Dancing with the Void: The Courage to Surrender When You've Tried Everything

There's that moment in free fall when it all slows, when gravity itself seems to hesitate, and for an instant, you feel weightless: suspended between what was and what will be. This is what I call the void: vast, infinite, aching with uncertainty. It is what others may call the Portal.

In its essence, it is the space where old selves scatter and new possibilities stir, aching to take shape.

It feels like both exile and initiation.

I know this space well.

I’m in it right now.

Maybe you are too.

We move in and out of the void throughout our lives, but its presence is always there, like an undercurrent. Each time, I find there is a visceral blend of fear and potential when every strategy, every logical next step, every frantic attempt to hold it all together stops working. Business stalls and the usual methods of making it rain come up dry. Applying to jobs feels like a practical joke. Relationships dissolve.

The things you relied on fall away, leaving only empty space.

We resist empty space; it whispers of endings before we are ready, of possibilities we aren’t quite ready to claim.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Humans despise uncertainty even more. Our brains crave patterns, predictability, stability. Uncertainty ignites our nervous system with anxiety and dread. But I've learned something through these repeated, uncomfortable plunges into the unknown:

The void isn’t something you master or control.

It's something you surrender to, dance with, and allow to shape you.

The First Dance: Los Angeles and Letting Go

My first real experience embracing the void was in my early thirties. I'd quit a 7 year job in Asia, moved across the world to Los Angeles, and bet everything on a passion project. Serenflipity was gaining momentum, but it wasn’t paying the bills. By October of that first year, reality set in hard. I couldn't pay my rent. A cold, constant panic startled me awake each morning before the birds.

Someone told me a story about FedEx founder Fred Smith. With his company on the brink of collapse, he flew to Las Vegas with his last $5,000, played blackjack, turned it into enough to make payroll, and kept FedEx alive.

It was insane.

And it worked.

Inspired (and desperate), I decided to loosen my grip. Three last-minute invitations came from separate friends over New Year's Eve. All to Aspen. Fortunately, none to Las Vegas.

My rational mind screamed that it was irresponsible. That being surrounded by frozen-faced ladies in fur and diamonds, spraying each other with champagne was not where I needed to be. But my intuition whispered, go.

I had just enough frequent flyer miles and a free place to stay.

So, I went.

I worked from the lodge during bluebird days. I said yes to the party invites. A friend handed me a half-day ski pass. And for the first time in months, a crack appeared in the panic.

And then, in one of those serendipitous moments that logic can’t predict, I met someone who became my first real consulting client. That single project carried me through the next few months. It allowed me to exhale, to unclench, and to keep building.

It wasn’t luck. It was the void, opening.

Somatic Surrender: Letting the Void Take You

Years later, I'd encounter the void again in a deeper, more unshakeable way through somatic meditation.

At first, my body fought. My brain desperately tried to maintain control. I felt sluggish and sick, my body squirming, gripping the familiar edges of consciousness.

"Just keep breathing," my guide whispered gently. "Let yourself surrender."

I clung to the edge of a cliff — not just metaphorically. I could see it. Feel it. Like a scene from a cartoon where the villain is hurled into a seething abyss, their scream swallowed whole before it ever fully escapes. My fingers throbbed against the jagged ledge as a vast black maw gaped below, stretching so deep it felt like it could devour time itself.

I didn’t want to fall.

I hated the feeling of falling.

“Let it take you.”

I was certain that if I let go, I would dissolve into nothing.

That’s what the void is: the death of everything familiar.

But the more I resisted, the more it tightened around me.

So, I exhaled.

My fingers uncurled.

And finally, spent and hollow, like a toddler after a tantrum, I surrendered.

I let it envelop me.

I let it become me.

My fingers slipped.

I was no longer clinging to the edge.

It was not an end.

It was an opening.

Later, I wrote in a poem:

The void is blooming.

Because that’s what it does—when you stop fighting it.

The Science of the Void

Neuroscientists have found that uncertainty registers in the brain the same way physical pain does. Our brains hate it. When we don’t know what’s coming, our nervous system panics, scanning for patterns, desperate for control.

But there’s another side to this:

Uncertainty is where breakthroughs happen.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the researcher behind "flow," found that breakthroughs don’t come from certainty. They come from risk, from letting go of the shore and wading into deeper waters. When the brain enters a "prediction error" state, where expectations collapse, new neural pathways form.

This is why innovation, creativity, and transformation flourish in the void.

Carl Jung called it the "fertile void."

The cosmic inhale before the next great unfolding.

The dark soil before the first green shoot.

