Do you want to give up? Become a door mat and let everyone walk over you? Never speak up, always letting someone else make decisions for you? Or never have any passion or make forward progress because “everything is perfect”?
Of course not!
But when we get onto the inner journey and start to hear words like surrender and acceptance, it can be super easy to fall into this passive, beige, float kind of mode.
A true inner path is actually the direct opposite – you become MORE alive, not less.
Let’s have a look.
At its heart, acceptance is when you stop wishing a situation or person is different: e.g. “It is what it is”.
This is not ALWAYS giving up.
YES: Sometimes it’s "I can do nothing". Shrug. “I’m not going to let it eat me alive.” Reward: serenity and peace of mind. So this is the passive part, right? Because you can’t do anything.
YET: Sometimes stopping wishing it was different means you stop avoiding and finally face a problem AS IT IS.
It's "Oh, I see, it’s not going to change or go away. I should get off my butt and do something because I'm not that happy about it, and ignoring it isn't working … even though I’m a bit scared of attempting."
And then you gird your loins, make a decision and embark on a course of action rather than putting it off.
There's great peace in that too … and aliveness of soul because you’re stopped sitting on the fence and are finally doing something. You’re making forward progress!
So serenity and letting go comes from action as well as inaction.
You see how that works?
You’re learning to be wise: not giving up, not becoming beige. The inner journey is dynamic, you have to be awake and see what the moment needs – sometimes that’s being patient, sometimes that’s making a move.
But the key always is being awake, alive, alert, attentive, aware … and the result is actively amazing. (How you like my alliteration?)