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Solace for Surrender
1. Consider a situation that might call for you to surrender. (Examples:
an unfortunate diagnosis, a cancelled flight, a major loss, a thwarted intention,
an encounter with a rude salesperson or service representative, etc.)
2. Ask yourself: what can I do to change the outcome?
3. If there is something you can do/say/be to change the outcome, pursue
it.
4. Ask yourself: what is beyond my control?
5. If there is something beyond your
control, go ahead and have a fit, snit, tantrum, pout, et cetera about
it. (Don’t squelch your natural feeling
responses; they need air-time.)
6. After or while experiencing your
natural feeling responses, work toward acceptance of that which is beyond
your control. Say to yourself, “It
is what it is,” or coin your own soothing phrase.
7. Look at how you could make lemonade
out of lemons in the situation. Or, to mix metaphors, if weeds happen,
and leaves fall, what is the “rake” that
you need to invest in now?
8. Strive toward an attitude or perspective
that keeps you out of the victim role. (Read Charles Swindoll on “Attitude,” below.)
ATTITUDE
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact
of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts.
It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than
circumstance, than successes, than what other people think or say or
do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will
make or break a company, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is
we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for
that day. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do
is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced
that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And
so it is with you, we are in charge of our attitudes.
Charles Swindoll
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9. Be on guard for excessive stoicism.
Sometimes, in an effort to avoid seeing ourselves as the victim, we swing
to the polar opposite and try to weather our hardships single-handed. Ask
yourself if there is someone you could ask for help, and if there is, don’t
hesitate!
10. Continue to work on letting go of
your search for a tidy solution … they
just don’t always exist!
The Mathematics of Surrender
It’s not about giving up,
not about defeat.
If you insist on an equation,
embrace your limited impact on outcome,
subtract old beliefs that you should be able to fix it,
add willingness to let others meet their fate.
Divide this by two, as in yin and yang,
right and wrong,
good and bad.
Let it multiply until
all things are equal.
© Martha Clark Scala, 2007
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