Surrender.  Such a simple word for such a complex process and something that means so many different things to each person.  My post today will be filled with more questions than answers.  These questions have different answers for everyone and each answer changes not only with each different situation but also as we grow.  My answers are not your answers and vice versa.  Today’s answers may not be correct tomorrow.  

I’ve chosen trust for my word as the next step in my personal growth.  As I examine and work on what I always thought was such an easy and natural part of myself, I’ve discovered my challenge with sincerely embracing trust is understanding surrender.  To trust, you must surrender. 

Surrender your need to control and be in control.  Allow yourself to just be you.  Yes, mistakes will occur.  Yes, you need to learn from mistakes but, you do not need to beat yourself up over them.  If someone else physically or emotionally assaulted you simply because you made a mistake, would you accept that as what you deserved?  I guess the appropriate punishment deserved would depend upon the type and level of mistake, correct? 

Let’s put this in perspective by asking a few more questions.  Did you physically or emotionally harm anyone else when you made the mistake?  To what degree was the other party harmed?  Should a sincere apology, gesture or action be enough to at least ease the discomfort caused?  Now for the hardest question.  Was the other person truly harmed or was it simply a perception of harm by that person?  Do we owe others restitution for what was perceived as harm when none occurred?  Is the fact they felt harmed truly our fault or did the event simply reveal an area which is crying for introspection and acceptance within themselves? 

Stepping outside of ourselves to examine these complex emotions is difficult.  I am just beginning to understand the concept better.  Last week, I would have screamed, “It’s impossible to see and understand these situations from outside of myself!”  Today, as I write this, I’m starting to understand the process and visualize how it works.  I want to grab it and hug it tightly until it fully opens itself within me.  Even as I write this, I feel my mind and my soul screaming for this understanding to please, please stay.  Please open yourself completely into my entire being.  Hold me.  Surround me.  Fill me.  Love me.  Yet, I know and understand that it cannot grow if I hold it too tightly.  It must be allowed to move through me at its own pace. 

Is this surrender?  Is this trust?  Is this acceptance?  Is this simple and beautiful self-love?  Isn’t it all these things and more? 

Let’s revisit those questions a couple of paragraphs up.  To me, these questions lead to more questions.  If we were to ask these questions about someone else, would the answers be different than if asked of ourselves?  Is forgiving ourselves harder than forgiving others?  Is asking others to forgive us harder than forgiving ourselves?  Do we judge ourselves more harshly when we harm others than we do when we harm ourselves?  Do we feel we’ve caused more damage than what truly occurred?  Was anyone truly damaged or did we simply allow a light to illuminate a dark and lonely corner? 

Taking that step back to observe without judgement does not come naturally to most of us.  Our perceptions are based on many years of being told how we should act, what we should think, what we should do and who we should be.  Learning to love and embrace all pieces of ourselves as beautiful and whole is made even more complicated and difficult by all the mixed messages we receive from everywhere and everyone.  One moment we will hear, “you must have goals.  You must keep moving and pushing until those goals are achieved.”  The next moment you will hear, “stop, rest and listen.”  That sounds very contradictory, doesn’t it?  As I wrote it, I felt the confusion.  Once I saw the words, clarification came to me.  Stopping to evaluate progress is part of the pushing forward.  If all you are doing is pushing forward, you may end up ten miles down the road only to realize you should have made a turn five miles ago or the destination has shifted.  However, not all contradictory messages are so easily and quickly resolved.

This is where surrender has currently planted itself in front of me to be fully acknowledged and accepted.  As much as I want to believe I am letting myself surrender to trusting the universe, I am still self-judging and pushing myself forward when I don’t even know which direction “forward” is.  I have some loose goals, but I don’t really have a true direction or mission.  I say that I’m allowing the universe to guide me, yet, every day, I feel guilty for not knowing or understanding what my goals are.  I criticize myself daily for not doing enough or doing things “wrong”.  There are days I use myself as an emotional punching bag because I’m not going about my job search the “right” way.  It took me three days to write and edit a cold call cover letter.  I spent the third day telling myself how it should not have taken that long to write a simple letter.  Next, I beat myself up that this letter did not look or sound like a “proper and acceptable” cover letter.  Then I beat myself up over beating myself up.  

My next step was to visit Glassdoor to research companies in the area.  As I read each review, I saw the very same negative theme in every company.  I felt frustrated and helpless.  After pushing that emotion aside, I visited LinkedIn to research people who worked for these companies.  Now, I know the goal of this website is to market yourself to the rest of the working world, so you put the prettiest possible spin on your career history.  What a beautiful thing for overachievers!  It’s not so healthy for those of us who fall into the zone of being overly humble or self-depreciating.  That visit to LinkedIn led to a level of frustration which absolutely demanded I just stop doing everything and give into the feeling of hopelessness.       

