"Turn and Face the Strain, Ch-, Ch- Changes" - by Todd Schaefer

Well yall, thought I’d drop this note here because I feel good about doing so. If you’ve read the July 2009 SSG Newsletter, you know that SSG is shifting in a major way right now, but I’m not shutting it down at this time. In fact, I’d like to share with you a few things I’ve been learning about surrender. It’s been a hellish battle, but it’s been rewarding.

Surrender is so fascinating because it essentially is the returning of my mind to God. It seems we go through spurts of growth, and each time we address something, we learn it better. Growth is energetic, not mental alone, so one example of the mark of our learning something spiritually (versus mentally) is denoted by how much fear we have released about that something. I’ve found it interesting how so often in my life, I have moved forward while staying put. Sound familiar? I’ve learned so many things, yet what I’ve allowed to come into my life has been very structured. The "allowing meter" has had the needle stuck on the "mild" setting. That, is changing as we speak.

'Surrendering' and 'allowing' sort of go hand in hand. The more we surrender, the more we allow by default. Surrendering is giving up control, and thus, more allowing happens. When more allowing happens, more good things show up: good feelings, good phone calls, good bye's, hellos, good items, etc.

When I surrender, I’m allowing God to lead my mind, instead of my mind to lead God. My life has had a lot of management in it at some times. Underneath that management, what I’ve come to discover is that there is a belief that things won’t hold together unless I’m managing them. Or that life won’t move forward unless I’m moving it forward. Usually, a needful feeling to move my life forward in some regard may end up with some external change, but it certainly does not guarantee change.

So often I’ve played in the illusion, and the closer I’ve gotten to nailing my ego to the floor and eliminating what it projects outwards, the more pissed off it has become. It has wanted to keep pointing, “but look there!” “but what about this?” Or just “yes, but…” ‘Yes but’ is what cuts off allowing. And perhaps for a time, those things have slowed me down and I’ve taken a closer look. But each of them has been worth the closer look. Light is automatically cast onto any fear or doubt that we have, and looking upon it again is never the same as before.

I used to take my growth pretty seriously. You know, I guess I still do. But it’s different. You see, it’s not as much under the management of my ego. I’ve observed myself when life would happen, and I wouldn’t allow it to happen because I deemed what I was doing or 'working on' to be more important than what was happening. Surrendering fixes that. Surrendering is trusting. Trusting that my intentions are set, and that I am focused on allowing everything to come into my life and accepting it as it is.

I remember one time where I walked into a group of people years ago. And after a while, I remember resenting being in that spirit group, deeming how “woo-wooey” it was. That was somewhat true, however, there was an important lesson to be learned. The exercises being offered were ones that required feeling and sensing, and all I was willing to offer was my intellect. I didn’t even have a concept yet that my mind was what was doing the resisting because it wasn’t being validated – it couldn’t be. Ya can’t go into an exercise of feeling and think your way through it.

Following intuition and my feelings wasn’t the issue, nor has it been a problem. What was a challenge was establishing 'who I was' with a sense of my mental identity, or who I thought I was, rather. No one was resisting me in the group, yet my mind was resisting. I didn’t know why I was upset. That ever happen to you?

I had so much to defend, so much identification with who I was at that time that when a situation did not represent who I thought I was, I believed that the situation was not for me.

Think about that sentence for a bit.

That was a long time ago, but in what I am experiencing now, that old memory arrives once more because surrendering has deemed it relevant. What’s the result? Could I go into that old scenario and know that I wouldn’t resist? If I had nothing to defend, if I had no expectations, if I was not dependent on the result, I could.

But what if I didn’t 'resonate' with being there?

With true surrender, it wouldn’t matter because I am resonating with BEING first.

If I resonate with Being (feeling, enjoying, not attaching, not identifying, not judging), if I give my mind to God, then I trust that everything that occurs is okay as it is. I trust that life is okay by me and I don’t have to do anything drastic in order to get this or that. Can I still have those items? Sure. But I can attract more bees with honey than vinegar. Surrendering is the honey; incessant thinking or 'getting' is the vinegar.

You know all this. Yes, you do. It’s all built in. It’s just waiting to be experienced in its own time. Here’s the catch, though. You can’t force the experience – you can only allow the experience.

With all other matters of life, we can force our way to greater results. With spiritual growth, we can put forth force, but since the goal is to get out of the mind and allow, feel, love, BE, enjoy, etc., we discover that we really haven’t spent much time outside of the mind to begin with. Then we find how smart we really are.

Every new echelon of spiritual growth is like this. So many levels intertwine so often, it’s hard to say what we’re working on or experiencing and when we’re doing it. Yet, we seem to know when something is complete. It’s in our feelings. We know when it’s time to take another step. We know when something is in alignment and that - no matter what - the step we take will be the right one because it is simply time to take a step.

Speaking of taking steps, one of my best friends told me something that brought me a lot of peace once when I was distraught, and still does. “Don’t judge your progress,” he said. That relaxed me. Figuring out that it’s not a race was a major thing for me to have understood. To accept that everything I do is the right thing for me, and that the result is meaningless. It’s simply about the experience. And it’s about consciousness growth. It’s about growing up, not growing old. And no matter what you believe, you can and will - without question - follow the path that is meant for you. The more conscious of it you become, the more you realize your creativity and enjoyment of it.

Surrender is giving up what we think is best for us, and allowing so much more, in every sense. Life doesn’t fall apart, it opens up in depth and in variety and in joyous peace and love for all things. With every single choice, we can choose to allow life to be that for each of us.

Blessings,
Todd Schaefer c2009

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