What fun to get to share a couple of fun posts from last week that touch on the season of Valentines Day! I hope you enjoy this new addition to the weekly DanceWithJesus linkup.
75 Ways to Speak Your Mate’s Love Language by Beth Steffaniak =Thank you!
Favorite Valentine Books by Jennifer Lambert = Fun for the kiddos!
After struggling through thirty years of painful searching for coping tools in all the wrong places, Skye McKenzie finally discovered what it meant to surrender…
Living a life of searching was the only life I knew. Searching for something, anything…
I did not know exactly what but I hoped it would make me happy, make me feel alive, approved of, valued and loved. I guess my first search was for acceptance. Isn’t that what everyone wants? That feeling of being accepted, of being okay. Of being loved and valued and appreciated, no matter what.
As I travelled along the path of life, I would find something that looked as though it would make me happy, something I thought would make me feel loved and accepted. I would follow it, chase it, tackle it and tame it, and eventually master it. At times, whatever that “something” was, would bring some sense of satisfaction and happiness, but only for a while. It did not last.
Before long, I would feel that vacuum again. That need to be accepted, approved of and loved, and I would start the search all over again. The search for the next adventure, the next project, the next job, the next relationship, the next course to discover who I was, the next thing that would make me happy.
Once again I would find “it”; the “thing” that I thought would make me happy that in the end it was basically the same as the previous thing. It might have come in a different shape or form but it was essentially the same. And I would follow it, chase it down, tackle it and tame it and once again master it. And I would be happy again… but only for a while.
And so the search continued. Over and over and over again for many years. It was an exhausting way to live life, until one day I finally realized that no course, no project, no job, no relationship, no activity or the achievement of any goal would give me the acceptance and approval I was looking for. I realized that the feeling of being okay could not come from anything outside of myself and there was only one thing I needed to do.
Surrender.
Surrender to myself. Surrender to loving myself, accepting myself and believing in myself. Surrender to the idea that I was okay no matter what anyone else thought of me or what was going on around me.
I realized that I was the one who needed to approve of myself, value myself, cherish myself, see myself as worthy – worthy of the air that I breathed, worthy of the life that I lived. I discovered this was what I had been seeking all along. Nothing more than complete, unconditional love of and for myself. The endless circle of searching ended. The doing to achieve, the chasing to fulfill, the longing to be loved and accepted by others. It was not important anymore.
No longer did I walk with my eyes to the floor, lacking in confidence and self-esteem. I discovered a confidence and strength of character I never knew I had. I surrendered. I gave up striving and searching and seeking and simply started “being” me.
Now is the time to surrender. To stop chasing what you think will be the next thing that will make you happy. To stop striving for the next certificate, the next promotion, the next relationship. It’s time to stop resisting and simply “be.”
A decision to stop resisting is a big decision. However, the peace and freedom that comes with this choice to surrender is beyond what you could imagine. To surrender is not a sign of weakness, it reveals incredible strength and the result is not bondage to others, but freedom to yourself.
The idea of surrender to someone or something is to “give in” or “give up”, but to surrender is neither of those. To surrender is to accept. To finally say, “I am me and I love me and I will accept me and my life exactly as I am.”
It is to finally say, “I don’t need to do anything more or strive to become like anyone else in order to be happy. I will be happy exactly as I am.”
This is the moment of your liberation from a life long search for peace and happiness. Decide right now to be free from the need to fix things, control things or even change things.
Decide right now to be free.
A Little about Skye McKenzie:
Skye McKenzie was born in Zimbabwe but considers herself a citizen of the world as she has lived in many countries including South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, Sicily, Spain and now Saudi Arabia. Through her own times of difficulty she has discovered much about the process of change. Her passion now is to help others navigate their times of difficulty and change with grace and poise.
Skye has compiled forty-five tools that she used to change her life, and now she wants to share them with you. May I encourage you to start today to implement the changes you need to unleash your true self and live the life you love?
