Surrender

“I’m so grateful that surrender had taught me to willingly participate in life’s dance with a quiet mind and an open heart.”

-Michael Singer

Hello friends!

This week I wanted to share a story that changed my life.

It's a story that I heard on the podcast of Michael Singer, a spiritual teacher and author. Here is a link to the episode if you want to learn more: Michael Singer Podcast. Episode One.

The story goes as follows:

There is a bird sitting in the water. He can't fly because his wings are wet. The bird likes it when the water is calm because it's more comfortable for the bird.. no splashing, water getting in his mouth.. no turbulence. The bird feels happier when the water is calm and he can just rest.

And so the bird spends his time trying to get the waves to stop. He makes up all sorts of things that he may be able to do to get the waves to stop. "Last time I was sitting just this way, there were no waves.. maybe if I sit like that again..."

As you can imagine, the bird could spend his entire life trying to get the waves to stop. But we all know that a bird has no control over the waves.

There is absolutely nothing the bird can do to make the waves stop. So does that mean the bird is destined to live a life of frustration and hardship?

No, because there is another option. What the bird can do is he can change his internal state so that his happiness is not dependent on if there are waves are not.

By surrendering to the waves, he can learn to live in peace.

Are you seeing the parallel to our lives yet?

Yes the bird is us and the waves are everything in the world happening around us. As humans, we desperately want to control the waves. We want to control what other people say, how they act, what they believe. But this is about as foolish as the bird believing that he has control over the waves.

The truth is we can not control the waves of our lives. Shit is going to be happening all around us all of the time that we can't control. If our internal state of peace is dependent on the behavior of others, we are going to spend a lot of our lives in distress.

So what's the other option?

We can surrender. We can surrender to the flow of life around us. 

We can choose to change so that our internal state of happiness is not dependent on our external circumstances.

When I first heard this I was skeptical that this was possible, but in practice, I have found it life changing.

I find myself regularly stepping back and asking, "Am I being a bird in the water?" Am I letting my inner peace be dictated by external circumstances out of my control? Is there anything here that I am trying to control that I can let go of? And often, I find the answer is yes. And when I let go of that control, inner peace comes naturally.

When we take the time to do this, it is path back to ourselves.. to our true nature.. to peace.  And when you follow this path, extraordinary things can happen. 

Michael Singer explains it like this, "You and everyone else is capable of dealing with this, of calming the mind. You are capable of it becoming so steady that the sun dries the wings and you find out that you can fly and you never ever ever have that problem again. You don't even remember when you used to be in the water and used to do all of that. That's liberation."

Sounds amazing doesn't it?

Do I live my life like this all the time? Helllllll no. 

But do I live more moments of my life this way than I used to? Absolutely. And it has made a huge impact on the peace I feel inside of me.

Less controlling, less fighting, less resisting, less resenting.

Which leaves more time and space for living in love.

And that my friends, will always be worth it.

Give it a try.. what do you have to lose? Or maybe we should ask, what do we have to gain? Maybe the answer is.. everything.

___

Say love my friends,
Caitlin