ACTION ATTITUDES of TRANSFORMATION: Surrender

Welcome back Viphilus*

Prelude for the August Posts

Who do you serve?  This may be one of the more profound questions you need to answer in your life. Reams of social science data (not religious sources) make it clear that the pinnacle of human experiences comes when we live our lives by contributing to the lives of other people. We are not endlessly fascinated with ourselves and, ultimately, boredom comes from a lack of purpose … specifically … a lack of purpose that involves serving other people. Helen Keller said, “Happiness comes from fidelity to a worthy purpose.” Social scientists have shown us that unless that “worthy purpose” contributes to another person, or a group of people, it will not revitalize us on the inside. The Bible says the same thing but I love seeing how social-science data confirms what was written down thousands of years ago.

We come alive when we can add value to the lives of other people. This is not a religious truth; it is a human truth. Therefore, we need to understand the difference between a life of self-service vs. a life lived for the purpose of serving others. It is a huge challenge to sell this idea because as I have shown in earlier blogs, we are born as hedonists: pleasure-seeking, pain-avoiding creatures who are hard-wired for self-service. I have also shown though that our non-conscious mind (the elephant) can be retrained by the conscious mind (the rider) to override the hedonist in ourselves.

I can make a strong argument that the concept of “free will” makes sense only to a Christian … someone to whom God has given the power of choice. You see, apart from the power of God living inside of you, helping you to defeat the hedonistic self-serving creature within you, that creature will always rule you. (For a moment, let’s set aside the concept of a devil who tempts us and simply go with the teaching of Jesus’ brother James who wrote that we are tempted by the evil desires that we allow to reside within us). I can make a strong argument that you have no power to override the elephant’s instincts, which of course you absolutely need to do in order to be a self-controlled person who experiences happiness and joy because you are “free” to serve who you wish … and not just be confined to serve yourself. (Yes .. most people are “confined” to self-service because selfishness within them has chosen self-interest as their driving motivation).

BUT ... you likely won't even listen to that argument unless two things are true: 1) you are tired of resisting this information which has been coming at you for a long time; 2) you can see that there is definitely a PLUS-side to listening, such as that your life might actually get a whole lot better so that you can experience positive emotions. So let me start with number 2....

Look back at the header to this blog. It is about: Breaking the self-sabotaging blocks of self-limiting, self-defeating, and self-destructive thoughts and behaviours: weekly posts on effective living, managing and leading. If that is your desire then it will require you to develop some new attitudes. And these attitudes are not just ideologies … they are mental actions required for transformation. Here they are:

SURRENDER – this takes place at the emotional level
SUBMISSION – this takes place at the mental level
SELF-DENIAL – this takes place at the spiritual level
            1) SUFFER – this occurs at the shallow spiritual level
            2) SACRIFICE – this occurs at the deep spiritual level (religion might be involved)

The nature and quality of your SERVICE is predicated on whether it is directed towards yourself or towards others, which will, in turn, dictate the nature and quality of each of these action-attitudes. I hope that this month is a transformative one for you as we work through each one.

SURRENDER

Regardless of whether you, the reader, are Christian or not, you most likely will be challenged by this month’s blogs. People across the faith-spectrum have challenged these ideas. And your first challenge … with yourself, not with me … will be the degree of your resistance to new ideas.

People hate change because it forces them to address the unknown, and the unknown scares us because our non-conscious minds dredge up countless scenarios where that unknown somehow diminishes us, hurts us and thwarts the fulfillment of one or more of our basic needs. As a change-manager I’ve been trained to surrender to the truth that people will not readily accept new ideas (regardless of whether or not they are truth) if those ideas are contrary to ideas already existing in their heads. Psychologists call this “cognitive dissonance” and show how it is a powerful defence mechanism to help us remain loyal to beliefs and ideologies. If those beliefs are further supported by strong emotions then resistance will be incredibly strong and any action to change those beliefs will be met with more than simple resistance … they will be met with aggression; there will be a battle.

