Dear Friends,
I’ve been contemplating on what it means to surrender to my own life challenges. I’ve had several conversations with various friends on this concept as many of them. like me, are having significant challenges in their lives as well.
What does it mean to surrender to a higher power? I’ve come to realize it does not mean hiding away, and avoiding making choices or decisions. On the contrary, when we are called forth in our lives with various occurrences, we can rise to meet them or not. We can step forth and make the best decisions we can, or we can hide away and not move forward in any direction and eventually be taken over by the momentum of the things we are being challenged with.
I believe there is a difference between being “taken over” versus “surrendering”. When we are “taken over” it implies being a victim and not having any choices in terms of what is occurring in our lives. By surrendering, we are a potent player in what is occurring as we are making a choice of letting go and letting God, so to speak. We can choose to move forward with treatment for a condition but at the same time surrender to allowing the treatment to help us if that is what it is meant to do. You can move forward with choosing a new job and at the same time surrender to where that new job is taking you.
Surrendering is both active and passive. It’s about making the best choices we can in any given moment and then allowing for space within those decisions. Allowing life to take us to where it wants to take us within the framework of those decisions. When I was caring for my sweet furry ones this winter, as I discussed in my last blog, I was constantly being called forth to serve these sweet beings with the best decisions I could regarding their needs.
I kept having to surrender to how they responded as ultimately their response was out of my control. And now once again, I am being called forth for my sweet Persian kitty, Kiku, who has been having some health issues. I am choosing to care for her with consciousness and love knowing that ultimately her fate is within her own soul in terms of whether she stays or leaves this earth.
Surrendering can also mean stepping into new parts of ourselves. Sometimes we are aware of these places within ourselves hovering along the periphery of our lives. At other times, these places within ourselves sweep in and grab us before we even know what is happening. In both cases we are surrendering to a call from a higher place.
The end of this last January, I went to the grocery story to pick up a few things. On the way home, I needed to stop and pick up a syringe to feed my sweet boy Waldo. He had stopped eating on his own and the one I had broke that morning. I had planned on going to Safeway originally to get the syringe as I knew they had the size I needed and the grocery store I was in did not have any. However, the grocery clerk suggested I go to Rite Aide Pharmacy across the parking lot.
As I was getting in my car and still planning to go to Safeway, I kept getting nudges to go to Rite Aide. I found myself pulling into the parking lot and proceeded to walk towards the door. As I was walking, I noticed a man videotaping with his phone three young men who appeared to be wrestling at the top of the stairs leading up to the road. He kept saying, “stop it, stop it” but not with much force and the guys did not pay any attention to him at all. It took me a few moments to figure out what was occurring. I realized that two of the men were trying to steal the backpack off another Chinese man and ganging up on him.
It’s amazing how quickly the brain can process information. Within a split second, I knew that the man videoing the scene cared more about a viral video than on what was happening to the young man that was being mugged. I also assessed quickly if there were any weapons and the next thing I knew I was running towards the guys screaming at the top of my lungs for the two muggers to leave the other man alone.
The video guy gave a half hearted attempt to follow and then seemed to disappear. The next thing I knew, the two muggers looked up at me like two deer caught in the headlights and took off running. One ran across the road and the other up the road. At the same time, I was still yelling at them. Once I was assured they were gone, I turned to the young Chinese man, who was quite shaken up, and stepped back into the healer side of myself to assist him to calm down and provided a ride home for him.
The whole time this was happening, I did not experience any fear. In fact, when it was all over, I felt laughter bubbling up inside me. Of course, I felt badly for the young man being mugged as he was obviously upset and realistically so. However, a very pure part of myself stepped forth during that situation, and a part of myself I had never experienced in that way before. She was my inner warrioress and I have to say, she does have a bit of a big mouth, which still makes me chuckle.
I believe that young man was not meant to be mugged and lose his backpack. He had recently moved here from China and was going to a nearby community college. Perhaps if he had been mugged fully, his life would have taken on a very different path. I shared with him that I was very sorry that happened to him but also tried to reassure him that there were many good people around.
I believe that at the moment of the attempted mugging, life force scanned the area to see who was up for the challenge and I was chosen and my spirit surrendered. I felt at the time, I had so much pent up energy in terms of what was going on with my sweet dog and caring for him and my sweet cat that it needed an outlet and I was given one at the same time. And in that surrendering was a sense of joy afterwards. I realized that when we enter into a place of pure spirit in collaboration with the divine there is joy even in unexpected places.
I still laugh when I see the looks on the two young mugger’s faces when this crazy lady was charging at them and yelling at the top of her lungs and how they took off running. It is also interesting how I was going to go to Safeway and ended up going to Rite Aide. If you look at the metaphor with these names, I was not meant to go the ‘Safe Way” but it was Rite that I came to the young man’s Aide”.
Surrendering can mean so many things. But surrendering is never passive. It is always active in that there is a choice in surrendering and there is movement by spirit, rearranging the pieces of the puzzle to provide an outcome that we have yet to discover. If we are dealing with a health crisis by all means, make choices about how to move forward and then surrender to the outcome. If you are drawn to make another choice at some point, then make that choice and surrender again. Surrender does not mean death, although sometimes it does mean surrendering our bodies, but even that is an active process. When we surrender our bodies, we are moving towards a more spiritually divine place.
My friends, I am wishing you the peace that comes from surrendering to a higher power while at the same time making decisions to the best of your ability. You are not being weak if you surrender, on the contrary, you are being quite powerful. In that place of surrender, lies infinite possibilities and you might also discover your own inner warrior or warrioress in that moment of surrendering.
Much Love,
Rosemary Veilleux
I was thinking after reading your blog that surrendering is probably more true to our nature than trying to control our life and lives of others. Thanks.
Very insightful. Thank you Grace.