“I Surrender”

By Amy Phillips-Gary

If you were a warrior on a battlefield or even playing chess or another board game, uttering the words “I surrender” would probably not be a desirable thing to do.

There is a definite association between surrendering and failure or weakness in predominant understandings of the concept.

Nobody wants to be considered weak or a loser.

In order to allow the kind of life and success that you want, however, surrender may be the key.

When conditions in your body, your relationships, your job, your bank account-- your life-- start to feel out of control and are not what you had in mind, you may try to force things back into“line.”

This is what I tend to do.

I find myself pushing against unseen forces that appear to be moving me in a direction that I do not want to go. Or, conversely, I attempt to wrestle my life along if what I want is not happening as quickly as I'd like it to-- or at all.

Just about every time that I've found myself in this “I will force my life to be the way I want it to be” mode, I become worn out and frustrated. This tactic simply does not work.

Many times, in fact, it only gets worse because of my pushing.

When I was taught to drive a car in snow and ice as a teenager, I learned a valuable, even life-saving, lesson. What my father made certain I understood was this: If the car that I'm driving begins to slip and slide, do NOT slam on the brakes and jerk the steering wheel in the opposite direction.

You were possibly taught this same winter driving lesson as well.

Instead, my father made me practice taking my foot off the gas, easing on the brake and gently steering in the direction my car is sliding. From there, the car can more effectively be re-directed back to the road or lane.

Thankfully, the other night when another car came donut-ing out of control into my lane on the highway, those ingrained lessons kicked in. I avoided an accident and didn't even skid or spin.

When you surrender, you release resistance.

You may feel like you slam on the symbolic breaks in your life when conditions feel frightening or unpleasant. Or, you might feel like you ram anything and everything out of your way at full speed trying to force movement when all feels stagnated.

In both cases, you are causing resistance.

Perhaps you butt heads with a person at work with whom you have to complete a project. You might storm around, sigh loudly or silently simmer about this entire situation.

Maybe you are concerned that, because the two of you are such a miserable team, the project will turn out poorly and this will reflect negatively on you. You are wanting to succeed and move up at work and this does not seem to be helping with that goal.

As you can guess, resisting where you are is not going usher in the improvements that you seek.

On the other hand, when you surrender, you release resistance in the form of all of those worries, limiting beliefs, fears and low expectations. You are no longer attempting to force anything at all about this situation.

The beauty and even magic is that it is almost always at this moment of surrender, that unexpected breakthrough moments happen. As you symbolically throw up your hands and let yourself go with the flow, it all-- somehow-- turns out.

Quite often, it all turns out even better than you expected.

Life can come together for you when you stop pushing against. Your dreams can manifest when you no longer force them and, instead, allow them to happen.

When you surrender, you place trust in the Universe.

Ok, so does surrendering to the flow of life mean that we should all just sit around and do nothing?

Of course not.

There is a huge difference between surrender and ambivalence. You can have a very clear and defined focus about where you'd like to go and what you'd like to do with your life.

Rev up your excitement about whatever makes your heart sing. Dream your dreams in high-color and vivid detail.

Then it's time to turn it all over to the Universe.

Whether you look to God, Goddess, Allah, the Universe, Source, Great Spirit or another higher power, allow that presence to provide. Create space so that you can listen for guidance and cues about when it's time to act and when it's time to wait and be patient.

I know, this isn't always the easiest thing to do because it requires trust. It also requires an inner assertion that you are worthy of what you seek-- whether it's happiness, a sense of fulfillment, health and vitality or love.

Give yourself those gifts of trust and worthiness and, as you do, surrender to what life has in store for you. It may surprise and delight you-- if you let it.

Intuition or Something Else?: How to Tell the Difference Between the Various Voices in Your Head

By Amy Phillips-Gary

Recently, I re-watched the late 1980s movie “Field of Dreams.” In the film, Kevin Costner plays a somewhat new-to-the-vocation farmer in Iowa named Ray. One day, as he stands tending the corn in his fields, he hears a voice call to him: “If you build it, he will come.”

Ray ignores the voice, jokes with his wife and daughter about it and loses sleep over it. The voice doesn't give up! Finally, a vision of a baseball field right in the middle of his corn crop accompanies the words.

And so begins Ray's weird and wonderful journey to plow under a significant portion of his crops and build a baseball field on part of his land. If you've seen the movie, you already know that “they”-- meaning baseball players from just before the 1920s who were banned from the game-- did indeed come and play ball on Ray's field.

Along this amazing journey, Ray faces inner doubt as well as apprehension and even derision from others. He takes financial and emotional risks and he is never assured that this will come out okay in the end.

But he does it anyway.

Voices in our heads
Perhaps you've never heard actual voices in your head as Ray did. You may, however, have felt a pull or a strong impulse to make a different than usual choice.

Sometimes this pull leads you toward outcomes that are pleasing and expansive. Other times, they don't appear to be positive at all.

Quite often, it can become confusing to really determine whether the impulse you are called to follow is truly intuitive or if it comes from something else.

There is a significant difference between intuitive inner information and the thoughts or beliefs that derive from fears, anger, desire for escape or other urges.

In order to thrive and expand in desired ways, it's vital that you learn how to tell the difference.