The vicious cycle is just that – vicious.  I am forever judging and questioning myself instead of simply surrendering myself to trusting my worth, my journey, and the universe.  It’s those moments of desperation which make you do exactly what you need to do.  You literally have no choice in the matter.  It absolutely needs to happen, yet you continue to deny yourself the very thing you need until you have absolutely no choice.  How much easier would life be if we would surrender instead of fight through where we weren’t even meant to go?

I have a few examples of the phenomenon of needing and wanting to go one direction, choosing or being pushed by others to go a different direction and then the universe suddenly steps up to correct or refine our course.

Shortly after Don and I got married, even though I was eligible for a promotion, I asked my employer to just let me hang out as an assistant manager for a while.  I wanted to just live in the moment for several months and enjoy this wonderful new personal life without the extra stress and time constraints required by being a general manager.  Barely a week after our wedding, an area director was literally hounding me to take a general manager position at a location I knew was not a good fit for my personal goals.  I repeatedly told her no, but she kept pressuring me.  She is one of those who uses every form of emotional blackmail at her disposal to get what she wants; truly a master manipulator.  Of course, I caved.  I mean, after all, it was what I had been working towards for so long as my career goal, right?  Two weeks later, I was overly stressed out, exhausted and never home.  The thanks I received from the master manipulator was constant belittling and micromanaging.  After the fourth week, I asked to take the step back down and return to my original restaurant.  As soon as I announced my decision, her behavior towards me grew even worse.  My first day back in my home restaurant, I was so extremely thrilled to be back with my crew.  My joy was short-lived.  The full reason why would require taking this story too far off the rails but, just know it was another sign that I should have taken that pause and adjusted my path much sooner than I did.  The company barely let me catch my breath from that adventure before they started asking me to fill in for short and long-term assignments several miles away from home.  Of course, I felt guilty for turning down the promotion and wanted to be a team player, so I said yes, every time they asked.  Fast forward to my last few months of employment with that company.  I was sent on a six-week assignment to a restaurant which was approximately ninety minutes from home.  While I remained very firm on which days and type of hours I would work during this assignment, I still worked a minimum of ten hours each day.  Again, upon my return to my home restaurant, I was thrilled to be back and ready to catch my breath.  Unfortunately, I arrived back “home” to the same reception I received after the last assignment.  The next time an opportunity arose, I jumped on it.  Even though it still was not an ideal situation, I thought this was finally “it.”  Five months later, I left my key on the desk, walked out the door and never looked back.  I burned my uniform shirts that weekend.  I raged about the five years of my life I wasted allowing an employer to disrespect and abuse me for so long.

That long story illustrates how many times I ignored my instinct to stay still in the moment to evaluate the path.  It finally reached a point that the only thing that was absolutely crystal clear was that I needed to get out of that toxic environment.  My mental and physical health were at risk and I was exhausted all the way into my soul.  I went through a period of what can only be described as cleansing and healing my soul.  It was still a rough patch, but I had such a clear vision of my boundaries.  When I interviewed for new career positions, I communicated my boundaries in a way that I thought I had finally found my perfect fit.  And, for a while, it was; until my boundaries were crossed.  Once again, I allowed it in the name of teamwork and cooperation.  This time, the universe stepped in, swiftly and with a vengeance, to very loudly say, “Nope!  Never again!”

Here I am, sitting at my computer, job hunting, trying to stay positive as rejection after rejection arrives.  I fluctuate between feeling free to be myself and feeling that I need to pretend to be someone I am not just so I can financially support my little family.  It grows harder to stay true to my boundaries as the bank account balance dwindles.  Each time I consider changing my job search approach, I know the universe will not allow me to compromise my boundaries again.  Surrendering to the will of the universe, trusting it to deliver me exactly where I’m meant to be, the minute I’m meant to be there, is overwhelming and liberating all at the same time.  I know surrendering does not equal giving up.  I’ve still got to put the work in, search for the answers and recognize them when they come.  While I believe it is meant to be delivered to me, I’ve got to place the order and pay the price.   

Trusting the universe enough to surrender to its design and will is a battle I’ve won in the past.  It’s possible that I let myself be deprogramed by those with the best of intentions – to make themselves more comfortable.  That is another challenge I battle on and off; worrying too much about other people’s comfort level.  Maybe we’ll get around to that topic soon!  For now, I just want to thank those of you who are following along on my journey of being perfectly imperfect and accepting myself for being just that!