The idea of surrender can create a negative connotation in the mind which senses a vulnerability and a loss of control in it. Surrendering to “what is” is not an act of meekness rather it’s a state of openness, where you wisely understand that your mind does not know the bigger picture and hence its interpretations cannot be trusted fully. Your mind can only interpret, and evaluate, a situation from its past experiences, its belief systems, external conditioning and natural makeup – these interpretations have a value but they cannot be trusted fully. Allow the mind’s interpretations, but also stay surrendered to allowing life, trusting its intelligence and knowing that every situation has an inherent value towards growth, and the unfolding of your desired reality, even if it seems negative to the mind in the present moment.

There are only two things you can do in any situation – stay surrendered/allowing of it, or struggle against it. Even when the mind is struggling with a situation, you can stay surrendered to this struggle in the mind. By “mind”, I am just referring to the thinking/figuring-out part of your brain. You don’t have to join in the struggle, though there is a huge temptation to do so, owing to your fear of staying surrendered. You may think that if you don’t join the mind in its struggle you would be staying in denial and thus not get any solution, but the truth is that when you consciously allow the mind there is no denial, instead there is an openness to the conflict/fear in the mind, and this openness makes you receptive to life’s intelligence allowing for solutions to come through at the right time.

Dealing with challenges

The mind is relatively at peace when its not in the midst of a challenge, but its not possible to live a physical life without some challenges coming through now and then. The mind naturally feels a sense of agitation when faced with a challenge, because it can immediately create a perception that its survival is under threat. In this state of agitation, it’s bound to create a lot of fear based thoughts, what can be called “paranoid thoughts”, about the situation at hand, or about the future. Of course, in many cases there may not even be a real challenge to face, and the mind is just creating an imaginary future situation, and worrying about it. Your ability to stay surrendered depends on how much space/gap you have between your awareness and your mind’s thought-space. If your awareness is totally lost in the mind space, its very difficult to stay surrendered. It takes some time to develop this space/gap between your awareness and the mind. The practice of relaxed awareness is what builds this space.

A life without challenges feels boring, while a life full of challenges feels draining, and what’s needed is a “balance”. Moreover, you don’t want challenges that leave you exasperated, rather you would want challenges that make you feel productive and creative. When you are living unconsciously, with a high momentum of negativity, your challenges can seem overwhelming and constant, whereas when you are more rooted in your being, with a lower mind momentum, you can mostly choose your challenges as a means to exercise your creativity and competence, and the challenges that arise out of the blue don’t overwhelm your being, allowing you to stay surrendered to it and thus be a channel for quicker solutions to come through.

Allowing a solution to take shape

There is a solution to every problem, and if a problem manifests in your reality it means that its solution is already percolating in your life space (you can read this post – Every Problems Manifests its Solution for more insights on this). You can look back on your life and see that all the problems you faced in the past don’t exist now, all of them manifested into a solution. This is true for your present problems/challenges also, in that solutions will manifest for them. The deal is, what is your experience of life in the midst of the challenge? Are you breaking down due to your fears/resistances or are you staying open thus having less resistance in your being/body towards allowing the solution in (and thus also having a calm experience of the whole situation).

Certain challenges/problems can manifest their solutions quickly, because components required for the solution may already be in place. However, some challenges can take a while to manifest into a complete solution, you may sense that life is giving you the resources to “handle” the situation but you are not yet free of the problem fully – this basically just means that either you need to release more of your resistance (grow in maturity) or you just need to wait for the complete solution to take shape. You may be fully ready for a solution and yet the solution may take time to manifest because some components required for the solution may not be in place yet. Your job is to always look within to sense patterns of resistance in you, in an honest manner, and let go of holding on to them, while also being relaxed enough to release any suppressed energies in your inner space, created through past negativity, that may be a block to a free energy movement.

Dealing with fear and hatred in the midst of a challenge

The mind can throw up a lot of hatred and fear based thoughts in response to a challenge it may be facing, or a challenge it may be imagining. The last thing you want to do is try to suppress this reaction in your mind, because your suppression will fuel your mind’s negativity even further – the energy of suppression by itself is rooted in hatred/fear and hence it fuels the mind momentum towards hatred/fear even more. What’s needed is to bring a conscious space of allowing, while not trying to change the mind or oppose the mind’s reaction. The mind has the right to feel angry, fearful or agitated, after all it’s a survival machine, and physical life can be highly challenging to the mind since it never has access to the bigger picture – for example, your solution may be happening in two days time, but your mind doesn’t know this in advance and hence it stays in uncertainty, thus feeling fearful, and angry with the situation.

It’s important to start understanding the mind, and how it works, instead of hating it or opposing it. The mind is innocent, and it’s only trying its best all the time, and it’s limited by its intelligence, conditioning and natural makeup. If you fight your mind, it will fight back. Most people who have a hard time dealing with their mind are the ones who never take the time to understand their mind, they are either lost in believing it and thus fueling it, or they are constantly suppressing it. When I use the term “awareness” I am just referring to an openness to seeing the mind as it is, without imposing your judgments on how it should be. Your mind is as it is, you can either be surrendered to it or you can struggle against it, the former option allows for quicker solutions to come through while the latter not only delays wholesome solutions but also creates a very negative experience for you in the interim as you suffer your own struggle.