The Strength of Surrender
For someone who has spent a lot of time fighting for a more
positive, fulfilled life and committing to never
give up on attaining mental freedom, surrendering wouldn’t have come up as
a word I ever particularly resonated with. It didn’t ooze the strength and
tenacity that I wanted to exude; my mind equated it with weakness and would
stubbornly avoid that idea of it.
Which is somewhat helpful when there’s a goal to reach and
of course, I still wouldn’t be an advocate of quitting or giving up the good
fight. However I’ve now learned to look at surrendering differently, in a way
that I believe is actually key to moving forward and ensuring continued freedom
and contentment.
It was when I heard an affirmation about surrendering
control in a guided meditation recently that I really connected with the whole idea
of surrender. It just made me smile, it made so much sense and brought with it
such a relief; permission to completely let go of control.
Surrendering is relinquishing resistance. It is the act of
truly letting go and accepting. It actually opens up the potential for positive
change to flow. Working on ourselves is a wonderfully worthy pursuit but along
the way, there is a need to surrender to the journey too – to take a break from
paving the path and just see where the trail leads.
I’ve realised the importance of surrender and these are my
thoughts on why it’s essential to remember to wave that white flag now and
then:
Swapping Control for Contentment
When we surrender to what is, we let go of the compulsion of
control. I’ve found that in learning so much about living a positive life, I sometimes
try to bypass negative experiences, more earnest for answers than acceptance.
Knowing that there is so much information out there can lead us away from where
we are, immediately looking to control the situation and how we feel about it.
Surrendering allows us avoid that splurge of spiritual materialism and instead,
feel, listen and be. When life speaks, control is thinking of what it’s going
to reply instead of simply listening. If we surrender control and choose to
accept, we give ourselves a different experience. We get to just be instead of
figuring out what to do. And as human beings, not human doings, that’s a
necessary experience to give ourselves. Contentment comes when we can fully accept
where we’re at and develop our own learnings from life’s lessons.
Creating Peace in the Present
We gain significant inner peace when we surrender to the
process of change. Without the affinity to control, our mind is freed up to be
peacefully present. We let go of fear, worries and expectations and replace
them with mental space and the opportunity for clarity.
Peace of mind cannot
exist when there’s a relentless resistance to what is. Fighting with our minds
and focusing on how we should be and
what we must work on, is so very
exhausting. Surrendering to the present moment invites us to let go of past and
future thinking and just be fully where we are in the moment that we’re in. It
relieves us the weight of overthinking and presents the potential for insight
to ignite.
Peace is created by surrendering in the same way that the
dirt in dirty water settles when we stop stirring it.
Strengthening Trust and Patience
Surrendering to the ebbs and flows of life builds our
ability to trust in the process, to cultivate patience and learn to enjoy the
journeys that we are on. When we choose to give up our need to have everything
worked out now, we are given the
chance to harness trust in our own capabilities, resilience and power. Solid
foundations of trust about where we’re going and how we’ll get there can be
built. The act of surrender bolsters our belief in both ourselves and the
process of personal growth. It also encourages us to value patience – something that
took me some time!
When we stop fighting how long it’s taking, how we think we should
be doing or where we think we’re falling short – we get to actually breathe and
release the pressure, we get to cement our self-belief and understand that
these things take time.
Embracing Humanity and Limitations
When we surrender our perfectionism, our need to be seen as
strong, our desire to make everything better
– we allow ourselves the beautiful, inimitable experience of being human. We’re
imperfect, we’re emotional, we’re not supposed to know it all or have it all
figured out. And when we keep fighting our own humanity, we will always lose.
Surrendering
to the fact that we are human, I can say from experience, can be quite
challenging. It means being vulnerable and accepting the fact that we will make
mistakes (the same ones multiple times too), we will get upset, we will do
things we wish we didn’t. We can’t do it all, we can’t know it all and what a
fantastic realisation that is, because the sooner we accept our limitations,
the sooner we can embrace working with what we’ve got and actually begin to get somewhere.
By surrendering to the messy, colourful, unpredictable
experience of being human, our compassion grows, our self-acceptance thrives
and we become kinder, more loving and more unapologetically authentic, which is
a beautifully freeing way to be.
‘When I let go of
what I am, I become what I might be’ Lao Tzu
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