When Letting Go Feels Impossible: Lessons on Surrender from a 95-Year-Old Woman

You’re about to read something real.

Not theory. Not airy slogans.

This is pulled from my own life, from palliative rooms where silence says more than words, and from hundreds of psychic sessions where the truth lands harder, and kinder, than certainty ever could.

I also know your attention is running on caffeine and notifications, so let’s be practical:

• Want the whole experience? Plan for ~20 minutes. You’ll get stories, straight talk about ego vs. love, why control backfires, and a bedtime practice that actually trains your nervous system to let go.

• Short on time? Give me ~5 minutes. Each section opens with a bold takeaway and closes with clear Key Takeaways, so you can glide and still leave with something useful.

Read to the end. The closing ties it all together, how to face the fear of dying (and living) with presence, and how to practice surrender nightly so it sticks.

If you’re curious how surrender shows up on your path, you can book a session here, I weave these same insights into every reading.

Wondering what actually happens in a professional session with me? Here’s What to Expect.

Freedom in the Fall (..and no, I don’t mean collapse of society)

Why surrender isn’t chaos but trust, and how a childhood dive shaped everything I know about letting go.

 All my life, people have told me how much freedom I give them.

Friends, clients, even strangers at weddings who find themselves dancing like no one’s watching.

Not something I’m entirely conscious of, just who I’ve always been.

It’s a combination of not being concerned with what other people think of me, and I love the feeling of surrendering to a moment.

Maybe that’s why, as a kid, I joined the dive team.

There was something about standing high above the water, heart pounding, and then falling, choosing to fall, with just enough discipline to twist into the plunge gracefully.

It taught me that surrender isn’t chaos. It’s trust.

It’s the balance between discipline and release.

I didn’t realize how much this shaped me until years later, sitting beside someone facing their last breaths.

Ever wondered what actually happens after we die, beyond the fear and the stories? You’ll find 12 striking insights in What Happens After We Die: Lessons from Spirit.

Facing the Final Breath

What sitting with a 95-year-old woman in her final days revealed about resistance, love, and the nearness of spirit.

Let’s call her Margaret. She’s nearing 100 years of age and receiving palliative care.

Her body is slowing, her breaths softer, but what struck me most was not her frailty, it was her resistance.

She was terrified of letting go.

I’ve learned through bereavement training to stay quiet in these moments.

Not to rush to comfort, not to fill silence with platitudes. Just listen. Nod.

Let the pause stretch. And when the time feels right, ask about love, about who they once were, about what they’ve survived.

That space allows people to mourn not only who they’ve lost, but who they themselves used to be.

As Margaret spoke about her family, I felt names rise in my awareness, her parents, her brother, all in spirit.

Later, when she shared stories of her childhood, she spoke their names out loud, the same ones I had already sensed.

Their presence was undeniable to me.

Still, I didn’t tell her. It wasn’t my role.

She hadn’t sought me out for a psychic reading, and palliative care is not the place to prove psychic abilities.

My job was to witness her, not to be right.

Yet I knew with certainty that those she loved were near. And one day, she will see that for herself.

That moment reminded me of something I’ve always believed: this life is already the afterlife.

We are souls having a human experience.

Death isn’t an ending, it’s a waking up.

Some linger for a time, watching life continue. Others return home quickly.

But the truth is the same: consciousness doesn’t stop. And when you hold that truth close, fear loosens.

Surrender becomes possible.

Facing your shadow isn’t about breaking yourself down, it’s about freeing yourself. Explore this in Why Facing Your Shadow Leads to Real Growth.

Key Takeaways (for quick readers):

• Surrender isn’t chaos, it’s trust. Discipline steadies, but release frees.
• At life’s end, resistance often comes from fear of letting go, not from the body itself.
• Listening deeply creates space for people to mourn not just others, but their own fading identities.
• Loved ones in spirit remain near, whether acknowledged or not.
• Life itself is already the afterlife; death is simply waking up from the dream.

Control vs. Discipline

The surprising difference between clenching tighter and steadying yourself, and why discipline creates freedom where control never can.

One of the greatest struggles I’ve witnessed, in clients, in palliative care, and in everyday conversations, is the human need for control.

Control is rooted in ego.

It clings, it resists, it fears. It wants guarantees where none exist. And yet, for all its effort, control rarely gives us peace.

