Surrender to Your Longing

If you’re yearning for something, really longing for it, it can become obsessive. It can make you sad, impatient, distracted. You’re always ruminating. It’s all you think about. You want it so much.

Remember: yearning is not a problem to solve; it’s something to surrender to.

Just accept that you’re longing for something. Just accept.

I often tell myself when I am in that frame of mind, “I know you want that…I know you are longing for it.” Just by acknowledging the depth of that feeling I am more able to then move my physical body into a new activity and get back into daily life.

It is really, really hard some days. Things I do to surrender to the yearning and the longing is that I focus on each day’s “simple pleasures.” At the end of the each day I make a brief list of the day’s simple pleasures, what I’m grateful for, things I might have normally taken for granted, everyday common things and experiences. I also started making self-care like good nutrition and restful sleep a huge priority, not turning down any social invitations, and, most importantly, to train myself that whenever I first become aware that I’m in that “longing” frame of mind, to get up, move around, and shift my physical energy.

Some days are harder than others but I’ve learned that I can’t spend my life sitting or laying about focusing on the yearning and longing for something. Neither can you.

If you’re yearning, you must surrender.