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Posts tagged with “surrender”

3 Life-Changing Insights for Control Freaks (Lessons from an Ant Infestation)

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“Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.”  ~Jean-Paul Sartre

“So did you figure out what your shadow totem is?”

This was the first thing out of my husband’s friend’s mouth as I sat down to dinner at a local downtown restaurant, across from my husband and a couple friends we were meeting up with.

I laughed at the choice of question but then paused with wide eyes and replied, “YES, I DID! Oh my gosh. It’s an ant!”

The backstory is that we had previously had a conversation about animal symbolism, and how figuring out …

How Releasing Control Opened Me Up to a Limitless Life

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“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” ~Richard Bach

I have always wanted to create a family.

As a child, I lovingly cared for my dolls and fell head over heels for my college boyfriend. Kneeling before me with a ring, he said, “I want you to be the mother of our children.” I swooned as we walked down the aisle at the tender age of twenty-two, convinced I was set for life. I had the husband, and I would have the family.

I entered into our marriage with the expectation and security …

5 Life Lessons from a Brain Tumor That Could Have Killed Me

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“Life is a balance between what we can control and what we cannot. I am learning to live between effort and surrender.” ~Danielle Orner

I was slumped against a wall at Oxford Circus Station early one Sunday evening when an irritated male voice suddenly barked, “MOVE!”

Moments beforehand, I had lost my vision.

Without conscious thought, I muttered, “RUDE!” and staggered off without clearly seeing where I was going.

It was only months later, on retracing my steps at Oxford Circus, that I realized I’d been blocking his view of some street art.

I’d allowed a guy to bully me …

Surrendering Isn’t Giving Up: Why We Need to Accept What’s Happened

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“The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.” ~Nathaniel Branden

I remember the last time I saw him before my world crumbled. I held up my hand with the ASL sign for “I love you” through the window to him, as he mouthed the words back and got in his car to leave for work. I found out an hour later that he—my fiancé—had begun cheating on me a month before he had proposed.

He never fought for me. Even during the course of our relationship, when he would run away due to his own insecurities, …

How I Stopped Carrying the Weight of the World and Started Enjoying Life

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“These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.” ~Najwa Zebian

During a personal development course, one of my first assignments was to reach out to three friends and ask them to list my top three qualities. It was to help me see myself the way others saw me.

At the time, my confidence was low and I couldn’t truly see myself. I didn’t remember who I was or what I wanted. The assignment was a way to rebuild my self-esteem and see myself from a broader perspective.

As I vulnerably asked and then received the responses, …

Confessions of an Extrovert: Why I Now Love My Alone Time

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“Allow yourself to grow and change. Your future self is waiting.” -Unknown

Not to be dramatic, but I really mean it when I say that solitude changed my life. I am an extrovert who loves humans, socializing, and learning from people and experiences. I’ve always enjoyed being around others, and don’t get me wrong, I still thrive this way. But when I got Covid in 2021, life completely changed, and it’s not the only way I thrive now.

Before Covid, I’d been living my life in a way that wasn’t serving me. I was partying a lot, not eating …

How I Find the Courage to Keep Jumping (Even Though the Net Never Catches Me)

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“The future never comes. Life is always now.” ~Eckhart Tolle

“Jump, and the net will catch you.” “Leap, and the net will appear.”

This piece of writing is to make a case for the following argument: there is NO net.

Before I put forward my reasoning, please bear with me for a moment while my ego rattles off the times I have jumped (but the net never appeared).

  1. I quit my well-paid marketing role and traveled across the world to pursue a humanitarian dream job. I failed at the job interview and was jobless and in despair in a foreign
…

How a Simple Action Word Can Guide You Through Even the Hardest Days

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 “Our intention creates our reality.” ~Wayne Dyer

What if you only had one thing you needed to accomplish today? One over-arching objective that encapsulates the multiple items on your to-do list or the meetings on your calendar? One word that you set in the morning and carry throughout the day to stay in focus and on purpose?

Actors know that in order to convey a story well, they have to play an action versus an emotion. There has to be a verb involved in order to act. This might include something like provoke, seduce, destroy, or flatter, versus trying to …

How I Saved Myself by Surrendering When Everything Fell Apart

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“And here you are, living despite it all.” ~Rupi Kaur

“I surrender!” I said this mantra out loud as my life was spiraling out of control.

I had spent a summer in college as a camp counselor separated from my fiancé. He sent me no letters and did not keep in touch. Still, I held on. By the time I came back home, we were broken. I had also realized he was emotionally abusing me. It took that separation to make me see it.

I realized I had been truly alone in the relationship. I was never lonelier than …

How to Make Everything Easier by Accepting the Present Moment

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“The power of now can only be realized now. It requires no time and effort. Effort means you’re trying hard to get somewhere and so you are not present, welcoming this moment as it is.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Eight years ago, I was very depressed. I wanted nothing more than to stop feeling this way and dreamed of escaping my body. I had struggled with depression for many years, and I was terrified that I might feel that way forever.

