Have you ever wanted your moment – whatever was happening to be different?
When that occurs, how do you feel? Frustrated? Annoyed? Aggravated? Whatever the emotion, it’s a form of suffering.
For the past week, I’ve been exploring this idea – of wanting my moment to be other than it is - on a microcosmic level because I’ve been sick. And I was pissed about it.
I did not want to be sick.
Instead, I wanted to jump back into work, hang out with my family, enjoy the emerging days and flowers of spring. But I couldn’t.
As I saw it, I had two choices. I could fight my illness, pretend I wasn’t sick and work while I felt terrible. Or I could surrender.
Surrender isn’t giving up.
It’s accepting what is.
It’s letting go of wanting the moment to be different.
So I surrendered to being sick. To not being able to enjoy the first sunny day we’d had in a week, to feeling like a bad mom because I couldn’t take my daughter shopping like I’d promised, to feeling frightened for our future as I watch our president potentially start a nuclear was with North Korea.
Surrendering isn’t giving up, it’s accepting what is.
As I explored this idea, I also realized that suffering is when we want the moment to be different that what it actually is.
You want to get to the meeting on time and instead are stuck in traffic so you feel... You regret the way you spoke to your significant other and it burns in your belly. You’re excited about all you’re gonna get done this week and then land in bed with an awful head cold. Well, no, that wasn’t you, that was me.
Just because I accept it and surrender to what is, it doesn’t mean I have to like it. And it doesn’t mean I can’t be pro-active.
But the reality is that sometimes life has other plans for us. We can fight them or we can allow them to happen.
I can’t see the larger picture. Maybe there is a reason that I had to lie in bed for a week. Maybe there’s a reason that our country has to experience polarization and pain. I don’t know.
But I can accept that it is what it is.
And then I can act.
I can take care of myself with vitamins, supplements, support and I can stay involved politically.
None of it works without a level of acceptance.
In a technique I use with my clients called, NET (neuro emotional technique), we often talk about being okay with something. “I’m okay having breast cancer. I’m okay that my father died. I’m okay with the current political situation.”
Being okay doesn’t imply preference.
Obviously no one wants cancer. The idea behind the “okay” statement it is to neutralize any emotions you have around the issue so it doesn’t cause you stress. So you can move forward without so much emotional baggage attached to it.
Surrendering is exactly that – it’s being okay with whatever life throws at you. Releasing the frustration, irritation, annoyance and getting on with life just as it is.