Don't give up...Surrender
There's a fine line between giving up and surrendering, and Yoga only speaks to one of them: surrender. Giving up lets emotions decide for us. Giving up is acting from our klesa-s, our mental impurities. Giving up may mean operating from our traumatic residue and letting the associated memories, conscious and/or unconscious, steer our situation for us.
And it’s not that some situations require giving up meanwhile others necessitate surrender. It’s personal, and our state of mind determines how we process our reality. It’s our state of mind that dictates whether we cave to our impulses and throw in the towel or choose to be sovereign from their pull. It’s our state of mind that can morph an unfavorable situation we are experiencing into one in which we can find personal agency and some peace.
To complicate the distinction, it’s messy. Connotation matters, and in the exact same situation you can certainly start giving up, with all of its valid mixed emotions, and end surrendering, and often do, when all resistance to reality has finally run its course. Recently a friend started a job. For months she worked without being paid for the first two weeks of work. Week by week, she stayed, inquired, diligently dedicated her time to the cause. She refused to quit, not wanting to give up. At some point, she surrendered to the fact that the organizational disarray causing the glitch was not going away, surrendered to the stark reality, and resigned. In this case, quitting was an act of surrender.
Let’s say I start a new job. Applied. Went through the interview process. Was chosen, hired, onboarded, excited. Reality kicked in. The software, the multiple programs to master, the notes to keep, the leadership’s accessibility and/or quality of engagement, collegial dynamics, job description vs occupational reality. Not matching my expectations during the first week, I almost quit. Enter: surrender’s sister practices, discipline and reflection.
Once we begin Yogic disciplines, we begin to know ourselves. We face ourselves, reflecting on thoughts, feelings, behaviors, unraveling the tangled messes of past and present. When we are triggered, and we flood with fear, aversion, unfulfilled desires we gain the ability to pause, to recognize underlying factors contributing to our stress. Reflect. And decide where to put our attention. Am I suffering from lack of sraddha? Is this self-sabotage, or am I rising up into a broader sense of empowerment. Whether we carry on or change direction is born from awareness, itself synonymous with Yoga.
Maybe my fear of failure, of not believing in myself is kicking in, and the work is to do disciplines that improve inner trust and courage and remove the impurity of self doubt. I shift gears in practice to boost my morale and stay at the job for another week. I familiarize myself with the programs, stay focused on my tasks, give myself some grace and acclimate to the moving parts. And I stay. Begin to feel like I belong. Get over the hump and surrender to all the newness and changes that normally scare me from evolving.
At it’s initiation point, clear decision making rests upon which guna-s are expressing as we engage in the action. If rajas or tamas are up, reflection isn’t possible. The turbulence distorts how we perceive. When we take time to generate sattva, even when a situation feels hopeless, we can be open to alternatives. It’s not the end, but the beginning - an empowering twist on not getting what we want, a divine redirect.