Between Force and Surrender

If you're not as effective in every area of life as you'd like to be, you might want to consider the 

following...

You can react in one of two ways to pretty much everything in your life.  You can use FORCE 

(willpower) to control it, or you can SURRENDER to it.  Each has its place.  One of my clients 

brought this to my attention a few months ago.  I noticed she seemed unable to do such a 

simple thing as taking just 15-30 minutes each morning to "center" herself.   On the other hand, 

she was fighting furiously (and ineffectively) with her thoughts, with those parts of herself and her 

life she doesn't like.

In other words, she was choosing to SURRENDER to laziness (a terrible enemy you never want 

to surrender to, by the way).  And on the other hand, she was using brute FORCE to fight against 

her thoughts of inadequacy, fear, anxiety, loneliness and a host of others.

Like most of us, my client is in the habit of using FORCE and SURRENDER in exactly the wrong 

way.

We need to FORCE ourselves to lead a powerful life,  rather than giving into to our tendency to 

just let ourselves go.  That takes determination.  It always has and it always will. 

And yet, we need to SURRENDER inwardly to the truth about where we're at NOW.  That means 

we stop RESISTING our neurotic tendencies - our fears, our poor self-image, our sharp edges 

and the rest.  Why?  Because only by seeing reality as it REALLY IS can we overcome those 

neuroses.  

And we don't overcome them by FORCE, by repressing them.  That's what created most of them 

in the first place.  When we calmly stare our uncomfortable aspects in the face in a 

non-judgmental way, we find they begin to lose their hold on us.

There are lots of people who think RESILIENCE is about being tough.  And yes, there’s a place 

for that forceful “yang” approach.  It really is vital to building a deliberate, powerful and 

stress-free life.  However…

Equally important and often ignored is the judicious use of surrender, the “yin” approach, 

particularly on the more subtle emotional and spiritual levels... to the right things at the right 

moments, of course.  In fact, it’s the only way to become a fully functional human being.

Not surprisingly, the most effective tool for learning the proper way to surrender inwardly is the 

process of meditation.  Meditation puts you face to face with the very things you've been 

repressing for years or decades, yet gives you the space and comfort to "create space" for 

them and allow them to dissolve on their own.  New meditators are often astonished at how 

much emotional content they've been repressing and how neurotic it was making them.

If you're interested in learning more about the meditation process and how to transform every 

moment of your life into a meditation that builds your health and calms your thoughts and 

emotions, you can go to:

http://www.harapower.com/ 

The irony is, you'll never learn how to surrender to the REAL, to relax deeply into the essence of 

life and discover your true self, unless you know when to apply force.   Every authentic ancient 

tradition is built on this delicate balance between force and surrender.

Your friend in the "war for peace", 

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

The First Key to Inner Harmony, Health and Energy

As I was saying...

Over the next few days I’m going to show you exactly how I approach cultivating deeper levels of inner peace and harmony, based largely on the wisdom and actual practices of Authentic Ancient Traditions. There are several pieces to the puzzle, but I’ll give them to you one at a time.

As I said earlier this week, the purpose of all this is to take you to a level of internal harmony and equilibrium that surpasses what you experience every day (as if that would be hard!) and that probably exceeds anything you remember experiencing at all.

And, of course, it has a few wonderful side effects, like more robust health and immunity, more energy, greater control of your moods and emotions and lots more.

To learn about the first step in the process, keep reading…

RELAX AND BREATHE…

The first thing is that you’re not going to find DEEP inner harmony or deep levels of relaxation until you connect with your breathing.

The first part of that is learning to breath properly, because if you’re habitually breathing high in your chest, you’re artificially creating low-level anxiety on an ongoing basis. It’s like having one foot on the accelerator while the other one’s on the brake.

So you need to return to natural breathing, the way kids breathe before they’re taught the wrong way to do it. That means that when you inhale, your lower abdomen should expand and when you exhale it should contract. If you notice your shoulders rising when you breathe, you’re definitely breathing into your chest, which over-stimulates your rational mind (that means it stirs up thoughts and emotions) and wastes lots of physical energy too.


BASIC DIRECTIONS

1. Go find a place where you can sit with your back relatively straight. It doesn’t particularly matter if you’re sitting cross-legged in some form of meditative posture or if you’re on a chair.

2. Close your eyes and call to mind your mental image of inner harmony, the one we talked about last time.

3. Then practice the “Normal Abdominal Breathing” outlined above for a few minutes. If your mind wanders, just bring it back to your breathing. Just do your best to keep your mental attention on your breathing. When a thought says to you, “you’re not doing this right,” pay NO attention to it.

4. Repeat as often as you can during the day. You can even do it during corporate meetings (without closing your eyes, of course. No one will notice), while standing at the bus stop or when you’re taking a walk.


Remember to renew your decision to make cultivating increased levels of inner harmony your main objective for the next few days, __________. That’s indispensable.
Tomorrow we’ll talk more about the dramatic effects of the practice I’ve outlined above and I’ll show you how to take it to the next level.

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

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Disclaimer: This material is not intended to diagnose or treat any medical condition, nor to
replace the advice of qualified medical practitioners. You should not engage in any of the
exercises suggested here without consulting your physician, particularly if you have any
chronic medical issues or have reason to suspect these exercises could cause injury to you.
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