Feeling Lighter: Living Surrender #3

Recognize the call to surrender everywhere: in your daily relationships, in how you handle your limitations, in your work challenges, in the ways you care for your family, and even in the simplest of things, like how you step into a cool swimming pool and plunge into the water.

The other day, as I was taking a walk through the park with a good friend, she shared with me how she was feeling an overwhelming sense of responsibility in her daily life. She was noticing that she was walking around with her head dropping forward, and her eyes looking down most of the time.

I, too, am finding that my daily life is loaded with responsibility, and so we began to explore the question: how do we carry our responsibilities?

Do we carry them as burdens, or do you seek a way to expand and carry our lives and responsibilities with a more surrendered attitude, one that makes the load lighter?

How do we recognize the call the surrender?

I have found that the more I pray, and stay committed to my spiritual practice, and cultivate some quiet in my life, the more I can notice the call of surrender in my life. And as I surrender into my responsibilities, the load does feel lighter.

As they say at Gethsemani: Pray, Pray, Pray.

Today, I had the joy of spending the day at the Santa Sabina Center at their monthly day of prayer. As the day began, I realized I was carrying the heavy weight of a work situation, and I wanted to let it go.  Having time to reflect, to be quiet, and to pray really helped release some of the tension I was carrying.

Without prayer, I find I get easily scattered, and when I become disconnected from myself, I also become disconnected from the sacred within and around me. Prayer provides the foundation for me to recognize the call to surrender in my daily life.

Practice:

• Recommit to your spiritual practice–make time for prayer, meditation or spiritual reading. Honor how important it is in your daily life.
• Ask yourself: How am I carrying my responsibilities?