Surrender to What You Can’t Control

Most everyone feels forms of stress these days whether struggling to make a living or fully engaged and highly paid in a competitive environment. We all deal with what is in our own world and we each face the resistance in achieving our goals.

We sometimes feel small and overwhelmed by the enormity of influences from everything that affects our lives. How capable are we of fighting global warming, economic trends, the craziness of politics, the rapid advancement of technology in our businesses, and the competition to get customers attention.

The Ups and Down of Our Daily Lives

We have strategies of improve our value and reap the rewards. We have strategies to improve our health. We want more intimacy with family and friends. We want to feel we are happy and thriving. What could possibly get in the way?

The fact is there is resistance to every one of our strategies. Sometimes we are elated with our progress and support. Other times we feel overwhelmed and helpless against outside forces. Then we have periods of sadness because things are not going well.

In my last podcast, I talked about selecting a word to use as a focus point. I selected surrender as my word for this year while also holding onto my lifetime word of self-actualization. I have found the surrender word very helpful. I am often impatient with things happening in my environment and this impatience is stress for things I cannot control.

Giving Way to the Uncontrollable Forces in Our Lives

I can’t control the rain we have experienced that has stopped my surf instruction business. I can’t control the traffic jams I sometimes encounter. I can’t stop barking dogs in my neighborhood. I can’t stop waves of sadness that might sweep over me for no good reason.

In each of these cases, I have said to myself, surrender. You can’t do anything about it and it has helped reduce the stress and allowed me to flow through the interruptions to my otherwise peaceful days.

The other night I felt a wave of sadness envelop me before bed. I thought, as though looking at it from the outside, I guess I am going to be sad tonight as I go to sleep. Might as well surrender to it and experience it and tomorrow it will be gone. Then as I surrendered into it, it left as though it was a passing cloud. I moved onto other thoughts. That is the subconscious at work.

Kali Kavara, a spiritual leader, talks about surrendering to our emotional pain and diving into it as a method of opening it up to the light. Surrendering is the opposite of being pro-active. Surrendering is going with it and not resisting. Without resistance there is no stress, there is peace.

My word self-actualization is all about being proactive. My word surrendering is all about being passive. I am proactive using my skills and time management to improve myself and reach my goals. I surrender when facing resistance I can’t control until my subconscious lets it go and the stress disappears.

These two sails can help me navigate my days. I certainly have my plans each day and I certainly face various forms of resistance, outside influences, and my whole gallery of past life memories and future concerns. My subconscious is therefore enjoying some experiences and punishing me in others. Now I can ride the tide with enjoying the uplifts and giving way without resistance to the downsides.

Give it a try in your life and see if it doesn’t reduce the stress.

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As a Thriving Worker Consultant, I can engage in conversations with employers on how to begin the process of helping workers thrive and reach peak performance. It begins with a conversation to see how far an organization is willing to go to change the culture for workers.

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