Someone recommended I do a mindfulness-based course. This turned out to be the one of the most helpful parts of my …

4 Reasons to Let Go of the Need to Plan Your Future

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“No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living in the now.” ~Alan Watts

I went to college a little bit later in life. Because of that, people often mistakenly believed I was operating on a specific (and somewhat urgent) timetable—as though I was running to catch up with the rest of the people my age.

However, I was already in a career I loved (teaching yoga) that supported me financially. For me, going back to school was mainly about enjoying the process of getting an education without any pressure to get …

Why It’s Okay Not to Have Everything Under Control

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“Relax. Nothing is under control.” ~Adi Da Samraj

This has been an incredibly difficult, stressful, and uncertain year for me, as it has been for most people.

If I was told a year ago that in 2020, my work hours as a healthcare professional would be reduced, I would be quarantined for months in a small one-bedroom apartment with my boyfriend of seven months, I’d gain fifteen pounds in a few months, and I wouldn’t be able to travel to other countries, I would have rolled my eyes, laughed in disbelief, and thought to myself whoever is delivering this information …

How to Open Your Eyes and Make the Most of Life

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“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” ~Marcel Proust

I was asleep for the first thirty-two years of my life. I was jolted awake when my daughter was born unable to sustain her own breath.

I sat beside her in the NICU helplessly every day for three months, unable to hold or feed her due to her fragility. I watched as she endured two surgeries before six weeks of age.

She was diagnosed with a rare muscular disease that required significant medical intervention and around-the-clock nursing care. In those first few …

How I Learned to Stop Pushing So Hard and Enjoy the Moment

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“Life is a balance between what we can control and what we cannot. I am learning to live between effort and surrender.” ~Danielle Orner

Over a year ago, I boarded a plane and found myself on the beautiful beaches of southeast Asia. My dream was to travel the world, indefinitely, while working independently and living out of a suitcase. I had worked hard in my life to come to this place, and there couldn’t have been a moment that was more positive for me.

However, as I enjoyed sunbathing on the beautiful beaches, I started to feel weary. It’s hard …

How to Tackle Fear and Anxiety Cognitively, Behaviorally, and Spiritually

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“The beautiful thing about fear is that when you run to it, it runs away.” ~Robin Sharma

During my first-grade choir concert, my classmate, Meg, fainted from the top row of the bleachers, and in a subconscious gesture of empathy, I went down right after her, breaking my glasses and flailing on the gymnasium floor.

It’s possible that this triggered some kind of coping mechanism in my brain, because I started fainting again and again.

One time I fainted at the dentist’s office—immediately after the dentist injected me with my first round of Novocain—then months later in a hospital parking …

How to Face Uncertainty: Why We Don’t Need to Press the Panic Button

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“This time, we are holding onto the tension of not knowing, not willing to press the panic button. We are unlearning thousands of years of conditioning.” ~Sukhvinder Sircar

This morning I awoke feeling uncertain about the direction my life was taking. Was it what I wanted in all areas? Was I right to be living where I wanted to, in London, away from family? Was I doing the “right thing” restructuring my business, and was I doing the “right thing” going away for two months next year?

I’ve had a few days like this recently, and while I’d like to …

What to Do If You Feel Trapped by Your Circumstances

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“As long as we know we’re trapped, we still have a chance to escape.” ~Sara Grant

Talking to someone last week who had to ‘volunteer’ to return to their country of birth, a country defined by the United Nations as one of the least developed in the world in terms of its economic conditions, was humbling.

While I often find myself feeling trapped by the longevity, monotony, and intensity involved in child rearing, I wasn’t sure what I could say that might help someone who had been the victim of identity theft and, through lack of resources, had no option …

10 Ways to Let Go of the Hustle and Surrender to the Flow

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“You can’t control everything. Sometimes you just need to relax and have faith that things will work out. Let go a little and just let life happen.” ~Kody Keplinger

I have always been an overachiever: straight As, the top of my class; whatever I endeavored, I aimed to be the best at it. I strived through high school, college, graduate school, and in the corporate world.

My hard work came with awards, accolades, and the feeling of accomplishment. But it also came with burnout, exhaustion, and the feeling of never being good enough.

Once I achieved a goal, I …

Why Letting Go of Your Tight Grip Actually Gives You More Control

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“Anything you can’t control in life is teaching you how to let go.” ~Unknown

I was growing impatient. I wanted an answer about something and it just wasn’t coming, no matter how hard I tried to prod it into happening. I was growing frustrated. And I was growing frustrated with my frustrations about it.

So I decided to take a walk. The act of breathing in fresh air and hearing birdsong is centering for me. Just putting one foot in front of the other in rapid succession for an hour or two always helps to clear my head. I receive …

Why Surrendering to Life is the Key to Positive Change

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“Surrender to what is. Say ‘yes’ to life and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.” ~Eckhart Tolle

“Surrender” in current colloquial language equals failure. According to the Oxford Dictionary, without an object, surrender means to “stop resisting to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority.” With an object, it gets even worse: “Give up or hand over (a person, right, or possession), typically on compulsion or demand.”

How then can surrender be the key to joy?

At age thirty, I was defeated by life. Down for the count. But, I did …