Tag Archives: surrender

Faith and Surrender as Outlook Skills

Faith means many things. It isn’t necessarily belief in religion, but rather a type of trust. It is a trust of things you cannot prove or explain. You trust your friends will come through for you, or you trust gravity. There are many kinds of faith. It allows you to tap into a source of strength beyond yourself. It is what you know and believe to be true when your mind can’t prove it otherwise – the final extension of perception. Superficial faith isn’t any help, but deep faith can help you with stress that comes from the most painful parts of life. Allow tragedy to grow faith in you. Don’t run away from reality because it hurts. Hardships bring new insights. If you want to further develop your concept of faith, ask others about what they believe. Listen. How is it different from yours? How is it similar? Do not try to sell your faith to them; there are no right or wrong answers. Be polite and respectful; open your mind and learn.

Faith helps you surrender —accepting what is now and moving on from an outdated past or a distant future. Understand that things change and will continue to do so. Learn to live within your limits and make the best of what life has to offer. Surrendering is not defeat. Don’t let yourself worry needlessly over something you can’t control in the distant future. If you cross that bridge before you have to, you pay the toll twice.

Commitment versus Surrender

Commitment is your belief system in action. It is the decision to invest in particular goals, values, beliefs, and concepts. It seems as though there are a million things you want to do with your life, and even more you have to do. These want-to’s and have-to’s in life create stress if you don’t make good decisions about which is which. You’ll feel stressed if you only pay attention to either one.  Maybe you try too hard to do it all. If you find yourself saying there isn’t enough time, then you’ve got too much on your plate. It can make you feel panicked, rushed, and overwhelmed. On the other hand, having too little on your plate leaves you feeling unchallenged, bored, and depressed.

If you’ve taken on too much, you need to surrender something. We don’t like to surrender. We hate feeling  we had to give in or that we lost, but surrendering isn’t failing or losing. It’s the flip side of commitment, not the opposite of winning. It’s adjusting, and it can be as simple as changing your pace or realizing when a commitment is unrealistic.

  • Are you trying too hard to include all the want-to’s and  have-to’s  in your limited time?
  • Is there anything you want to surrender?  Need to surrender?