| THE SECRET POWERS OF THANKsŪ (SURRENDER) |
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This e-newsletter is the last in our series on “The secrets embedded within the THANKs® program”. Today’s focus will be on the topic of SURRENDER and offer some ideas to think about and practice.
SURRENDER
“A man who conquers an army possesses great strength. But a man who conquers himself possesses great power”.
A ¼ of a century ago I, Bob, stood at the brink of either disaster or transformation. I was literally FIGHTING for my life. Following 15 years of drug addiction, I had reached the end of the road. It was either die or change. In this moment of clarity and openness I surrendered myself to the help and guidance of others who would show me how to live life on life’s terms. This experience became my first awareness of what surrender truly means. In this moment of surrender my life changed forever and for the better. It has been almost 25 years now since I surrendered to the horrors of addiction and I have re-surrendered every day since.
The word surrender congers up thoughts such as “To surrender means I’m weak” “I lose if I surrender” “I’m just giving up because I’m not strong enough to deal with what life throws at me”. In actuality the secret of living a fulfilling and meaningful life is to live in a constant state of surrender. One of the most confusing but profound sayings I have ever heard is “We surrender to win”. Think about it. How much time do you spend trying to control your individual world out of fear or the need to look good? How often do you wake up each day with an idea of how the day will go and then life happens with all of its unexpected twists and turns?
The action of surrender implies a need to trust that Natural Law or some force will not lead us astray. Unfortunately, it is often the pain we experience in our lives that forces us into a state of surrender. How many of us have secretly prayed to something or someone unseen to get us out of a jam, or have bargained, asking for a prayer to be answered in exchange for becoming a better person?
I would tend to think most of us. This action is nothing more than a moment of powerlessness where we are surrendering to something or someone for help, because we can’t “fix” the problem on our own. Whatever our personal beliefs are about God, religion, agnosticism or spirituality, we all have a common need to let go and surrender to the challenges that we face each day.
In some cases these challenges will be life threatening and in other cases they will be as simple as the frustration of rush hour traffic on our way home from work. Surrendering to the reality of what is, allows us to release the death grip that we have on life. It’s okay to sit back and enjoy the journey at any given time through the process of surrender, and in turn avoid exhaustion, illness and suffering.
It is not an easy endeavor to surrender to the small day to day frustrations that occur. When we want to be moving forward and we feel that something is impeding our progress, we want to usurp more self will and push even harder. Unfortunately, the results will always be an absence of any peace of mind, love in our heart or joy in our life. Surrendering remains difficult until and only when, we start to realize that much of life is supposed to be lived with ease.
Imagine that, living life with ease. Now this isn’t to say that life is always easy. It often isn’t. It’s only to suggest that when we surrender, we’re moving proportionately to how we are inherently designed to function. Imagine being on a carnival ride like the “whip-it”. Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to actually try to make the ride go at the speed you’d like it to go, or in the direction you think it should go? Not only would you fail at these tasks, but in addition you would miss the ease, the fun and the joy of just letting go and surrendering to the experience.
Living in the struggle of control often destroys our creativity and productivity in the workplace, and impedes in our desire to be loving and happy in our relationships. To stop fighting with ourselves, to fully acknowledge that our displeasures, our judgments and criticisms manifest within ourselves, and the external world is merely a mirror and a catalyst that activates our suffering, is to understand that we can always work on surrendering to our inner conflicts.
Many of us stumble under the illusion that control is always good. I, Brad, had thought for much of my life that it would be dangerous and reckless to just let the Greater Power of our universe take care of things. I have found that my control isn’t really needed or wanted in the managing of the world. There really is a perfection that allows for the stars to come out at night and for the sun to shine every day. We don’t have to remind our children to grow every day or even teach them how to move from scooting to crawling to walking. I have repeatedly been amazed at how natural law manages this complex planet, with such ease. I am learning to stay out of the way a little more each day and surrender to the journey.
It’s sometimes hard for all of us to understand the lessons we are being invited to learn as we move through our lives. We may wonder why we are having an adverse, challenging experience and blame others or God for the circumstances. I firmly believe we are here to grow and gain insight into ourselves (Refer back to quote at the beginning of this article) and it is usually the challenges and the tough situations that invite opportunities for us to learn our lessons. As we learn to practice the principle of humility, we proportionately find that our ability to surrender becomes more readily accessible to us.
I, Bob, would like to illustrate one more recent experience that I had with surrender. This process was quite enlightening and taught me a very important lesson about myself. Being the nice guy that I am, I’ve never really seen myself as a person that was arrogant. Brad and I were recently hired to facilitate a 2 day retreat with a wonderful state wide agency here in New Mexico. As I started working on the agenda for the retreat I found myself getting into a belief that if this was going to be a great training I would have to put it altogether myself. I started working relentlessly in preparation for the retreat and wasn’t including Brad in the process.
In short order, I started feeling annoyed with Brad that he wasn’t doing his share. As I looked at what was driving my annoyance I discovered that I was controlling the direction of the training without including Brad. Somehow, my arrogance convinced me that it was up to me to make this retreat a smashing success. With further examination, I gained the insight that I either needed to fully trust Brad’s abilities and capabilities, or be miserable. I got together with Brad and shared with him the arrogance I had been living in and surrendered it. As we worked together in the design of the agenda, we created an incredible format to implement at the retreat. This insight that led me to a place of surrender allowed me to connect to the ease, joy and enthusiasm in the co-creative process with Brad.
When Brad and I facilitated the 2 day retreat, there were 3 or 4 instances where we had to shift gears and let go of the agenda we had designed. We were both living in a state of openness, surrendering to what the Universe was presenting to us every step of the way. Consequently, the retreat went beautifully and we had the privilege of witnessing a great deal of healing that resulted in new found connection and high morale amongst the participants. I don’t believe this would have happened if we stayed locked into our rigid ideas about the need to implement the agenda.
To have the ability and humility to admit when we have erred is one of the great secrets in the act of surrender. I have never suffered an adverse consequence by admitting my faults and wrongdoings to those I have harmed or discounted. I always walk away having learned something new about myself. Each opportunity brings us closer to conquering ourselves, and I think the world would be a far better place if each one of us worked on conquering ourselves instead of an army.
Below are just a few ideas you can work with to practice the art of SURRENDER:
1. When awakening in the morning tell yourself you’ll just go with the flow of the day practicing non-resistance, and mean it.
2. During the day when you catch yourself resisting say “I surrender and let go”.
3. When you are involved in an activity (on the computer, watching TV, etc) and your child or spouse asks you for your help, surrender to that moment of opportunity and respond to them.
4. The next time you get “a hit” to call someone or send a card, surrender to that action and follow through on it.
5. If a colleague or family member pushes your anger or frustration button, surrender to the feeling, and talk with them respectfully in order to clear the air.
We have thoroughly enjoyed writing and sharing with you about the secrets of the THANKs® principles, and we hope you have enjoyed reading about them. Please feel free to read these articles time and again as we believe you will find that principles have infinite wisdom embedded in them. Furthermore, please feel free to contact Trans-World Dynamics with questions, thoughts and ideas.
If you have a particular principle or idea that you would like to write about and submit for publication to Trans-World Dynamics, please let us know and we can discuss how to go about it.
Namaste
Bob and Brad
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