Surrender

During lockdown I underwent a bit of a spiritual journey.  I’ve always been a bit inclined towards the spiritual, as I have mentioned before, but lockdown provided me with more of an opportunity to read and to reflect.

I’ve read about Archetypes, received Intuitive Guidance, Intuition, Yogic philosophy along with some science based, meta physics theories such as the Heart Math Institute.  I’ve always been a bit of a seeker, which according to Caroline Myss in her book ‘Sacred Contracts’ refers to a person ‘who searches on a path that may begin with earthly curiosity but has at its core the search for God and/or enlightenment ….. in search of wisdom and truth wherever it is to be found’.   This clearly explains the books I have read, picking one up, reading it, then reading something else on a tangent, each time trying to find the answers – to what exactly, I don’t know. The shadow of this archetype me describes to perfection, especially since I finished working in 2015, ‘the ‘lost soul,’ someone on an aimless journey without direction, un-grounded, disconnected from goals and others’.  

I guess there has been a part of me that has been looking for a purpose, for answers, for direction, for a lightbulb moment that would tell me I’m on the right path, but equally I have been looking for a quick fix and rather than get off my increasingly ample backside and put some effort in to something I’ve continued to seek to find the answer somewhere else.  It has not gone unnoticed, that If I’d actually put some effort in 5 years ago, rather than trying to find the easy solution I could well be a millionaire by now!

I have found one piece of evidence in my defence.  In Yanik Silver’s Cosmic Journal he brings up the topic of books – that certain books arrive on your radar at certain times and they themselves lead you on a voyage of discovery.  Whilst one specific book might not be the one for you, it leads you to read another book, which might be more of interest to you.  I am clinging on to this with dear life, as I have read some belters recently, that really aren’t worth re-visiting!

Essentially, they all boil down to much the same thing.  That any decent person, worth their salt, approaches life from a perspective of love rather than fear and is conscious of the role that their ego, and the egos of those people around them play in every day life.  It does become quite an enjoyable past-time as well as giving you space to breathe and consider your own response to a situation as it unfolds.  For example, you might be the victim of road rage.  We’ve all been there, we may even have been the road rage champion, I know I have in the past!  You are driving along quite happily and then for some reason you are been beeped at, or on the receiving end of an obscene gesture.  Rather than responding in kind, just take a moment, step back and consider the ego of that person.  What is happening in their day to make them this unhappy and fearful?  What is happening in their home lives or their lives in general that they consider this is an appropriate way to behave?  Whilst it may appear a little airy-fairy, it does genuinely help in the moment to stop and consider that.  If you can throw in a bit of Ho’oponono as well, then that’s even better! 

But I digress!  Whilst I’ve been doing all this reading and seeking the same thing keeps coming up time and time again, just surrender, just let it go.  Husband is regularly asking me ‘Why does it matter?  Why does it matter how somebody else is behaving, it has no impact on your life, so why do you care’?  Last week I went to a meditation class here in Portugal and at the end of the class pulled a card from ‘Whispers of Lord Ganesha’  and the card I picked was surrender, again.

Part of the problem is I don’t know how to surrender.  Surrender to who?  Surrender to what?  How do you even begin to surrender?  Whilst I whole heartedly believe in the universe and that there is something bigger than me out there – I’m not in a position as yet where I am ready to call it God.  God Consciousness is about as close as it gets.  I listened to Russell Brand interviewing Ricky Gervais earlier this week and felt I was in a similar boat – for me God = organised religion = indoctrination and doesn’t reflect my beliefs in the slightest.  As I look back on my life, however, I can see a consistent inability to surrender to anything.  I’m the bull-at-a-gate type.  Jump in with both feet first, guns blazing and then stop to think.  Anger first, stand your ground, don’t give in, fight your corner.  I realise that I am continually tense, continually expecting the next battle – assuming everything will be a battle rather than just taking things as they come.  I’m constantly anticipating the next crisis, getting involved in the latest gossip, trying to muscle my way in to things to have some level of influence, some level of control.  I’ve always been like this, as a child, my sister used to ask me ‘Why can’t you just let things be, why do you always have to cause an argument?’.  I suppose I was trying to stand my ground, fight my corner, especially in the face of what I perceived to be an injustice.  I was much the same as a teacher, constantly fighting for my students – for some reason I have turned life into a battle – my ego in overdrive and this has become the norm.  Fighting is my normal.  So, this is where I need to surrender, to stop the fighting and just let go, just be, let people behave the way they want to, but I don’t have to turn everything into a battle, nor do I have to be involved in everything.  Even when I do a full body scan meditation, I have no feeling in my arms, it’s like they are constantly prepared to fight.  I also know, from research about my physical body that being tense is no good for you – it causes inflammation in the body and all sorts of minor ailments that build up to a bigger whole over time.  I’m fairly confident that my fibromyalgia / back pain is actually down to my pelvic floor being too tense and as a consequence the muscles in and around my lower back just aren’t functioning or moving as smoothly as they might.  

I also believe that I am a ‘victim’ almost of the western lifestyle.  I should be successful, I should be earning money, I shouldn’t be content to just be a wife, I should be working hard, I should be achieving, and so I am constantly seeking, striving for something more, something better – but I don’t have any idea what that might be, so I am just feeling my way through the dark just hoping that something will come up that gives me purpose, that gives me direction.  There are so many things I love to do and make me very content – but they aren’t the types of things you ‘should’ be doing in life and they are certainly unlikely to generate an income any time soon.  My own ego is totally wrapped up in being successful, but in my heart, success for me is just being content and happy with what I have, but it seems to be increasingly at odds with the world around me.  Only this week, Body Shop have announced they will be launching their Advent Calendars on 25^th August – what’s that about?  Since when did we even need a Body Shop Advent Calendar, let alone in August.  So, I battle with myself – between my ego which is wrapped up in should and have, and my heart which is just content to stay at home and crochet. In my heart I really do struggle to understand the desire to have more and more ‘stuff’ as evidence of success in life. What’s wrong with just being content with what you have.

So, I have to try to surrender, which sounds a bit odd and like I am even turning this into a battle ground!  I am trying to surrender.  When I feel myself tensing up or getting ready to fight, in the instance I do the Micro Method from the Institute of Intuitive Intelligence to identify the fear and turn myself from a state of fear to love.  It’s amazing how much in life is carried out from a position of fear, but the ego thrives on the drama of fear.  I try Heart Congruence, I try to turn the situation around and see how I might approach it from a place of love rather than fear.  I find Ho’oponopo works really well, especially when applied to a large group of people behaving in a way that I find challenging, such as the continual queue outside Primark, or the madness that is Christmas, or the skateboarders who seem to revel in destroying the environment around them.  I try to understand why it is I am so enraged in the first place – it always stems from a place of fear, of learned behaviours over time, so that fighting has become my norm, even in situations where there is absolutely no reason.  I guess the key thing is I am learning to find ways to turn off the anger switch and just consider, for a moment, that there might be an easier and better way to navigate through life and that I can’t actually solve all the problems in the world.  There comes a point where you have to surrender, and just let it go.  Or, as Adriene Mischler would say, from Yoga with Adriene, ‘Just trust the process’.