As you might have already discovered from your own experiences, when your actions are driven by worried, fearful or lack-based impulses, you often end up in the unsatisfactory places that you've been before-- or maybe even places that seem worse!

On the other hand, when you trust an intuitive pull, just about every time you feel improvements. They might not come immediately, but the steps you take based on the call from your intuition moves you closer to where you want to be.

Differentiate, Trust and Take Action
Two ways to tell the difference between the intuitive “voices” and those others that are based in such things as fear, lack, anger or escape, is to pay attention.

Start to notice the emotions and overall mood that accompany a particular compulsion arising within you.

For example, if you feel drawn to quit your job and open a cafe, are you mainly feeling beaten down by your current work situation and just want to get out? Or, are you mostly excited about the prospect of owning your own eatery?

The way that you feel is key!

If you find that your primary motivator at the moment seems to be upset about your present job, I don't necessarily recommend that you immediately abandon the aspiration to open a cafe. It just may not be the right time to take action.

Intuitive voices usually occur alongside feelings of excitement, eagerness, invigoration and often a sense of certainty or knowing.

Of course, as certain as Ray in “Field of Dreams” was that he had to take action and build that baseball field, he also encountered moments of doubt, worry and mistrust.

This can make for a confusing ride.

But when those doubts arise, return to your inner self. Take a deep breath and see if you can tap into those excited and eager feelings. Remember why you chose to follow your intuition in the first place.

As long as you can reach into that reservoir of hopefulness and vision within, it is probably wise to continue along this path. If not, you might decide to alter your course or to pause and take no further action for a period of time.

Practice tuning in to your guiding impulses in everyday moments.

As you are out driving, do you feel drawn to take a different street or highway than you usually do? If so, chances are there's a reason. Take that different route and see what happens.

Notice how it feels to act on a worrisome urge as opposed to an intuitive pull. How do the outcomes usually differ?

Following your intuition can seem like handing over the reins of control to your life. This is uncomfortable for many people, including me.

Keep breathing and tuning in to the way that you feel.

Make mental note when you take action on an intuitive pull and it has pleasing results. This can help you to more fully trust in the process and to know that we all truly do live in a benevolent and supportive Universe.

Inner Renovations

By Amy Phillips-Gary

Do you ever feel like you're boxed into a room with a very very low ceiling?

I certainly do at times. It's as if there's some imaginary boundary that's preventing me from moving ahead with my plans and intentions.

Whether it's a ceiling on my finances, my relationships, my creativity and career or my ability to have a healthier fitter body, that blocked feeling is oh so real.

And I put the ceiling there.

It is almost epidemic the way many of us erect ceilings on our own capacity and then act as if we're helplessly trapped.

What's your ceiling look like?
Take some time and identify the ways in which you've constricted your life. It could be that you've modeled the example of the adults who surrounded you as you grew up.

You might want to live a more financially abundant life than your parents, for example, but it seems scary or perhaps even “wrong” to transcend that ceiling you've always known.

The ceiling you've created for yourself may have made sense in your past.

If you experienced abuse, diminishing or making yourself invisible could have been a very smart way to stay safe and preserve your well-being as much as possible.

The boundaries we've set for ourselves are neither good nor bad.

Avoid judgmental labels and devote more of your energy to noticing. Are you moving closer or further away from your goals?

Sometimes we are so accustomed to our habitual ways of living that we simply cannot see the ceiling-- even if it's boxing us in.

We resign ourselves to a life that feels out of our control and we play victim to external forces.

Whenever you find yourself yearning for something different, something more, sit up and take notice. Your discomfort and unhappiness are signaling you to take a deeper look.

Within those inner calls for something new is probably a self-created ceiling.

When you recognize that you are feeling constricted, you are a step closer to freedom.

Dare to be more

“I dare you!”

These are the words kids sometimes use to goad one another.

It might be like those famous movie dares such as retrieving a ball from the scary neighbor's yard or the ill-fated “triple dog dare” that resulted in one kid's tongue sticking to the school's frozen flagpole.

As you probably are well aware, dares like these can lead people to choices that are harmful or just plain foolish.

But a dare can also help you move beyond where you are and to a place where you never dreamed you could go!

You can dare to dissolve that imaginary ceiling and expand. Of course, this can be a scary undertaking and it might even feel like it violates a rule.

When you dare yourself to apply for that grant, quit your job and go back to school, ask an acquaintance out on a date or have that difficult conversation with your partner, you are taking a risk.

There are lots of unknowns and you cannot be assured of how it's all going to work out. It is up to you whether the risk of possibly moving closer to the dream life you have for yourself is worth it.

Perhaps you are 100% sure that you want to take the dare, yet that darn ceiling seems rigid and immovable.

The really wonderful news that you might not want to hear is that you are 100% powerful.

No matter what your current situation is and what your past experience was, you are ultimately the one who created the ceiling in your life and you are the one who can dissolve it.

Keep reminding yourself of where you want to be as you continue to open up to the fact that you can get there. Dismantle the beliefs that might be lending your ceiling strength and rigidity.

Your ceiling may seem to come down all at once, but chances are it will be a gradual process. Create room for expansion within your life one decision at a time.

So get clear about what you want and recognize the obstacles you've set in your own way. Then step out and be more-- I dare you!