I Surrender!

“We are always fighting. We are fighting for the job, we’re fighting for the relationship, we’re fighting our partner or parents to be a certain way, we’re fighting to maintain our fixed agendas. We’re fighting to get people to understand us, we’re fighting to get our body a certain way, we’re fighting to make money, we’re fighting to avoid failure, we’re fighting to be what we think we should be. All this fighting hardens us, and makes us sick. Fighting has to do with getting. And a get state of mind is not a receptive state of mind. When we put out a get mentality, we’ll be got. But when we surrender, we receive.” –Baron Baptiste.

I read Baron Baptiste’s book a few years ago, 40 Days to Personal Revolution, and this quote from it really hit home for me. I realized how much “fighting” I’ve done throughout my life, even though I’ve been known to say I’m not a fighter!  I don’t like fighting, so I decided I’d work on this.

How do you know if you’ve been fighting? Here’s an example:

If you’re trying to lose weight, and you push your way to that goal by doing things like:
> Punishing yourself (for real or just in your head) when you mess up
> Wearing clothes that are uncomfortable to remind yourself you’re too big
> Depriving or starving yourself

…and you feel badly about it,

You’re fighting. Take a few minutes, put down the boxing gloves, and surrender.

It reminds me of one time when I was in 5th grade when I saw a teacher of mine running on the weekend. She looked horrible—miserable, sweaty, in too-tight-too-short shorts. I remember being kind of surprised she was trying so hard at something like that. Coincidentally, the next Monday in school I heard her talking to another teacher about running.

She said, “I went running on Saturday, but I decided it’s just not for me. I’m just going to be fat and happy for the rest of my life.”

So—that’s not the kind of surrendering I’m talking about! I’m talking about the kind of surrendering that happens when you stop beating yourself up to help you reach your goals. You may have XYZ about yourself that you are not entirely fond of. However, working with it instead of against it will yield better results and you’ll be happier throughout the process.