Keeping Our Center ~ Day 136

I’m hoping that the karma judges give me a bit of a break today. I’m not my best when I’m feeling overwhelmed. It hurts me to say this (but recognition is the first step toward recovery, right?), but I’m feeling a bit in-over-my-head this week and it makes me tense, anxious, short-tempered and like Blanche Devereaux once said, "I’m wound up tighter than a girdle on a Baptist's minister's wife at an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast!" LOL! At least I can laugh about it… now.

You see, when I find myself in a position like this I feel like I have to push through and push hard. However, most of what I need to do involves some type of spiritual creativity which does not respond well to pushing. The more I want to clamp down, and the more I worry about not being able to do it, the more I can’t do it, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What I need to do is what I least want to do. Surrender. Go with the flow. Recognize that wanting to push through is my ego’s way of saying, “I’m in control, I’ll do it myself.” Surrender says, “I’m completely kidding myself if I think I’m in control. I’m releasing my near-death grip and relaxing into the Divine Flow, trusting something other than my puny freaking-out brain.”

I almost didn’t write about this because I either sound like I’m losing it, or I’m bragging. I assure you, neither is the case. This is just darn hard stuff, which is why I’m trying valiantly to write something coherent about it. 

Surrender takes a deep breath and opens to the universe. Surrender shuts down the constrictive fight-or-flight response when I’m afraid I’m going to let you down or let me down. Surrender calms and assures and waits and believes. Surrender offers all of oneself in service to the Universal One. And when my ego starts squeaking in the background about getting everything done, I have to calmly tell it that I’m not listening. Also easier said than done.

Perhaps this beautiful prayer of surrender, (slightly adapted) written by Anglican Bishop Lancelot Andrewes at the turn of the seventeenth century, will help today:

Essence of Life that flows through all things,
I give you my hands to do your work.
I give you my feet to go your way.
I give you my eyes to see as you do.
I give you my tongue to speak your words.
I give you my mind that you may think in me.
I give you my spirit that you may prayer in me.
I give you my heart that you may love in me.
I give you my whole self that you may grow in me.
May it be so. 

Love & Light!

Kaye