Discipline, however, is something entirely different.

Discipline isn’t about clenching tighter, it’s about steadying.

It’s habit. It’s structure. It’s a rhythm you can lean on when life feels chaotic.

Paradoxically, discipline creates the very freedom that control promises but never delivers.

Take money. When people are anxious about their finances, their first impulse is often to control, hoard, restrict, panic. But the solution isn’t control, it’s discipline.

Write down what’s coming in and what’s going out.

Keep every receipt. Pay attention.

When you track with discipline, you trade fear for awareness. And awareness is liberating, because it shows you where your choices really live.

The same is true for health.

You don’t control your body into losing weight or healing.

Control says, “Don’t eat this, don’t eat that, punish yourself until you shrink.” But discipline is quieter, more consistent.

It asks you to measure what’s fueling you, to notice how much you burn, to recognize when emotions drive your appetite more than hunger.

Discipline doesn’t shame, it steadies.

It gives you something concrete to hold while surrendering the rest.

Control is grasping. Discipline is grounding. And when you are grounded, surrender doesn’t feel like defeat. It feels like trust.

When the mind wrestles with fear, intuition offers clarity. Here’s how to tell the difference in Intuition vs. Anxiety: How to Know What to Trust.

Key Takeaways (for quick readers):

• Control is ego-driven, fearful, resistant, and draining.

• Discipline is structure, measurable, grounding, and freeing.

• Discipline in money or health creates awareness that dissolves fear.

• When you are disciplined, surrender becomes possible, not terrifying.

Ego’s Last Grip

Ego clings hardest at the end, but the truth that dissolves fear is the same one that can change your life right now.

What Margaret reminded me is that ego never goes quietly.

It drives us to survive, to eat, to achieve, to create futures worth striving toward.

Ego is what keeps us alive in the world of form.

But as much as it fuels us, it also clings.

It whispers that separateness is real, that “I” must protect myself at all costs.

It tightens its grip in moments of loss, of uncertainty, and especially at the threshold of death.

At its root, ego is fear. And fear, by its very nature, is the opposite of love.

Love is not clinging. Love is surrender.

Love is the great remembering, that we are not fragments scrambling for survival but one vast consciousness, expressed through billions of temporary faces, all returning to the same home.

This is what so few realize in their final moments: you are not dying, you are rejoining.

The illusion of separateness finally dissolves, and what remains is what was always there beneath the noise: love.

Not the fragile, conditional love we barter in daily life, but the infinite love that has no opposite, no ending, no loss.

For those afraid of death, this truth is medicine.

Death is not an obliteration of who you are, it is the release of the mask you wore, the shedding of a costume in a play that was never meant to last forever.

What steps forward is not absence, but wholeness. Not nothingness, but everything.

Fear dissolves when you realize you are not separate, you are already part of everything.

If that truth resonates, imagine what it could feel like applied to your own choices. My readings are designed for exactly that kind of clarity, reserve your time here.

Key Takeaways (for the quick readers):

• Ego fuels survival, but it clings hardest in the face of death.

• Fear is the root of ego; love is its opposite, and love is surrender.

• Death is not an ending but a rejoining, the return to oneness.

• What remains when ego dissolves is infinite, unconditional love.

A Practice in Surrender: Sleep Yoga

How bedtime can become your nightly rehearsal for surrender, and the practice that makes letting go feel safe.

If the thought of death unsettles you, or if letting go in life feels impossible, there is a practice that can help you soften into both.

It is called Sleep Yoga, drawn from the wisdom of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and it transforms bedtime into a spiritual rehearsal for surrender.

Each night, as you close your eyes, notice how your mind clings to the day, unfinished conversations, worries about tomorrow, memories that loop.

Instead of pushing them away, watch them drift.

Become the quiet observer of your thoughts as they rise and dissolve.

The practice is not about control, not about chasing sleep or forcing clarity. It’s about surrendering into the mystery of where consciousness goes when we sleep.

As you transition into dreaming, and then into the deeper stillness of REM where there are no dreams, try to hold just a thread of awareness.

Not sharp concentration, just a gentle noticing, as if you’re floating.

Many practitioners describe this state as womb-like, a place of safety and return.

Some even call it a heartbeat of the universe, the rhythm of the collective consciousness cradling you.

Sleep Yoga reframes death as something familiar.

