exploring surrender

I was sitting in a meeting at work earlier this week, trying to look as though I was taking notes when in fact, I was writing down a question. What is the intersection between engagement and surrender? Where do apathy, disgust, interest/disinterest, anger and joy cross paths?
We all come to places in our lives where we feel as though we just can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing. I don’t necessarily mean it in a desperate sense, although it can feel that way too, but in a knowing way. The question is: how do we change things up? We want life to be more than moderately bearable, we want it to be joyful. And when it isn’t, we are frustrated, outraged, sad, and yes, sometimes even desperate.
I have to admit that’s how I’m feeling as this new year takes hold. So after the meeting, I walked over to the Open Center to sit in their meditation room, because I honestly couldn’t think of anything else that would help me climb out of my desperation.
An hour or so later, I did in fact feel lighter, more present, less completely freaked out. But the struggle rises and falls in me. I need change. And yet, I need life to get back to normal after the holidays and the death of Larry’s father. So I throw myself into karate, meditation and walking outdoors – 3 things I can count on lifting my spirits by bringing me into the present exactly as it is.
And when I take the time to sort through these feelings by writing, I realize that the screaming in my head during a meeting in which I am bored beyond sanity isn’t any different from the screaming in my body after hundreds of squats and punches in a karate class, or the mental and physical anguish of holding a pose longer than I think I can stand in yoga.
In yoga I take refuge in child’s pose. In meditation, I take refuge in my breath. In karate I take refuge in power that rises from hidden depths.
So today I refuel and recharge, noticing what relieves the boredom and desperation of meetings and minutiae that simply don’t matter to me in big life ways. And I form an intention to surrender to there too, to stay present and aware, to find the places of refuge in even those seemingly unbearable moments.