Be Strong & Surrender

In this tough economy & ever-stressed world, many people are going through a lot. Your neighbor's a lot may not be a big deal to you, and your life-changing circumstance may not be a catastrophe to another. However, we've all been to that place that feels like the breaking point and then we turn another corner only to realize there was something new & possibly even better than what we were so focused on before. That's the kind of change that is welcomed...if we allow it. Many of us fight ourselves so much to be what we think we should be, that it creates this horrible battle inside of us which keeps us from being who we really are & ultimately, from being happy. Why do we do that to ourselves? Are we really that attached to our thoughts, which may have served us well in years past, but just no longer fit, that we can't make room for new knowledge & experience? Don't get me wrong. I am a traditionalist in MANY ways. I believe in culture, customs, family & a lot of other things...(including ones that may perhaps be a bit too conservative for many tastes.) With regards to our egos though, (and I mean that in a Freudian-sense, not in a Hollywood starlet one) I don't believe in letting ours get in the way of who we want to be today. Just because our ideas about ourselves worked for us a few years ago, or even a few months ago, does not mean they are the best thing for us now. It is one thing to learn and draw from our past. It is another to stunt our own growth with an unrealistic expectation of being the same person we were yesterday.

For most of my life I have been accustomed to change......a lot of it. Sometimes the change was the welcomed kind. Other times it hurt me & made me a stronger person. After enough of the hurtful type of change, I became so "strong" that a part of me wanted to be vulnerable and not have to deal with all the garbage and responsibilities that came with being that strong person. I wanted to curl up into a ball and have someone else figure it out. Ironically, those surrendering times were when I came to realize how strong I could be. I learned, or was re-taught, how to trust myself & believe in what I knew. Who would've thought that giving up could make so much progress in a person? Well, really it was more a matter of realizing that just because I was out of my comfort zone, it didn't mean the world was coming to an end. Even better than that, I was being given something new, which to this day, has always far surpassed my previous expectations. Allowing your life to evolve instead of constantly chasing it is not being passive. It's only called "letting life pass you by" when you are not enjoying the journey.

"The greatness of a man's power is the measure of his surrender." - William Booth

“If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments.”

- Anne Morrow Lindbergh