Before you can even begin to reorder your life, you must surrender. Most people cringe at the thought of surrender. We are fighters. We don’t just give up. I am not suggesting that you surrender to others. I am suggesting that you surrender to yourself.
You don’t have to like your life or every aspect of yourself to surrender. You just have to accept that you and your life exist and that this is the way you are now. This may sound kind of obvious but I submit to you that many people do not want to look at them long enough to accept the way they are. Some have inflated self-images that they truly believe in. If this is you, then you have no worries. You know that the mirror lies. So when you look you see what you expect to see; excellence. I’m thinking about the guy with the beer belly who “looks” in the mirror but sees Mr. Universe. Why deflate that balloon? What would be the point?
Other folks are afraid of what they might see or of what they haven’t yet achieved. They are afraid of a new wrinkle or of the shadows of old emotional scars that they might see in their own eyes. People instinctively think (really without “thinking” about this at all) that to “surrender” to what they see in the mirror is to give up on improving themselves. They have an older perhaps more Utopian image of themselves in min; and they fear that taking note and accepting their reality might just depress them to the point that they lose heart and truly give up, surrendering to a depressing image of themselves beyond hope.
Actually I’m suggesting that you should hold on to that Utopian image if it’s what you truly want for yourself. I’m also suggesting that it’s time to stop living a fantasy that you don’t really believe in and for you to start making that Utopian image a reality. To do that, you must accept what you really are now; warts and all. Then you have to love it!
When you do this, you do two things.
First, you take your first critical step in the process of transforming your life for the better.
Second, you acknowledge and more clearly find those aspects of you and your life that you want to improve. Now that you’ve seen those wrinkles, you won’t get that annoying image out of your mind until those wrinkles are gone – or until you have adopted a new positive image of yourself with “character lines.”
So I say, surrender to the only person whom you can truly trust – you. Then begin your battle for the best you that you can possibly be.
Hugh DeBurgh, The Passionate Warrior, has dedicated his life to the achievement of the ultimate family lifestyle. You can find him writing about Creative Family Lifestyle Design over at his blog, The Way of the Passionate Warrior. Currently he is on the second leg of a worldwide travel adventure with his wife and four young children. His blog is at http://thepassionatewarrior.com