Surrender

Mother Nature has been teaching us lots this year.  The long, cold, snow-filled winter, along with procrastinating spring can definitely affect us if we let it.  However, is it something we can do anything about?  The only thing we can do is choose our response to it.  In this case we have been given the opportunity to practice surrender.  Surrender means to cease resistance to the enemy or opponent.  We have heard the saying “what you resist, persists.” Why not quit resisting and instead surrender and allow; perhaps using this time for turning inward on our healing and self-discovery journey?

This week I had an experience that again gave me an opportunity for surrender.  I had been feeling blah with no energy… in fact, I hear it is going around.  Sometimes we have no apparent reason for feeling this way.  We try to talk ourselves out of it… get happy and busy again already!  In fact, we may recognize the many blessings in our lives, however, the feeling of listlessness still looms over us. 

It was on such a day, the one where the list is long and you don’t feel like doing any of it, that nature again brought me a reason to smile.  Looking out the window, there was a chipmunk excitedly jumping around “leaf-people” we made, that were sitting on the bench by the pond.  They had mitts, hats, and scarves and all this little soul saw was some ideal nesting material!  She busily, tugged and pulled, tugged and pulled until she broke the pompom from the Santa hat free.  With pompom in mouth she skipped along the yard toward the wooden gazebo, up the post and in the bird house!  Super-proud of her accomplishment, she situated it and poked her head out the hole, looking to see if anyone noticed the great prize she just scored.  We did!  She brought smiles and laughter, with amusement at her playful way of being.  She too had been waiting for spring, the time to start new projects and create new beginnings!  Now was the time, the time to prepare for her new adventure.

This taught me that it is all right to slow down, to smell the roses or watch the chipmunks as it were!  Just maybe our body, mind and soul are telling us to rest from the regular hustle and bustle of every day life once in a while.  Surrendering to occasional low energy days and observing the world around us we often neglect to see… and feel joy!   Not the joy from being “busy” all the time, but the joy from simply being.  Before we know it, the time to be energized and ready to go again, will happen at just the right time. 

~ Sherry Buikema