The Inner Peace Process – Surrender

There are 3 Steps in the Inner Peace Process: acceptance, surrender and letting go. The aim is to achieve a sense of inner peace in your own BEing.

Last blog I discussed the first step in the Inner Peace Process of Acceptance. This time I will cover the second step of Surrender.

Surrender is closely related to acceptance and means we surrender to the situation and what is happening and stop trying to control it or another person. It is also very closely related to letting go of our attachment to a particular outcome. We can surrender to the process we are going through and let ourselves go with the flow or we can keep fighting it or trying to control it and make it hard work – like trying to swim upstream.

I had a beautiful experience of this lesson and the folly of “trying too hard to control things or make them happen” a few years ago while visiting Africa. We were rowing down the Zambezi River in inflatable canoes. It was a lovely, hot day with the sun shining as we drifted past the beautiful African landscape of brown rolling plains and the short flat trees with elephants on the shore and crocodiles and hippopotami in the water. Yes that’s right, we were floating right past crocodiles and the most deadly animal in Africa, the hippopotamus, in our little, two-person blow-up canoe. It was an amazing experience.

Well, my girlfriend and I were not master rowers. In fact we were less than novices and not good at all, but we were trying very hard to get it right. We tried lots of different ways of rowing and were getting very hot and sweaty, but still we kept going around in circles and were not progressing very far at all for all the hard work we were doing. Then we happened to look over at our guide, up in front of us, of course, and he wasn’t doing anything much at all. He was just lying back in his canoe and, every now and then, dipping his oar in on one side or the other, in a totally relaxed manner.

Then we got it! We needed to stop trying completely and just let ourselves go with the flow. So we lay back, relaxed and dipped our oars in every now and then to keep us on track, and we flowed easily and smoothly. We surrendered to the flow. We stopped sweating and were able to just enjoy the scenery that is Africa as we gently flowed down the river. We realized at the time what a wonderful analogy for a life lesson we had just received. Relaxing and going with the flow is the trick, with action to stay on track when needed. Wouldn’t you rather do that than put in all the effort to swim upstream against the flow?

How does this affect our communication and relationships you might ask? Well when we have inner peace through acceptance and surrender we are far less stressed and more relaxed – just like we were when rowing. By surrendering to the flow and not trying to control everything around us, we will consequently be more easy going and more fun to be around. BEing this relaxed person will attract people with similar vibrations who we will enjoy being with and so the connection and flow keeps going. It also means that the way we communicate will be more relaxed and flexible so people will want to talk open up to us more.

So surrender to the Universal Energy (you may prefer to call it God)

• to how things are and how they will be
• be in the flow
• don’t try too hard and relax
• enjoy the journey and your new connections.

I would love to hear how you go with this and what changes you experience so please let me know in a comment. I would also appreciate receiving your comments or questions on anything you would like to ask. Feel free to contact me .