Written by Reem Borrows, author of Unfollow the Leader, leadership strategist, and founder of Dreem Coaching and Consulting. With more than 25 years of leadership experience across both corporate and community sectors, Reem helps leaders and organizations align strategy, behavior, and culture through a practical, trauma-informed approach to leadership and personal growth.
I was seventeen when I went on a four-day bushwalk in the Northern Territory in northern Australia, not far from Darwin. It was a vast, rugged landscape of red earth, rock, waterfalls, and dense tropical bushland, similar to the terrain many people would recognize from Crocodile Dundee.
It was the kind of experience that stays with you for its simplicity. There was a steady rhythm to it, even though the walk itself was not easy. Long days, physical strain, unfamiliar terrain, and a sense of distance from everything else. It felt expansive and grounding at the same time.
On one of the last days, we stopped at a small waterfall to rest. I remember sitting at the top with a small group, including my friend Billy. The air was still, the water steady, the moment unremarkable in the way that often precedes something significant. There was no sense of urgency, no indication that anything was about to change.
And then it did. I slipped.
There was no time to react, no moment to catch myself or reach for anything solid. The water took me immediately, pulling me down the face of the waterfall with a steady force I had not anticipated. Within seconds, I was completely submerged, disoriented, and without any sense of direction.
The current forced me into what I later understood was an underwater cave. It was pitch black. I could not see anything. I could not breathe. I had no idea which way was up. Instinct took over, and I began reaching out in every direction, searching for something I could use to pull myself out.
Every surface I touched was solid rock. There was no opening, no light, no sense of space. Just pressure, darkness, and the growing awareness that I might not find a way out while completely submerged.
I began to fight.
I pushed harder, moved faster, searched with more urgency. Every part of me was trying to regain control, to force a way through, to get back to the surface. It felt like the only response available. Nothing changed. The more I fought, the more disoriented I became. The more energy I used, the less I had to draw from.
At some point, something in me began to give way. The effort drained from my body, and the urgency that had been driving me forward fell away. What replaced it was a stillness. I remember the thought so clearly as my internal voice told me I was going to die. There was an awareness of what was happening without panic, just a deep knowing of where I was.
I stopped fighting, stopped searching, and stopped trying to find a way out. In that moment, I let go completely. The tension left my body, the effort dropped away, and I was no longer trying to control what was happening around me.
And then everything went dark.
That was when I lost consciousness.
What I came to understand later is that my body, no longer tense and no longer resisting, was carried by the current through a narrow opening I had not been able to find while searching for it. I drifted out the other side and was pulled from the water by someone who had seen me surface as my body rose and fell in the current.
When I came to, I had no sense of who I was or where I was. My memory was gone, and everything felt distant and unclear. Billy swam over to me, and even though I did not recognize her, something in me recognized her presence. I remember smiling. She stayed with me, calming me down, as I slowly began to come back.
Over time, my memory returned. The shock passed. Life moved on. But that moment never left me.
What Stayed With Me
For a long time, I did not try to interpret what had happened. I did not turn it into a lesson or a story with meaning. It simply existed as something I had lived through.
Years later, through my work with leaders and teams, I began to recognize the same feeling in very different environments.
What stayed with me was the shift within that moment. The point at which everything changed because I stopped. Because I let go of the very thing that had been working against me.
What I Began to Understand
In the years since, I have seen this pattern play out in the way people respond to pressure, uncertainty, and complexity. There is a deeply ingrained instinct to push harder when things feel like they are slipping. To hold on more tightly, to increase effort, and to try to regain control through action.
In many situations, that instinct helps people move forward, solve problems, and stay engaged. There are also moments where that same response creates more strain, urgency, and less clarity.
In those moments, something internal unconsciously happens. The body moves into protection, the mind narrows its focus, and access to perspective and considered decision-making reduces. Research has shown that heightened stress responses can reduce cognitive flexibility and affect decision-making under pressure. Harvard Business Review
This is a natural human response. When it goes unnoticed, it creates a gap between what we know and how we behave.
That gap is where many leadership and personal challenges sit.
Where This Shows Up Now
What that experience revealed over time is a different way of understanding strength.
Strength can show up as the ability to recognize when we are reacting in ways that are no longer useful, and to create enough space to adjust. It allows clarity to return and supports more grounded action.
Surrender, in this sense, is often misunderstood. It can be understood as releasing resistance and allowing a more effective response to emerge. It involves pausing long enough to gain awareness and trust, both of which develop over time.
I did not include that experience in my book as a defining moment. It sits there as a reflection of something I have seen repeatedly in the way people lead and live. Whether someone is navigating a business, a team, a career, or their own internal landscape, the pattern is familiar. When things feel uncertain, the instinct is to tighten and push for control. There is another way of meeting those moments.
It begins with a pause.
A real pause, one that interrupts the reaction and creates space where there was none. It allows something deeper to come through before the next move is made. From there, awareness starts to return. Perspective widens. The body settles enough to respond with greater clarity.
With practice, that pause becomes more accessible. It becomes a way of meeting pressure rather than being overtaken by it.
Over time, it changes how we move through moments that feel like they are slipping, and how we lead ourselves within them.
And here is the email I would send. Calm, professional, accountable, but not over-apologizing into panic energy.
