Hey, my friend What's up and welcome back to another episode of Do Life Big. I am recording this live right now from our mountain home and North Carolina we just got here the other day. And we're really looking forward to spending a solid three weeks here with the kids and just getting out into nature and hiking and ziplining and doing all the fun relaxing things really love my probably my favorite part is just sitting on the deck at night, when everyone is in bed. And I'm out there with a drink in my hand, and you can't hear anything but the stream going through the backyard. And the sky is so dark and the stars are so bright. And it's just so peaceful. So different from Florida. And I just love coming up here every summer especially it gives me a great break away from that 100 degree weather.
But anyways, today's episode is going to be all about how to surrender and let go of fear. And when you can learn to surrender, then you will be able to let go of fear. And then when you let go of fear, it then becomes easier to surrender. So it's funny how that works. And so if you're someone who finds himself struggling, and fighting life, and just trying really hard to make certain things happen in your favor, or in your way, the way that you want it to be done, this episode is going to be for you. So stay tuned. But do you ever find yourself fighting so hard or trying to make certain things or just so many things in general happen? Like I know that we all fall victim to this, because just by nature, we like to have control as human beings, right? And I think back on so many different things. And I have so many different stories I could share where I just tried to force things to work the way that I want them to. And I wasn't able to surrender. And I was also like, what the hell does that even mean, right? But I remember, you know, probably about I think it was three years ago now three or four years ago when we were looking to purchase our very first investment property up here in North Carolina in the mountains. And I saw this one log cabin on the mountain and I wanted it so bad. And I remember we put in the offer. And it had been on the market for a long, long, long time. And the owner was just so insistent on not budging with the price, like at all didn't matter that it was on the market was on the market for like a good eight months. Didn't want to budge. I just remember going back and forth with the guy like saying all these different things. I even went to the extreme of writing him a letter, telling him how much we'd love to have this home and make memories of our family in this home and what it would be used for and all of that. And none of it mattered. And do you ever have that happen where like, you feel like you're trying so hard, you're doing everything in your power to make it work. And you step back and think, okay, it really shouldn't be this hard. It shouldn't be this forced, if it was meant to be. And that was an example of a time where at first, I was not just surrendering and let it be what it is, and accept the reality of the situation. And I was holding on to that for so long. Until finally I decided to just you know, you hear people say “Let go. Let God. Surrender”. And I just said it is what it is. It's going to happen exactly the way it's meant to happen. It's going to work out perfectly for our family when the timing is right. It's going to be the perfect house. It's going to be even better than this one. This one is clearly just not meant for us right now, even though I think it is and I really want it and I love everything about it. This just is not the one that's meant for us right now. And it was basically about maybe like two weeks after that, that we saw these two log cabin homes go right up for sale. And we had our realtor, go and give us a virtual tour of the place. And she went there, and we were in Florida. She was in North Carolina, obviously. And she did the whole virtual tour for us. So we didn't even get to see this house in person. But there were like nine other people there because it was an open house. And the thing is with the log cabins, if you've ever bought them, or if you know if you're familiar with real estate is that they go so fast, like really quickly.
So she was there showing us all around the cabin. And it was absolutely beautiful. I had these amazing views of, of the mountains, and we saw all the people there in the background, checking it out. And we put in the offer for the place. And the man who owned it at the time accepted it as is totally furnished. And then we found out that he actually also lives in the exact same town in Florida that we live in. He actually grew up here in Boone, but lives part time in the exact same town that we lived in, in Florida. And he was really nice, older man, I think he was like maybe 75 years old at the time when this happened. And it's just funny how it works out, right. Like we had this amazing property that we happen to just find it was already part of a rental program. So it had the rental history to go with it. We knew what it was making this other home that I thought that was going to be the one for us was never part of a rental program needed a lot of updating this one was perfect as is was already making plenty of money had been part of the rental program for five years came furnished. And it was just so easy and so flawless. Because, again, you know, that's how it should feel when you surrender and you let things happen the way that they're meant to happen, you can only control so much. And so I'm sure that you have stories like this as well. We all do. I mean, I have endless stories, I could go on and on about this. But this can really wear you out if you find yourself fighting so hard to make things happen. And you know, I do remember hearing from people through the years, say things like hey, well you know, Kathi, you just gotta surrender. And it's like, okay, well, what the hell does that even mean? Right? How do you do that. And I feel like that word really doesn't even exist in our bones, especially because most of us are. So go, go go, we're going to figure this out, we're going to make it happen, where there's a will, there's a way where that type of person and I mean, at least that's how I am, maybe you can relate, maybe you're the same exact way. So in my mind, when I first heard people talking about surrendering, I thought it meant something negative, like, if I surrender, then that means that I'm basically just throwing in the towel, I'm just quitting, I'm just giving up. But that's not really what surrendering means or is at all. And once you can actually understand it, then you'll see that you know, it's one of the most powerful words in the world. Your greatest cause of suffering is attachment. And so, stop and think for a second, like, what are some of the things that you are really attached to? And but what's crazy is that, you know, you may not even know what you're attached to. Because even that requires awareness. And when you're attached to something you're hanging on really to the identity of that something. You're trying to force or cause something to be a certain way in your favor.