Every night becomes a small death, and every morning a small rebirth.

Instead of clinging to the known, you practice loosening your grip, teaching your nervous system that release is safe.

In the same way a psychic reading reflects back your blindspots and patterns so you can navigate life with clarity, Sleep Yoga reflects back your deepest truth: that you are awareness itself, not the fear that clings to form.

When you bring this into practice nightly, surrender stops being an abstract idea and becomes embodied.

You start to see that letting go is not the end, it is a passage into renewal.

And in this way, you prepare not only for the sleep of tonight, but for the greater surrender that awaits all of us.

For those moments when grief feels endless, here’s a gentle reminder: Grief Isn’t Linear, And It Rarely Looks How We Expect It To.

Tarot as a Mirror

Three tarot archetypes that prove surrender is not weakness but renewal, whether or not you read cards yourself.

Tarot is one of the most powerful tools for self-reflection, especially when it comes to learning the art of surrender.

A psychic reading or tarot spread doesn’t predict your every move, it mirrors back the energies, patterns, and lessons you might be avoiding.

Three cards in particular embody the essence of surrender:

The Hanged Man – This card isn’t about punishment or loss; it’s about perspective. It teaches the wisdom of pausing, suspending control, and choosing patience over panic. In tarot readings, The Hanged Man often appears when you’re being asked to let go of forcing an outcome and instead allow clarity to emerge on its own.

Death – One of the most misunderstood tarot cards, Death rarely signifies physical death. Instead, it symbolizes transformation: the passage from one state to another. In psychic tarot readings, this card reminds us that endings are doorways, and resisting change only prolongs the discomfort. True freedom comes when we let what needs to die fall away, so we can step into what’s next.

The Star – Gentle, luminous, and deeply spiritual, The Star offers reassurance that renewal always follows release. After surrendering control, hope and healing naturally begin to rise. In an accurate tarot reading, The Star shows you the light at the end of the tunnel, the proof that surrender doesn’t strip you, it restores you.

Together, these cards remind us that surrender is not weakness.

It is freedom.

Whether in a professional psychic reading, an online tarot session, or your own daily practice, tarot cards act as a mirror to your soul.

They don’t dictate your future, they empower you to align with it, with love instead of fear.

If letting go feels impossible, Tarot has a way of holding up a mirror. Discover how in What Makes the Best Tarot Readings So Transformative.

Final Thoughts

Why surrender belongs to the soul, not the ego, and how remembering you’re already home changes everything.

Margaret didn’t need me to tell her what I sensed. She needed space to tell her own story.

And maybe that’s true for all of us.

We don’t need someone else to hand us freedom, we need to surrender into it ourselves.

Control belongs to the ego. Discipline belongs to the body. But surrender belongs to the soul.

And when you can surrender, whether through sleep yoga, through listening to the wisdom of the dying, or simply by dancing like no one’s watching, you begin to understand:

You are not separate. You are not ending.

You are love. You are returning home.

If you’re ready to bring that freedom into your own life, my calendar is open for new clients.

Click here to book your reading! Spots are limited so I can give each session my full attention.

This article was written by Chris Bennett, an internationally recognized psychic medium, clairvoyant, and tarot practitioner based in Canada. Celebrated by clients around the world as the best tarot reader in the world and frequently appearing in searches for the best psychic near me, Chris is known for providing evidential psychic readings and online clairvoyant sessions that are both accurate and transformational. His work blends the precision of evidential mediumship with the depth of spiritual guidance, offering profound clarity that empowers clients while honoring their free will.

From those searching psychic near me in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, or Belfast, to seekers in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Auckland, Wellington, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, and Houston, Chris Bennett’s name consistently emerges as a trusted guide. The global demand for his work demonstrates that psychic connection transcends geography, proving that an authentic and accurate psychic reading online can feel as intimate as sitting face to face.

Chris specializes in clairvoyant tarot readings, love psychic guidance, and evidential mediumship sessions that uncover hidden patterns, validate intuitive truths, and illuminate new possibilities for growth. Known for his unique ability to combine deep psychic insight with practical, real-world applications, Chris helps clients navigate love, grief, career shifts, and spiritual awakening with compassion and precision.

If you are ready to experience the best psychic reading online from one of the world’s most sought-after psychic mediums, you can explore what to expect in a session or book your reading today.