The Power of Surrender
There are few things more maddening than running into obstacles and blockages while you’re working toward your goals!
You’ll be moving along nicely, feeling great about the progress you’re making, when all of a sudden – boom; you’re stuck. You’ve encountered an obstacle that you have no idea how to get around.
What you do next will often determine whether you achieve your goals or give up on them forever. Your first impulse will probably be to try to figure out a way to work through the obstacle or sidestep around it – or even force it to move out of your way.
But what if that doesn’t work? Does that mean your goals are toast? No!
Today you’re going to learn another powerful technique for dealing with obstacles: surrender.
You may think that surrendering to obstacles means that you’ll be giving up on your goals, but keep in mind that surrender is not the same thing as defeat.
When you surrender to obstacles, it means that you refuse to waste your energy fighting them. It means that instead of resisting and struggling, you’re going to step back and see the obstacle in a new light.
Here’s how to do it:
1) Step Back And Gain Some Emotional Distance
When most of us encounter obstacles, we tend to take them personally and draw conclusions about what they mean. We throw our hands up and declare that our goals are finished, we’re finished, and we’ve failed. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Instead of drawing conclusions about the obstacle you’re facing, step back and observe it. Why has it appeared in your life? What lessons can you learn from it? Is it possibly an opportunity to stretch yourself more than you’ve been willing to in the past?
2) Open To Your Creative Inspiration
Just asking those questions can get your creative inspiration flowing like crazy! When you detach from any need to push through the obstacle, you suddenly see that there are many other options available to you. During this time, be sure to jot down any insights and possibilities that may occur to you.
3) Give It Time
Even if you see some great possibilities for working through or around the obstacle, don’t take action on them right away. Give it a few days. Keep your distance, and you’ll probably notice that your fear and frustration will begin to dwindle. Before long you’ll feel stronger and more capable about moving forward again, at which time you can put some of your new ideas into motion.
When you enter into this process of surrender, don’t be surprised if the obstacle dissolves spontaneously on its own!
It happens frequently, simply because you’ve stopped trying to force things to happen and are instead willing to just go with the flow – which creates space for movement and progress to occur again.
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Try Not To Use Your Energy For Worry!
Worry is something we often fall into due to anticipation that a certain future event won’t happen or perhaps (if it’s negative) that it will occur. In zen they say that “the way is not difficult for those who have no preferences”.
This means that being open to the moment is ultimately much more fulfilling than to have a certain concept of the way that things HAVE to be in order to be fulfilled. Once you have a definite set preference, if anything deviates from that, you’ll be unhappy.
How many times have you worried about something for days and weeks that never even happened? Do you remember worrying about something happening but it wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be when it actually took place? Worry uses up a lot of our resources.
When you worry you aren’t in the moment but you are in the fear of what “may” happen. Think of the time you lose when you worry. For instance if you have a romantic pinic planned and there is a 50/50 chance of rain that Saturday, you can find yourself concerned about that during the week. Think about the time you lost with your family , loved ones or lost concentration due to worrying.
A lot of our worry can be eliminated by realizing we don’t have to force life to turn out a certain way all the time. To worry means that we assume that if things don’t match the picture we have we won’t be happy.
We can all remember some situations that we didn’t have control over that turned out positively. For instance, in the movie Hitch, Will Smith is a dating consultant and gives his client (Kevin James) dating advice to improve his image and outcome with the woman he is drawn to that he believes would never give him a second look.
It turns out that it was the imperfections of Kevin James’s character (including dropping mustard on his shirt) that were part of his charm appeal to the woman! These characteristics made her feel better about her own insecurities.
Perfection and smoothness isn’t what makes life lovable. When things aren’t controlled, sponantaneous events occur that give us special moments provided we can look at life with humor and joy.
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