Surrender and joy

Reflections, a book that changed me, and my word for 2026

The Masai Mara, the place where I felt the most free and filled with joy

A few years ago, disillusioned with the idea of New Year’s resolutions, inspired by other writers, I switched to choosing a word to guide me through each year. For one reason or another, this has fallen to the wayside over the past couple of years. But I wished to bring the tradition back for 2026 and pick a word to guide me.

Whilst I don’t recall picking a word for 2025, a key word comes to mind to summarise what I did achieve. That word is ‘surrender’.

It may seem a negative word, but it has become a positive one for me. You could think of it more as acceptance, but I personally struggle with that concept.

It was only whilst listening to Miranda Hart’s wonderful new book I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest with You that I was able to accept acceptance but in the form of surrender. This is the word that she uses to describe acceptance of our reality, our situation, no matter how difficult. For Miranda, it was living with chronic illness that made her more or less bedbound for a decade. Her story resonated with my own battles with chronic joint pain.

I do believe books have the power to change us, but to say that one changed my life completely seems obsequious. It’s easy to pin everything on that book that I listened to at the right time. But I think it was the culmination of a journey I’ve been on for a while. Learning the nature of my neurodivergence, doing therapy, connecting with the neurodivergent community, and working with a neurodivergent coach, have all contributed.

These threads have slowly been revealing themselves and coming together to weave a way forward. But Miranda helped me understand these threads that I need to embody. She calls them ’treasures’.

I have been a warrior for so long. Unknowingly fighting undiagnosed AuDHD for most of my 34 years. Then in recent years, I’ve been fighting against my chronic joint pain.

Blaming myself for not trying hard enough to fix it. Pushing my body harder than it can take because that’s what I thought I had to do. I didn’t listen to my body. I fought with it. Every new injury, every stab of pain was another cruel injustice that I had to fight against. I wallowed, I cursed the world for being so unfair. I resented everyone who was simply able to walk, hike, or do anything they wanted without even thinking about it.

Miranda helped me see that the only thing I was scoring against in this fight was myself.

In this context, surrendering is not giving up. It is letting go of the fight that is making things worse. It is letting go of the resentment, the self-pity, the self-criticism, the blame, and the anger.

My therapist had become a bit of a broken record, telling me that I needed to accept my situation. In framing it as surrender and explaining why, Miranda Hart’s book finally helped me let go.

I’m currently recovering from another tendonitis flare-up. I had a setback, straining myself from grabbing my dog when I shouldn’t have. Typically, this would trigger a dark spiral of blaming myself and anger at the unfairness of it. Resentment at how my ADHD often makes me sabotage my physical health.

But this time, as I went for a walk the next day when the pain was at its worst, I found myself surprised at how light I felt. All those usual dark emotions and railing against the setback just weren’t there. I felt at peace.

So 2025 for me was a year of discovery of myself being AuDHD, and surrender to my chronic joint condition (which I now know is hypermobility, potentially Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome). I am far from perfect. I am not always in a peaceful state of surrender. But I have made significant progress and now it is easier to reach for surrender than for a sword.

I would like 2026 to be about joy and unmasking my true, wild self. Joy is another of Miranda Hart’s ten treasures. Discovering your wild self is also a key theme of her book. In reading about finding your wild self, I almost felt like I had written that myself. It is not a coincidence that my Substack is called Wild Wonderings.

She reminded me that joy can sit alongside the most difficult moments. We just have to look for it. I learnt this when I was in the depths of my grief, and it was nearly always nature that was able to provide me with the moments of joy I needed to get through.

And joy is so essential to my being as a neurodivergent person. For me, the experience of being neurodivergent is defined by the highs and lows of emotion and the sensitivity that comes with it. I could not imagine being myself without the heights of autistic joy, the tears that come easily in moments of awe, freedom and beauty.

So this year, to be more of my authentic self, I want to lean more into that joy and find it wherever I can. Finding happiness; that is never a goal to wear yourself out reaching for, but joy I can reach for that. And in doing so, shed my mask a little more.

Have you chosen a word to guide you this year? What is it and why did you choose it?

I aim to keep all but my most personal writing freely accessible. If you enjoyed my writing or benefited from it, please consider supporting my writing with a subscription, buying me a green tea or checking out my bookshop. Thank you.