So what do you suffer with in your life? What's something that you can think about in your life right now where this is like a you're attached to it, it's a constant pain in your life. It's a stress, it's anxiety, it causes uneasiness, what's causing you fear in your life. And it could be one thing, or it could be many things, right? It could be money, it could be this fear of, you know, I don't have the money that I need. I need to earn more income, you know, maybe it could be your kids, maybe it has something to do with your health. What about the relationships that you have? Hanging on to fear is what causes pain. And the reason that you hang on to things are attached to things is because the fear of not having those things causes you suffering. And if you're in constant fear of something in your life, then you're attached to it. And if you're attached to it, then you're in suffering. Now listen, there are realistic fears, right, for example, that things, things could happen that could put you in danger. Those are all realistic fears. Those exist, those are legit, it happens to all of us. But the problem is that many of us have fears of you know, hey, oh my gosh, well, what is this person going to say or think about me? And then fear is just produced and it becomes a habit for us. And we keep repeating this way of thinking in this way of being over and over again, in our life. So think about surrendering here. Do you know what it means to actually surrender? Right because it's not rolling over and just playing dead and thrown in the towel and calling it quits. Surrendering and being able to surrender when you hear that means to truly accept what is. That's what surrendering is accepting what is. And the reason why you're in so much pain with so many things is because you won't let go of certain things you won't surrender, you're fighting it, even if it's not what you wanted, not what you expected. Or you might be saying, you know, well, this wasn't how it was supposed to go. It is what it is. And you can't fight that all day long. But you can't change anything, until you accept what is right now. And when you accept what's right now, and you're at peace with it, whether it is or isn't what you thought you wanted. Now you have surrendered and now you can move forward and make the changes that you need to make. And this is also how you learn lessons. And you have the opportunity to learn lessons every single day when you wake up and start a new day. Life is full of lessons all the time. When you look at your life, there are so many opportunities around you so many opportunities to learn lessons. If you're driving to work, for example, right? And you're stuck in all this traffic and you start getting all in your head and in this negative angry way. And you start flipping out in your car, because now you're going to be late. Is that surrendering? No, it's not. It's you fighting it. It's causing you stress, it's causing you anxiety, it's causing you pain and suffering. When you have anything but peace within you. That's suffering that's causing pain. And this is why I really, truly try to start every single day saying this one phrase that I heard years ago, I can't even remember who I heard it from, or where I heard it from. But it was this phrase right here and you can write it down and you can use it yourself. “Everything by my divine right comes to me today in perfect order” and what that phrase is really saying is “I surrender”, I'm not in control, I can only control so much. And I'm going to focus on what I can control. But when things are out of my control, it is what it is. I'm going to let it happen the way that it's meant to happen, because it is what it is. Right? So for example, today, we were out driving around in our car. We were driving around through the mountains, all of us all five of us, Landon, Kiersten, Keegan, Myself, Nick, and we knew that we wanted to go get lunch, but we had to make a bunch of different stops and go to a bunch of different stores first. And we were actually really hungry. And we were kind of going back and forth and debating between whether or not should we go get lunch first? should we run these errands first? And we're like, you know, let's just get the errands over with and then we'll go get lunch. Well, next thing you know, before we even hit any other stores, we noticed that the tire pressure on one of our tires was going down. And we were starting to get a flat tire. We were starting to lose air in the tire. And so Nick pulled over, he got out. And I don't know why this happens to us all the time. But for some reason, we are constantly driving over nails. This has happened so many times to us, but he pulls over, he gets out. He looks at the back left tire and sees it there's a nail right in it. So we're like well, we're obviously not going to drive around like this, right? We gotta go get this fixed. So we found the closest tire place, whatever the heck it was out here in the boondocks. We went in there told the guy like whatever, we got to get this fixed. He's like, alright, we'll try to patch it. So we don't need to get you a whole new tire. There's a restaurant right over here. Let's just