But acceptance is often misinterpreted as being synonymous with inaction. Far from it, acceptance really means making peace with my circumstances, instead of using them as an excuse for stagnancy or failure.

Once I make peace, I stop blaming my luck, my parents, the government, the economy, or anything else for my challenges and difficulties. I take my struggles in stride and train my spotlight on what I can do about them now. I become for what I want instead of against what I don’t want.

What’s the difference, you ask.

The difference is that when I’m against something, I try to fight that instead of working towards what I desire. I practise the absence of what I want instead of being present to what I can do about it. The simple act of refocussing my attention releases enormous energy—the energy to drive my emotional engine to change myself and my circumstances. Then any action that emanates from it is positive.

Keep your attention on the present moment

You may think that by refocussing I’m only indulging in some form of mental acrobatics and may doubt the efficacy of this. You may even feel tempted to equate this with mere positive thinking. But ‘being for’ is more than that. It’s a decision to live in the present moment, instead of denying it. Whatever my goal—conquering a self-defeating habit, bringing more happiness into my relationships, or achieving greater professional success—this attitude of acceptance lets me enjoy my Now, which in turn creates a more joyful future, moment to moment.

Ekhart Tolle explains beautifully:

If you set yourself a goal and work towards it, you are using clock time. You are aware of where you want to go, but you honour and give your fullest attention to the step that you are taking at this moment. If you then become excessively focussed on the goal, perhaps because you are seeking happiness, fulfilment, or a more complete sense of self in it, the Now is no longer honoured. It becomes reduced to a mere stepping-stone to the future, with no intrinsic value. Clock time then turns into psychological time. Your life’s journey is no longer an adventure, just an obsessive need to arrive, to attain, to ‘make it’.

So, my attention is my real currency; when it is in the Now, my life is rich and I live like a king. If I spend it anywhere other than in the present moment, I end up buying suffering. That’s a poor bargain, you will agree.

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She tells us about her excitement and keenness to get the part, her audition, her phone call to her agent, the agent’s response that she won’t get the role because she has no acting experience, her inner turmoil and resistance and her eventual letting go, when she finally surrendered deeply and accepted what is, before the magic phone call she received from director Steven Spielberg informing her that she was selected. Describing her experience, she says, “When you have worked as hard and done as much and striven and tried and given and pleaded and bargained and hoped—surrender. When you have done all that you can do, and there is nothing left for you to do, give it up. Give it up to that thing that is greater than yourself and let it then become a part of the flow.”

Surrender and struggle are really two sides of the same coin

The sentiment behind these words stirred me deeply. I found great resonance with them because I have been through similar situations when, after struggling, striving, praying, wishing and doing everything I could, I would give up. And soon after, whatever I had wanted would miraculously come my way. It’s surreal, this phenomenon.

But this kind of giving up is not the same as resignation—it comes from a deeper place in me. A place of knowing that whatever is happening now is as it should be. That’s when I give up blaming others and I let go of all resistances that were creating resentment, frustration, anger and other negative emotions. I fully accept the situation, without any reservations whatsoever. This acceptance is surrender.

But—and here’s the exquisite paradox—every time I have accepted and surrendered, I have first struggled. In other words, I couldn’t have surrendered before the struggle. There would be no meaning in it. So, surrender and struggle are really two sides of the same coin.

As soon as I let go, life begins to flow

I have come to see struggle as necessary for my growth. I think it builds character and also adds colour to life. I was listening to an Osho talk, in which he explains that without the struggle, it would not have been a great achievement for Edmund Hillary to climb Mount Everest. Hillary’s conquest was worthwhile only because it involved great effort.

Think about it. If you get something easily, do you value it? Value comes from the difficulty that preceded the achievement or acquisition, the greatness comes from the struggle, the toil.

The problem is, I keep forgetting this lesson of life, and the next time I face a challenge, I begin to resist the struggle. Perhaps resisting is also part of the grand design, because unless I resist, I cannot let it go. And as soon as I let go, life begins to flow.

“Suffering is necessary until you realise it is unnecessary,” says Eckhart Tolle. I guess, that’s the purpose of my struggles—to help me understand that I don’t need to struggle. Till this understanding becomes natural to me, I may have to continue to struggle from time to time.

The post The Point of Struggle appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

In this awe-inspiring Super Soul talk, she talks about how trying too hard and focusing too much on what you want can actually be counterproductive. When you want something really bad and it’s not coming to you, what you probably need is less of trying and more of surrender. But how does one surrender? Gabby gives us five exact steps to follow, for spiritual surrender.

More about the speaker

Gabrielle  Bernstein is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Universe Has Your Back and has written four additional best sellers. She was featured on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday as a “next-generation thought leader,” and The New York Times named her “a new role model.” She appears regularly as an expert on The Dr. Oz Show and co-hosted the Guinness World Record largest guided meditation with Deepak Chopra.

The post 5 precise steps for spiritual surrender appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.