Simple Surrender
I recently spent a few weeks in China. It wasn’t exactly a pleasure trip, but it turned out to be an incredible experience. I learned a few things about the country, but I learned quite a lot about myself. It took me several weeks after my return home to make the connection to the real benefits I received.
I often do volunteer work. You do, too! We all do volunteer work, even if we don’t recognize it while we’re doing it! 
I decided to help someone whom I met through amazing synchronicity, by supporting her on a trip to China, for medical treatment of her special needs child. I knew all along that I volunteered for a number of reasons…not just to help someone who needed help, but to see and experience the country and it’s people, and because I’m interested in the health treatments there.
I looked at the trip as a positive adventure. The trip was an adventure, but the adventure was in my personal growth, not in the intended experience. We don’t always get what we came for…sometimes we get more.
I set out for my adventure feeling that I was doing a good deed, and that I would enjoy my journey on many levels. I had no idea then, that there were expectations for my support, that I hadn’t volunteered for. I also discovered, to my great surprise, that I had an agenda of my own operating.
I often write and speak about agendas. I even developed a course called Surrender Your Agenda, and yet agendas sneak up on me all the time. An agenda, you know, is born in our minds, and consists of something we think we want to accomplish. That’s why we often call them personal agendas. While I was in China, my personal agenda, ran head on into someone else’s personal agenda. I’ve learned to realize that when I think I know the only way something should be, I need to give my agenda up to a higher purpose…I need to make a joy choice….I made the choice to surrender.
There are many times in life when things just don’t work out the way we imagined (in our wildest dreams sometimes!), times when we have walked head on into a situation which is very negative, even though we know we had good intentions! Are you feeling this? In these situations, we can fight, run, or surrender…..Let me tell you why surrender is the winning move.
Surrender often gets a bad rap. Surrender doesn’t mean lose, in fact, in it’s purest sense it simply means to "give up to." Surrender was the answer in China, because my agenda was fogging up my purpose for being there. My purpose involved being loving to others, and myself. The agenda that existed in my mind, however, consisted of having this be a win/win experience for everyone involved. The dynamics of two opposing agendas was causing friction. I had a choice…to stick to the agenda in my head, or to check with my heart, for an answer. I chose to surrender the agenda, cancel, and give up what I wanted, so that I could remain loving to myself and the others involved. It was a simple choice.
I came home with some incredible benefits. I have no negative feelings about the trip, even though it was far removed from the joy it could have been. I have happy memories, and any angst disappeared when I looked for the good in the situation. I now see the connections that were made ….the beautiful people I met there, who will be friends for life, and the amazing growth and understanding that I gained. The expression, "Go in Peace,’ has a new meaning for me.
Joy & Blessings, Carole xx
