and blessed week.
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I would love for you to leave a review, share this episode with
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someone else, spread the Nourish to Bloom message. I
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hope you have a wonderful week, and I will talk soon. Take
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care. Bye. Bye.