Surrender · “Let Go to Receive”
All Shall Be Well
To meet fear, regret, or trouble by inwardly returning to Julian’s revealed assurance — ‘all shall be well’ — resting the heart in trust of God’s goodness rather than gripping the worry.
When fear or grief rises, name it honestly — then return inwardly to the revealed words: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” Lean the heart’s weight onto God’s goodness, let the grip on the worry loosen, and repeat as often as the fear returns. Trust, not denial.
What it is
This is the contemplative use of Julian of Norwich’s best-known revealed words as a trust-anchor against fear and trouble. Pondering the hard reality of sin and suffering, Julian is given an answer that she returns to again and again: “It behoved that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” (Middle English: “Synne is behovabil, but al shal be wel & al shal be wel & al manner of thyng shal be wele.”) The practice is to meet a frightened or grieving moment by inwardly returning to this assurance — not as wishful thinking, but as a deliberate act of trust in the goodness of God, letting the heart loosen its grip on the worry and rest. It is repeated inwardly the way a refrain steadies a troubled mind.
Distinct from the other acceptance/“all is well” entries. Brach’s Radical Acceptance is a psychological two-winged stance (clear seeing + compassion) toward present experience; Hawkins’ Letting Go is a felt discharge of an emotion’s energy; New Thought “all is well” affirmations assert a present metaphysical fact about Mind. Julian’s is none of these. It is a medieval Christian trust-practice: not a stance you generate and not a law you affirm, but a received assurance — words she believed were given to her — that one leans on in the teeth of fear, trusting a personal, loving God to make all well in the end. The frame is trust, not technique; faith, not affirmation.
The Method
Julian gives a disposition, not a drill — so this is light, and faithful to that:
- Name the trouble honestly. Julian does not pretend sin and pain away — she calls sin the cause of all pain and feels it sharply. Begin by admitting the fear or grief as real.
- Return to the assurance. Inwardly recall and rest on the revealed words: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” Let them be an answer to the trouble, not a denial of it.
- Lean the heart into God’s goodness. The ground of the assurance is not your optimism but God’s love and providence — that He “holdeth” all things (cf. the hazelnut, ch. 5). Let trust take the weight the worry was carrying.
- Loosen the grip. As the trust settles, let the clenched need to fix or foresee everything relax. You are not promised the outcome you want; you are invited to trust the One who holds the whole.
- Repeat as needed. Julian herself returns to these words repeatedly across the book; use them again whenever fear rises, as a steadying refrain. (Sourcing: the refrain and “sin is behovable” are verbatim from Revelations , ch. 27, in modernized rendering; the surrounding steps describe how Julian holds the assurance, not a prescribed exercise she lays out.)
Source & Lineage
Julian of Norwich (c. 1342 – after 1416), anchoress of Norwich, received this assurance within her thirteenth shewing during the 1373 visions and unfolds it across the Long Text of Revelations of Divine Love, especially chapters 27 and 32.
The words arise specifically as God’s answer to her anguish over sin — a counsel of trust, not an erasure of evil’s reality. The phrase has since become the single most quoted line of English mysticism (echoed by T. S. Eliot in Little Gidding).
Common refinements
Using it to bypass pain. Julian does the opposite — she holds the reality of sin and suffering and the assurance together. Don’t deploy it to silence grief or shut down legitimate fear.
- Hearing it as “nothing bad will happen to me.” It is not a promise of preferred outcomes; it is trust that, ultimately and in God, all will be made well. Misreading it as outcome-insurance breeds disillusion.
- Excusing harm or inaction. Trusting God does not cancel responsibility to act, protect, or repair. Where action is needed, act — then trust.
- Reciting mechanically. It works as a lean of the heart, not a chant. Let the words actually meet the fear.