Use the Principles of Acceptance & Surrender for Increased Mental Clarity
If it’s your desire to find peace within yourself, to find rest within yourself, then the principles of acceptance and surrender become essential. It’s not possible to attain true self-mastery without them.
Now you might be wondering a few things - you might be like:
a) Just what the hell do we mean when we say ‘ self-mastery ‘? and,
b) Just what the hell do acceptance and surrender have to do with it?
In the following few paragraphs I’ll answer these questions, and in so doing, hopefully leave you with some tools and insights that you can use immediately to bring this lesson to life in your own way.
Self-Mastery
Self-mastery refers to being in such an excellent relationship with yourself that you can simply create a plan to do something, and do it. No procrastination, no self-sabotage, no doubt, no wasting time, no guilt, no worry. Just simply creating a plan and then executing that plan.
In self-mastery, listen to ourselves, respect ourselves, communicate with ourselves. We lead ourselves — and willingly follow our own leadership.
In self-mastery we strive for a perfect balance of NOW and FUTURE; of work and play; of effort and enjoyment; of appreciation and encouragement.
From here we can act consistently toward the most important work.
The Excess of Self-Empowerment
You might be familiar with the “serenity prayer” that goes something like:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Those of us who are ambitious and goal-oriented are well familiar with the second line in that stanza — the importance of changing what we can change. But a trap that many of us fall into is that we get so hopped up on the sauce of Self-Empowerment that we start to act as if everything falls within our domain of influence. See?
In the 2nd line, we go so far with it that we blame ourselves for everything and fault ourselves for not already having succeeded in whatever we’re working at.
We end up getting lost in cycles of blame, shame, fault-finding. We wonder what’s wrong with us.
I’m suggesting now that there’s nothing wrong with you. This means:
- You’re not unmotivated,
- You’re not lazy,
- You’re not stupid,
- You’re not failing/a failure
Perhaps all we need is to reset everything through the wisdom of the 1st line of the prayer.
Acceptance
Try playing with the following questions:
- What are you unwilling to accept?
- What do you find to be totally unacceptable?
- What risks happening if you were you accept that which you find unacceptable?
The key thing about acceptance is that everything already is the way it is. It doesn’t matter how you feel about it — if you like it or not — it already is.
In a profound expression of benediction and sanity, you can accept that which you’ve been unwilling to accept up until now.
How to do this? Just simply affirm “I accept this thing. I allow it to be. I release my conflict with it now.”
Doing this doesn’t mean that you like it, or that you want it, or that you want more of it. You can accept something that’s NOT a match to your preferences.
Through acceptance, we release conflict with life as it is. We are releasing negativity out of our mental and emotional fields. This is where the mental clarity piece comes in. Because the extent to which we devote our minds to being against life as it is, is the extent to which we create unnecessary confusion, complication, suffering.
Surrender
Surrender is like acceptance, but on steroids. It’s the gateway to a profound peace that is accessible right now.
I’d like to mention here that when we talk about entering into a surrendered state this does not mean to give up on something and stop trying — or to become lazy. Instead, entering into a surrendered state is to live life and take action from a deeply centered place.
Action that comes from this state will carry much more power and creativity behind it. It will be much more likely to succeed. Not only that but it will likely succeed in a way that’s harmonious for everyone, creating less destruction and hurt than reactive action would take.
How to enter into a surrendered state? Here’s what to do:
- Sit still for a moment and connect to your breath.
- Offer the following intention: I surrender completely to life, now. Repeat several times either internally or aloud.
- Take stock of how you feel now. What do you notice?
Does it feel quieter, more spacious? Like a bit of relief? That’s how you know it worked! You can just hammer on this phrase all day long and enjoy stepping into greater and greater degrees of peace.
Summary
That ended up being a lot of text, but here’s the summary below:
- An absolutely necessary element of self-mastery is being skillful at acceptance & surrender. We cannot achieve any significant inner harmony without them.
- Self-mastery is when we have an excellent relationship with ourselves such that we can successfully lead ourselves into consistent action toward our highest priorities.
- Challenge yourself to accept that which you find unacceptable. It doesn’t mean you have to like it, but it DOES mean that it already is as it is, and the wisest response to release conflict against it.
- Releasing this sense of conflict allows us to act from a much more powerful and creative place.
- Surrender is an even deeper version of acceptance. The surrendered state is one where we truly allow life to be as it is. This is the birth of wisdom and profound clarity.
Hope this helps!
