Surrendering to the Divine

By Nancy Smeltzer


One of the 3 major tenets of the Renaissance of the Heart healing practice is surrendering the illusion of control we think we have over our lives, and turning everything over to the Divine. “Of course”, you might say, “who wouldn’t let the One with the big game plan run their life?” However, that can be so much easier said than done.

I find that on the smaller issues I have, there’s no problem in following this tenet. However, when it comes down to my core issues, I find myself expecting (should I say “demanding”?) an issue to resolve itself according to the way I want it.. However, it’s when I turn these difficult core issues over to my Higher Power, and ask that whatever is in my best and highest good come about for myself and all parties involved, that the most amazing things happen. Oftentimes, the result is a resolution I had not even considered, which is one of the big benefits of surrendering to the Divine. My take is that we, as humans, often have way too limited a viewpoint as to what the possibilities are in a given situation, and thus don’t even consider what wonders might be out there just waiting for us.

So, exactly how do I go about surrendering to the Divine. Oftentimes, spiritual writers offer great advice, but if you don’t already naturally do whatever they’re suggesting, the advice for me has often not been very helpful. Since I didn’t have a feel for whatever was being suggested, I often found their words to be about as effective as saying…”If you just flap your arms hard enough, you could fly if you really wanted to!” What I really wanted to have heard back then would have been something along the lines of “Here’s how I did this…”, or “When you’re experiencing stress, I like to do ….”.As practitioners of Renaissance of the Heart, we try to offer useable spiritual advice whenever possible, yet at the same time, try not to conflict with those who already have practices and methods that work for them.

We teach many techniques in our workshops, but if you’re not inclined to take one now, or become a client for individual sessions, then my best advice would be to set your intention and say to the Universe…”I want to surrender this issue”. Then, try and still any inner voices, or as we say, “the itty, bitty, shitty committee”, that arise in your head.
These nay saying, nagging, doubting inner voices often stop us dead in our tracks when we even begin to try to use a healing technique.

To the above advice regarding stating your intent, I would add “State what you’d like to see happen, and then shut up and listen!” It’s the last half of this phrase that seems to be the most important for us. We’ve found that in many religions and spiritual disciplines, there’s an awful lot of praying and asking, but very little listening. We advise our clients that about 95% of their spiritual meditation time is optimally spent being still and quiet, waiting for an answer. Helping our clients develop their own way of receiving intuitive information is one of the more rewarding aspects of our healing practice.

I imagine there is a lot of discussion that can be generated about surrendering to the Divine, and stilling your mind to listen. We’ll have a lot more thoughts in future postings about how we see this taking place in our own lives, but we’d love to hear about how our readers accomplish this…or not. Please feel free to leave us a comment about your thoughts on these subjects, as we continue to build this community we call Renaissance of the Heart. http://www.hearthealing.net