Your fears (which will appear in the form of resistances, reluctances and reticence) can serve you very well and help you to survive. For example, if you are reluctant to stick your finger into a beehive in order to extract honey, this is a healthy form of fear. You may still do it, but at least your brain is putting a road bump in front of you so you can at least weigh the options before simply plunging you into a potential world-of-hurt (I hope that the honey is worth it).

Your fears can also keep you locked into a safe existence where change is almost impossible. If you do nothing new … think nothing new … experience nothing new … then the old you will be with you to the end of your days. However, if you are reading this blog because you are interested in being transformed (whatever that means to you), then the first battleground you face is at the emotional level … because everything in you will fight against change (let alone transformation). Surrender is the action attitude of ceasing resistance: It is where you STOP FIGHTING!

My change-management trainer told us that until we help people get past their own resistances, change will be impossible for them. We can cast all the wonderful and compelling visions in the world and they won’t mean squat until we help people address the reasons of their resistance. But in the end, all we can do is point them in the direction … they have to SURRENDER to the new idea themselves.

Now, before going a step further, let me clarify one thing that is a huge misunderstanding for many many people. Surrendering is not the same as submitting. Submission (next week’s post) is a mental choice to follow a specific path. Surrendering, on the other hand, is like saying, “I will stop fighting the idea of going down a new path. I will stop running in the opposite direction. I will stand still long enough to carefully consider going in that new direction. I’m not saying that I will go … but I’m also not running away from it anymore.”

Let’s make this super clear. I remember in old war movies how one side would realize that they were going to lose, and rather than be killed, they waved a white flag that told their enemies, “We have stopped fighting – we aren’t shooting anymore – please don’t kill us because we are coming out from behind the rocks now.” If the enemy is a decent sort they will allow them to surrender and they will take them captive and imprison them. The fighting has stopped, but let’s not believe for a second that the defeated ones have now become advocates for their captors. If we are those captives can you see us intentionally doing nice things to help our captors? Of course not. We will comply to their demands and not give them resistance when they tell us what to do, but we aren’t going out of our way to make their life better (add value to their life). We might still secretly harbour resentment towards our captors so we will “serve” them only in a work-to-rule mindset. To actually go the next step and “submit” to them because we have chosen to do that in our minds and heart is a whole ‘nother thing; that’s next week’s post.

For now, we need to see that transformation begins when we stop fighting … stop squirming … stop the hysteria in our heads and calm ourselves so that we can listen to reason.

What might that look like in your life?  Here are three examples (there are thousands):

1. You need to lose weight and you finally have an epiphany or you hit some point of discouragement or self-disappointment (a significant emotional event) where you just don’t have the ability to fight against your need for change any longer. You are now ready to listen to advice to learn how to develop self-control … or you are now ready to become more aware of your eating habits.
2. Your boss has announced that your company is going in a different direction and your job will change. You are embittered and have been highly resistant, which has created tension between you and her … to the point where you might be jeopardizing your job security. You realize this and have a talk with yourself that resistance is not working and you need to stop fighting and start learning how to take the company (and yourself) in this new direction.
3. You have been caught, charged and convicted of drunk driving. The judge sentences you to community service to coach a peewee hockey team (the fact that this sounds exactly like the opening scenes to the movie, The Mighty Ducks, is a complete coincidence … maybe). You show up with a bad attitude but quickly realize that if you are going to get through this at all you need to stop being angry about the sentence and just show up and “do your time” to get it over with.

SURRENDER is only the first step in a series of necessary action-attitudes. Surrendering is necessary for transformation … but it is not sufficient. Surrendering needs to happen before submission can be even possible … but surrendering alone won’t make you happy. Surrendering means that you have ceased active-disengagement, but it doesn’t mean you have become engaged. Essentially, surrendering helps you to take your elephant from picture # 1 to picture # 2.

ACTIVE DISENGAGEMENT

DISENGAGEMENT

I hope to see you back next Monday.

Blessings Viphilus,

Your friend, Omega Man

OCA Training

* Viphilus means, "lover of life"