Blog Category: Surrender
Surrendering the Habit of Forcing Others to Give In
When William Booth said, “The greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his surrender,” he was talking about the upside of “giving in” to a powerful principle.
Opportunities for surrender often present themselves in one-on-one relationships. When a power struggle occurs and there is a battle for control, the governing principle has often been to force the other to give in.
Can you see places in your life where surrender can be to a noble value like collaboration, teamwork and partnership? Surrendering the ego’s need to be in control is a strategy that produces great results.
Where can you yield or surrender to loyalty, integrity, wisdom, health, love, friendship, hope and optimism?
Who can you stop resisting and begin to embrace through surrender to your core values?
Copyright 2009. E. B. Hutt Bush and Coaching for Results, Inc.
Tough Love and Surrender
Some element of trust is required to surrender to something that may be amazingly good for you, but that you may be afraid of for various reasons – including fear that you may not be up to it. But, most likely, you are up to it or the invitation to surrender would not be in your life.
After yesterday’s Study Hall, longtime great friend, Sir Erik Hill, sent the following poem by Guillaume Apollinaire:
COME TO THE EDGE
Come to the edge, he said.
They said: We are afraid.
Come to the edge, he said.
They came.
He pushed them and they flew.
Being pushed by someone whom you trust can help you surrender. Pushing can feel difficult like the tough love that it is, but it results in flying and in even greater degrees of forward and upward movement.
If someone has pushed you to surrender recently, consider that that person may be lovingly urging you to evolve and grow.
How do you best respond? With silence or with the strength to fly? Will your ego surrender?
Copyright 2009. E. B Hutt Bush and Coaching for Results, Inc.
Surrender In Its Most Powerful Form
Surrender of our limitations frequently leads us to expand ourselves as human beings. For example, we can surrender isolation and embrace feelings of compassion . . . or even surrender being average so we can embrace a desire for mastery in a given situation. We can choose to surrender old limiting beliefs and prejudices in favor of openness and acceptance.
So, if surrender is so great, why have you and I been afraid to surrender? Ego perhaps . . . or concern over losing ourselves in surrendering to something perhaps bigger than we are? Fear of the unknown?
Surrender in its most powerful form is our opening up to forces to which we are highly attracted, but which simultaneously frighten us in some way.
Consider the example of parenting: there is a simple and poignant surrender of the old way of life for the new. Or the example of a person who may have a talent and be fearful of surrendering to expressing it because it may turn out to be “not good enough.”
Would you like to cultivate a habit of surrendering to your higher values? How does this apply to your profession, your health, your family, your friendships? How can surrender be related to mastery? What specifically would you ultimately benefit from surrendering to?
Copyright 2009. E. B. Hutt Bush and Coaching for Results, Inc.
When Is Surrender Sweet?
Surrender can mean defeat . . . or surrender can mean transcendence.
If it’s defeat, we are called upon to be strong, learn from what happened, and move beyond what we were fighting against. We can learn to be resilient.
However, surrender can be useful if thought about in the context of giving in to something ultimately larger than ourselves and yielding to it for our own growth and evolution.
Writer Sara Paddison, “When we know love matters more than anything, and we know that nothing else REALLY matters, we move into the state of surrender. Surrender does not diminish our power; it enhances it.”
Can you think of a place where “Sweet Surrender” has significantly enhanced your power? Are there any areas of your life where yielding to love or some other great force would actually make you far more powerful as a human being? Has your not surrendering actually diminished you in the past? What are the ultimate consequences of your not surrendering?
Copyright 2009. E. B. Hutt Bush and Coaching for Results, Inc.
Changing Surrender From Defeat to Allowing
It’s not often that a word can contain two very different, almost opposite meanings . . . one good and one bad. Consider the meanings of “surrender.”
Our most common understanding is that surrender means defeat or loss. However, surrender can also mean allowing something completely . . . giving in to something that often requires a transformation of the self and the situation.
We humans have fought against so many elements of our lives . . . very often fighting to hold on to things that we find precious, but sometimes holding on to limiting patterns.
Where in your life have you been defeated . . . and, contrasting that, where have you given in to something that you had at first resisted, but then embraced for an ultimately better result?
Copyright 2009. E. B. Hutt Bush and Coaching for Results, Inc.