Choose your approach. Surrender doesn't mean giving up.

“Something amazing happens when we surrender and just love. We melt into another world, a realm of power already within us. The world changes when we change. the world softens when we soften. The world loves us when we choose to love the world.”

― Marianne Williamson

I have fought many processes in my life. A big one was the dissolution of my marriage. I sooooo wanted it to work. I was going to fix it- all by myself! I laugh when I say that because that is crazy thinking. How am I suppose to do THAT when the definition of a relationship is the state of being interrelated, connected? I need the other half to connect to and that other half needs to want to connect with me.

So, I struggled, resisted, clung to what I knew…the womb. I didn’t want to come out! I didn’t want to face the unknown! I KNEW what the womb was like…I knew how my husband’s arms felt around me. I knew his quirks, his routines, his likes and dislikes. I knew what to expect and not what to expect. Yet something was moving me. A force bigger than myself that was pushing me out, making me experience the unknown; this grief, this black pit called despair, brought me to my knees (literally), sobbing uncontrollably day after day.

Through this I found that the only way I could survive is by surrendering. Because every time I struggled, things got worse. The noose got tighter and I the fall was harder. So I surrendered.  I was brought to prayer, meditation, and yoga. And as I surrendered, more things came to my aid; a phrase, a kind wish, a thoughtful phone call, a cup of tea, a shoulder to cry on. I found, through surrender, a Power Greater Than Myself. I stood on a figurative “edge of a bridge” many days during this time and something always got me off the ledge. That makes me wonder: would I have found such faith had I not been given these struggles?

During this time, someone said something that resonated with me. She said, “There is a possibility that things could get better.” I thought to myself, ‘Yes, there is. They could get worse BUT there is the possibility that after divorce, things could be better.’ I was scared. I was not always so hopeful when so much was coming at me all at once AND look where I am now! In THIS moment I am doing what I love, sharing my passion for meditation and yoga, in THIS moment, I see my growth, see my progress and know that all that happened brought me here. And HERE is good.  

As we feel the gravity of all that is happening in the world, a pandemic of epic proportions, we are only assured of THIS moment.  In THIS moment we are given the opportunity to choose our approach. We can struggle, create stress and heighten our anxiety or we can choose to surrender to a force bigger than ourselves.  We may need to do things differently, we may need to live in the uncertainty of what the future holds. We may FEEL like staying in the womb because it is safe and comfortable there but a power that is moving us, moving us to respond to not just our needs but to the needs of the world.  First, we sit, then we breathe, then we can respond and then we can take care. THIS is surrender.

Choose your approach…

Surrender doesn’t mean giving up!