Acceptance and Surrender: Is It a Cure for Problems?

This article is on how to let go of stress, worries and concerns with the help of acceptance and surrender, and how to live life with passion, purpose and meaning.

One of the biggest misunderstandings in life is the belief that acceptance and surrender are about giving up and taking a hopeless approach to life. “I do not want to accept it. I am a fighter.” This is a very common statement when people talk about acceptance and surrender.

Psychology sees this differently. You need to realistically accept what is happening in your life. Many people wrongly believe they need to “go for it” under any circumstances. For them, letting-go techniques are a sign of defeat, a passive, giving up, loser behaviour or, simply, failure. This is not true. Some situations are unchangeable.

Despite evidence, many people still hold this erroneous view and strongly believe in “go for it” and “not giving up” behaviour.

A wise person knows when to push hard to go for it and when to let go. This is a very personal choice with unpredictable outcomes. Use your instinct, your gut feelings and your rational thinking to decide when it’s the right time to use one or the other technique.

If you do not accept or surrender to reality, you are trying to control everything in life, which is simply impossible. This “over controlling” behaviour is when you lose energy.

There are many benefits to letting-go techniques. One possible benefit is that by accepting the present situation, you are lowering fear and anxiety. Both fear and anxiety use enormous amounts of inner energy and deplete you of energy when you need it the most. Without enough energy, your brain is not working properly, and you can make the wrong decisions. In some situations, if you do not “go for it,” you have more energy and you may be more successful. If you want to change something in your life, the first thing to do is to accept the present situation—not give up but simply accept what is going on in your life at the present time. You need to surrender yourself to the flow of life.

No acceptance is like a brake in life: you are blocking yourself, and you need to push your energy much harder to get any results. You are also under constant stress, with no real inner peace and happiness. Pushing very hard, with no results and constant stress, could lead to an unhealthy lifestyle or illness.

For many individuals, it is not easy to accept the simple fact that sometimes you are more powerful when you surrender to life.

With these letting-go techniques, you will learn and accept that you can’t control everything. Some situations are simply unchangeable, and you need to accept what you cannot change. Or just say the Serenity Prayer: 

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”