Never Surrender?
I recall one of the songs I used to sing from my favorite rock band. It was called Never Surrender. A I reflect on those words now and how much I believe in the power of my words, I regret this was a song I sang over and over. I see both sides to it, however. While it may have helped me not give up and push through certain aspects in my life, it may have hindered me from also accepting an outcome that I could not change. Let me explain.
I recently phoned a friend and discussed a leadership class I had taken years ago. These are experiential learning classes where you don’t get lectured, but rather you experientially learn and have these major “Aha”moments. Literally, HUGE moments of what programs are running your life. My friend facilitates this work and I told her I needed her to walk me through the point of an exercise we did in the class. The class was 15 years earlier, but I felt like it was being brought to my attention as I was working through my parent’s elder care journey now.
During the exercise, I found myself getting rather agitated as I was asked to sit in a room with all my other classmates and repetitiously do an exercise with my eyes closed. There was not much to this exercise and as I sat in my chair with my eyes closed my agitation grew. You see, there has to be a point to everything I do. My palms were in my lap and then the facilitator walked me and everyone else through the commands, “palms together, palms apart”. Nothing else. This went on for over 2 hours while I completely missed the point behind the exercise!
Throughout the experience, many of my classmates received “the tap” on the shoulder asking them to quietly move to the outer sides of the room to watch the rest of us still sitting in the middle of the room. We, of course, had no idea what our classmates did that allowed them to be relieved of this awful agitation, but I could tell that movement was going on around me. I tossed and turned in my chair feeling desperately like I was missing out. Today, I describe it as a gerbil in a cage running on the wheel to nowhere and completely wasting my time. Palms together, palms apart. Over and over and over. I was one of the last ones in the room of 50+ people, still sitting, no tap on the shoulder, palms together, palms apart.
As I asked my dear friend, what was that exercise about? Thankfully, she did not laugh as this was now 15 years later and I STILL didn’t know. I thought, “Had I learned nothing”? This exercise was to help me with my situation today. You see, I have one compliant and one non-compliant elderly parent both with vascular dementia. The non-compliant parent basically takes every suggestion and wants to do the opposite. I felt strongly in my heart that 15 years earlier, I was being prepped. My friend responded, “That exercise was about surrender”. She said, “…it does not mean you like the situation or have to agree with it, it means this is what cards were dealt and fighting it or “never surrendering” is only going to make it harder and use up your energy.” It is about accepting where you are in life, watching your parents in their Golden Years, but instead of sitting on the porch in a rocking chair telling you their life story or imparting wisdom, you spend hours managing their world. All your spare time is expending energy to make the most out of their years left.
The only thing I
could change in my elder care situation was surrendering to know that I could only do my best, accept that my parent was in this current state of physical and emotional pain because of decisions made years ago that I had nothing to do with. I have choice. I could walk away and abandon or ignore like happens so often in families, or I could be there and know that I was responsible for helping another human being as a care advocate and making the best choices I knew how. Surrendering to this meant that I would not waste energy on things that could not be different and giving myself positive energy to know that the choices were the best options available allowing me to be guilt free on a journey that proved to be tough. Surrendering is a state of mind. And, I could also look to the present to see what great opportunities I was learning. And not only that, I could look to the future to see how this would be used for my good and how I would thrive from the knowledge that others chose not to gain. Suddenly, surrendering presented the opportunity of a lifetime.
Is surrendering easy? Of course not. If you are like me, you might need a little help with it. Fortunately, Young Living created an essential oil blend called Surrender to help you through your journey! Learn how this oil blend can help you overcome resentment, irritability, anxiety and the need to be argumentative among a few other things related to the journey you are facing that requires your surrender.
Surrender™ is a blend of Lavender, Black Spruce, Roman Chamomile, and other essential oils that provides aromas to help cast off inhibitions that may be co
ntrolling your life or limiting your potential.
To learn more about how this oil helps move you closer to a frequency of Surrender, watch my “Surrender” webinar, to learn of its constituents.
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