go eat. So we'll go eat and get our you know, get foods into our hungry while we wait to get the tire fixed. And that's what we did. We left the car there we walked right next door, went to a restaurant, had some good drinks, had some great food, thank God the kids were, were well behaved for that time. And then when we were done, the car was already was waiting for us. But that phrase, everything by my divine right comes to me today in perfect order is all about surrendering. You know, like it wouldn't have done us any good. If we sat in the car and we started complaining and bitching and moaning about how now there's a freaking another nail in the car. And oh my god, we just spent $2,000 and got all new tires on the car. And literally one week later. Now there's a nail in one and we may have to replace it and what the hell and blah, blah, blah, blah blah. Like all of that is not surrendering. Really what can you do? And in the end, it ended up working out great for us because we were hungry. Mama wants her food and we were able to go eat before we did all of our shopping which is kind of what I wanted to do anyways. And it was no problem. We didn't have to replace the tire he patched it up and it was no big deal.
So everything by my divine right comes to me today in perfect order. So I want you to look at you know what you are fighting in your life right now. What are you struggling with? What fears do you have because fighting all these fears is what takes away your peace of mind. So just start when you feel yourself going this direction. Just start by taking a step back. Accepting what is and taking a deep breath and just letting go. You know complaining project If none of that is going to help anything, it is what it is. And now where can we go from here? Once you have that kind of mentality of it is what it is. This is what's happening. These are the facts. I surrender, where can I go from here now? So can we try together surrendering to what is because once we can do that, then we can start to let go of all the aggravation we've been holding on to and then you can move forward from it and learn from it. But when you're fighting something, it's impossible to move forward. Because your attention is on the fighting it and not on the solution. “What you fight weakens you”, Mother Teresa said that once before, what you fight weakened you. And we're constantly fighting our circumstances, but we're the ones who have created our circumstances. And because we're fighting our circumstances, that's what weakens us. And I think that what trips people up a lot, myself included in the past especially is that we are so focused on the perception that people have of us this constant need to prove that we're successful, for example, constantly trying to give that illusion to other people. That's what trips us up. But when you take a step back and think about I mean, what a waste of time. That is right. So you know, and another way that you can look at this too, with the whole surrendering is, you know, if you're trying to, like control people, for example, in relationships, and the way that they are and the way that they behave, or the values that they have all of that, that is you again, not surrendering, because you're trying to force someone into being a way that you think they should be, instead of accepting that they are who they are. And at the end of the day, people don't change, unless they truly deep down believe that they want to and need to change. So surrender to who and what people are, instead of trying to mold them and force them to be who you think they should be. And when you're constantly trying to force things or force people to be a certain way. All that does is caused pain and suffering. Because again, it's something that you can't control. You choose your life and let others choose how they want to live their life. Allow people to be who they are focused on you. And control what you can focus on understanding yourself more and be the change you want to see in the world. Really, the key to life is to live it peacefully. But you won't be able to live life peacefully if you're fighting everything and fighting the world constantly. So just practice surrendering. People are always going to do what they're going to do. What are you going to do? What can you do? I mean, I know what I can do, I can continue focusing on being a positive force in this world every day, and constantly trying to better myself and learn from my mistakes and accepting my flaws and understanding that I'm not perfect. So when we surrender to the world and to the things in the world, it doesn't mean that we can't change. But we can't fight it. Because when we fight these things, it weakens us. And the more we're weakened, the less that we can grow, except what is let go of fear. And when you let go of fear, you will automatically surrender. And this will bring you to a place of peace in your life. And I think at the end of the day, that's really what we all want. We all want to feel peace, find peace, and have happiness. So thanks so much for listening to today's episode. You know, I love you. I think you're awesome. And I will see you the next time. Bye.