Just as stars are born from collapsing galaxies, we are reshaped by surrendering to the unknown.

Trusting the Void Again (and Again)

I write this in the midst of a new void. Career, income, relationships—the old tactics aren’t working.

It’s frustrating.

Terrifying.

Makes me want to claw back control.

But I know something greater awaits.

And the process of growing into that? It’s painful. Awkward. Exhilarating.

But I also know that I’m not alone in this.

So many of us are quietly carrying the weight of uncertainty — yearning for more, yet terrified to let go of what feels safe.

Hesitant to admit that we don’t have it all figured out, we grip the familiar, even when we know it no longer fits.

I talk to friends about this regularly and I’ve been asking myself: what do I need to hear right now to sit and soften in this darkness?

Don't try to control the void. The moment I fight against uncertainty, I amp up my suffering. I’ve been practicing this in cold plunges — where the best advice I’ve received is to relax into the discomfort. Soften the tension. Slow the breath. There’s something almost alchemical in that surrender — maybe it’s the norepinephrine boost— but as soon as I stop resisting, something shifts. The same applies to life. Let yourself be shaped, changed, and opened by uncertainty, even when it’s profoundly uncomfortable. There’s something beyond current imagination waiting to bloom.

Turn it over. When anxiety floods in, I visualize myself handing my fears and uncertainties over to the Universe, God, whatever that force greater than ourselves is. Not passively, but actively choosing to let something bigger than myself handle it. Over and over and over again. I recently did this with my housing situation, and immediately after surrendering, an uncomfortable situation came up and I regretted the decision. My impulse was to take back control, to fix it. But instead, I kept turning it over and trusting. I sat with the discomfort. And then, two great options emerged from the ick — ones I could not have forced into existence on my own, and I’ve just moved in to an awesome new place.

Build your foundations. Uncertainty thrives when your internal foundations (physical, emotional, spiritual) crumble. Stick fiercely to routines that nourish your body, mind, and soul. Even when external structures are dissolving, and scarcity says to cut back to the barest of bare bones (ramen in your parents’ basement vibes) internal consistency will keep you grounded.

Receive what's effortless. When we're scared, we tend to fixate on forcing outcomes that aren’t happening, gripping tightly to things that resist us. But what if we stopped pushing and started receiving? Pay attention to the effortless invitations, the quiet synchronicities. Trust that what is meant for you will find you — not through struggle, but through alignment. I know, it’s easier said than done — and in my experience, when I start paying attention to the effortless invitations, the serendipities and what feels ‘easy’ (note: the constructive easy, not the couch-rot easy) more keep coming and flow starts to build. One of my favorite sayings is that the things you want, want you back.

Shift your state. Anxiety traps us in constricted, analytical brain states, making it nearly impossible to see new possibilities. Instead, seek experiences like movement, nature, or creativity, that shift your brain into more receptive states. Walk by the ocean. Dance in your kitchen. Say yes to something unexpected, even when anxiety or fear tells you to stay small and stay at home. Breakthroughs come not from overthinking, but from changing your vantage point. This is rooted in one of my favorite principles in innovation and creativity: think about where you have your best ideas. On a run. In the shower. Cooking. Definitely not starting at an Excel spreadsheet or deep into the fifth season of Virgin River. (Ask me how I know. ;))

Be authentically honest. True vulnerability isn’t performance. It’s not curated chaos or a perfectly framed confession. It’s raw, quiet, unguarded truth. Share honestly with the people who love you. And with the people who will sit with you in the darkness and sprinkle magic dust on your wildest dreams. Let them see you in the uncertainty. Let them hold you. It strengthens bonds and reminds us we aren’t alone, even in the void.

Stay generous. When nothing’s coming in, don’t shut down—keep putting energy out. Offer what you can, where you can. Time, attention, a heartfelt compliment to a stranger. When work has slowed for me, I’ve taken on small pro bono projects for entrepreneurial friends, not just to help them, but to keep myself in motion, to remind myself that I still have value to give. Scarcity shrinks us. Generosity expands us. Even in the void.

Choosing Trust Over Fear

The void isn't something we can ever truly master.

It's a teacher, a companion, a womb, and a dark cave that can restore us if we let it.

Each time I find myself resisting uncertainty again, I'm reminded that there's no way around it — only through.

So, if you find yourself gripping the crumbling crags of certainty, remember:

The void is not your enemy.

It is your invitation.

Let go. Let yourself unravel. Let yourself be rewritten.

Because what waits on the other side is not oblivion.

It is the next, truer version of you, waiting to be born.