As the battle came near to its end, the Major decided too many of his men were dying. He looked at his soldiers and saw in their eyes they were defeated. It was time for something different. Why push forward only to be slaughtered? He realized a most important thing that day; to save his life and the lives of others he would need to surrender.
This little story stands as a metaphor representing all that we battle daily - challenges we have and the despair that some of them bring, each at varying degrees. As the person in charge or our own troops, we are responsible for saving lives; at least our own life. The question then stands how do we call back the troops? How do we make the decision to realize defeat? Is it ok to be defeated? When do we surrender?
These are my two favourite definitions of Surrender:
1).To relinquish possession or control of to another because of demand or compulsion.
2). To give over or resign (oneself) to something, as to an emotion
The reason I want to clarify these meanings is because of some stigmas that come with the word surrender. We live in a society that has a butt heads, push forward, and that "don’t give up the fight" attitude. But don’t get me wrong, there is nothing bad about a little gusto. However, what has happened due to our societal standard, is that we lose vision of what we are fighting for. When this occurs we end up in a constant state of conflict. This causes duress and without a cause, it also ends in anxiety, unhappiness and a feeling of being lost. Surrendering is not the same as giving up when there is no cause.
To resign oneself or relinquish control, could possibly be two of the most effective tools we are unaware of. Because of our fighting nature, we don’t get that we need to let go, to grow. Habits, cycles and battles all need to be let go; if we can keep this thought while also thinking of surrendering - we can understand how this applies to our growth.
There is more out there, we all know it. Whether you think there is more out there in your career, in your love life, in finances or in spirit – almost all of us have a feeling there is something else. We can’t quite grasp it sometimes, we don’t know how to chase it and it often seems like we should just not bother. To reach for that next level, to grow, we must surrender - Surrender the current battle, surrender our stale belief systems and surrender to a higher order.
It is not to give up but to release our inhibitions of moving forward, that we must concede and surrender. Just remember you can look within and receive positive incite.
