Surrender

I don’t know about you, but it feels to me as if 2014 has been a year of battles and anguish. Throughout the world there have been so many heart-wrenching stories of pain and loss, coming one after the other in quick succession, providing very little chance to try and get your head around one thing before another comes to rock your world view.

There have been lost planes, mass conflicts in both the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and then the Ebola Crisis in Africa. And it doesn’t seem to be letting up… a few days before Christmas lives were lost in Glasgow as a dustbin lorry veered out of control, and then today yet another airplane has been lost. It just keeps coming.

And away from the large scale news, there are the individual lives that are affected every single day. The deeply personal stories of those affected by the above mentioned events, as well as those fighting their own personal battles. And I count TJ and myself in this.

2014 has been one of the hardest years we have ever had to face. And that is saying something. Since we met in 2007 I have been through 3 pseudo-menopauses, surgery, and a HG pregnancy (further complicated by Obstetric Cholestasis). And TJ has changed careers twice in an effort to continue working despite increasing pain and symptoms that have affected every part of his life. We’ve both faced depression head on, both been in therapy, and both come out fighting another day. Yet this year has pretty much broken us!

TJ’s health took such a huge turn for the worst this year, and in turn so did mine as the stress of working full-time whilst trying to meet the needs of an active 3 year old and a very poorly husband really began to take its toll. We have fought until we had no fight left in us, and thankfully it seems as if the tides are slowly turning and we’re beginning to surface above the crashing waves once more. And we have hope that 2015 will bring us more good news. But we are beat.

And over the past few days I have been reflecting on this a lot. I find that I am in need of a complete change of attitude to the world around us and the personal battles that we all face. For too long now I have been fighting against the tide, passionately hoping beyond hope that one day things will change, when really it might have been easier to choose to surrender and ride the waves instead. But how do you do that when every inch of your being tells you to fight?

It wasn’t that long ago that I wrote a blog post called “Warrior“. And I do still relate to that post a lot. But I’m beginning to wonder whether there is a balance between fighting and surrendering. Choosing our battles has to be wiser than fighting in each and every one that comes our way, surely?

This doesn’t mean accepting injustice, or allowing things that we feel are inherently “wrong” to go unchecked. But it does mean realising that some battles are not ours to fight. Some battles simply cannot be won by giving everything you have to them. Sometimes the battle is not so much the outer experience, but your inner one.

Last night I did something that I haven’t done in a very long time. I prayed. I mean I really, truly opened my heart and asked for help. I didn’t scream out my need for help in desperation, like I have been doing recently, only to then continue trying to fight the battle myself. Rather, I sat in silence and focused on what I really needed. And that was love, acceptance and peace.

TJ and I have so much more ahead of us that we need to face together. Our lives are pretty turbulent at the moment, and it can feel utterly overwhelming at times. And that isn’t going to change overnight. But what can change is our perception of this. We can give ourselves some grace to breathe and be and accept that even when every day feels like a battle, it’s okay.

And I know that for me this means learning how to surrender. I need to give up this idea that I have to fix it all myself. I need to relinquish the thought that I am not good enough, because if only I were better our lives would be better too. And I need to surrender my pride enough to open up my heart and let others in.

It isn’t an easy concept for me to grasp. I have become used to surviving on my own merit. But doing so has led me to become very cynical about life and closed to a lot of the wonderful things in our lives right now. And this needs to change. It is a change worth making, a risk worth taking, and it just feels right.

So my word for 2015 is surrender. I’m going to stick it up on my blog sidebar so that it reminds me every time I log on. I’m also going to add it to the manifestation collage I made for myself on the eve of the Winter Solstice. And I am going to be intentional about surrendering myself to what is happening right now in my life and what is to come over the next 12 months.

Tell me, what changes do you want to make for 2015?