Finding the balance between action and surrender
Surrender is something I have been learning over the past 6 months, it’s something I need to learn in my life so that I am not all consumed by the love I have for others.
I’ll start by saying that I am a completely different person when I care about someone than I am when I don’t. When I care about someone I will do almost anything for them — I put them before myself without question. This makes it difficult to know when to draw the line between surrender and action.
When I first started to take steps towards surrendering for the first time, I was wrong — I thought that it was surrender or action, black or white, left or right. It really is finding the balance, and finding it over and over again in every situation to do both, even at the same time.
It’s an extremely personalised topic, it will be presented in different ways and at different levels to different people. I get this in different ways from different parts of my life — work and home being the main difference.
Work looks like…
Taking on more than you should to do your job to the best that you can — even if that means spending extra hours in the office or taking work home with me at night
Home looks like…
Taking on everyone’s issues at once and disregarding my needs — individually helping people is fine, day to day this is fine — when I am not fine, this is not fine.
Something I have been thinking about when it comes to the balance is Newton’s third law — For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This thought has made me understand the importance of balance. If one of these opposing forces is stronger than the other there is no balance. Balance for me doesn’t mean stopping the things that I do to help other people, it means making sure to take time for myself mentally and physically.
What does balance look like?
Balance
For me, balance looks like taking time away from my phone; making sure to stick to my gym routine; making sure to switch off after work; making sure I eat right and putting my energy into things for myself, like this blog.
No Balance
For me, no balance looks a lot like missing the gym; being tired physically and mentally; eating rubbish food. No balance for me is when my anxiety gets a lot worse.
I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.
- Carl Jung
Self-love
Finding the balance and learning the art of self-love seem to be more intertwined than I first realised. Self-love is not easy, people will look down on you for taking pride in yourself and your abilities. Taking time to appreciate yourself is something that takes time to learn. Self-love is not the same as having a giant ego, it’s protecting yourself and taking care of yourself the way you would for other people.
If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else
- RuPaul
Here’s the thing — we’re only human and there’s only so much of us we can spare. While it might be great and important to be a kind-hearted, loving, generous person who helps everyone else, you can’t do it all — and, that’s okay! Anyone that knows me knows that I struggle with spending money and time on myself. I will happily give all of myself to other people but I am still learning to give back to myself.
Even though, yes I am tired mentally and physically, helping my loved ones gives me a sense of purpose. And really, I had no idea how to put myself first. It’s easy to start to feel responsible for other people’s wellbeing over your own — there are times where I can genuinely say I have helped friends while simultaneously being curled up in tears with my own anxiety.
