Claudia's Insights (#2) Surrender
Jan 26, 2020
Insight #2: Surrender (to what life presents you with)
Surrender – not a word anyone really likes, right? The connotation is rather negative. It smells and tastes like giving up. Losing. Not being in power and control anymore.
The thing is: life can be wonderful. And really shitty.
And throw things at us which we consider as horribly bad, heartbreaking, extremely difficult or challenging, tiring or exhausting or even unbearable.
And it rarely unfolds exactly as we want it to.
Very often these are situations we cannot change or don’t have any control over. Or life presents us with stuff we have not planned (if we consider it good or bad is a matter of perspective. A topic for another time)
We get fired from a job.
Our partner ends a relationship.
A person is treating us horrendously bad (we could change the situation, not the person though).
Our assets shrink to nothingness due to a downturn in the economy.
We get sued for something.
Our job is suddenly being moved to a different country.
We get offered a position which is fascinating, but does not fit into our plans.
It rains ;-).
The not having control over stuff in our life is what makes many of us crazy, anxious, tense and stressed. While believing that life better manifests to our likes and if it doesn’t something’s wrong leads to making life a constant struggle.
Not if we surrender.
If we’re able to let go of the idea how a situation was supposed to develop and if we stop trying too hard, the results can be rather powerful.
If we accept and respect the flow of life and rather deal with what is unfolding using our free will and our decision power, opportunities we’ve not noticed before, can suddenly show up.
No theoretical concept
I practiced surrendering this summer.
This meant for me, accepting that due to my life situation - losing a very important person in my life and moving countries completely unplanned – I had absolutely no idea where my path would lead me in many ways.
Scary stuff.
I had no control over certain aspects of the situation, but could still decide in others. The latter took me a while to understand.
Only when surrendering I could take the next steps instead of fighting the situation and the pain I hated.
Tough - and extremely powerful
Easy? Hell no!
This was one of the toughest things to learn. And I'm still at it as the old habits often lurk in the back of my head to take over…our brain is not so keen on change.
The way forward: being kind to myself (highly recommend that for yourself too). It's a process, not a tick in the box of the to-do list.
So - I’m no exception – I’d rather like things to go my way. Sometimes it does, stupidly enough other times it doesn’t. And knowing about surrender made dealing with the latter so much more bearable.
I believe in serendipity. A book which made me learn and understand the concept and the possibility of surrender showed up in my life exactly when I needed it. Thank you universe ;-). : The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer
