I have to admit, I’ve never really liked the idea of “surrendering,” or “giving up.”  As a child, I was always taught to give everything my best effort.  Quitting, even if something wasn’t going well, was discouraged, to put it mildly.  As I became my own person, I learned pretty quickly that there were times when sticking with something just because it seemed like the right thing to do was not always in my best interest.  I learned to walk away from things that were no longer delivering for me and to feel confident about making those decisions.

In adulthood, though, I still don’t like to give up on things easily.  I always want to feel that I did everything I could to make things work out.  I’ll put in my best efforts before I’ll let anything go.

When it comes to Allowing, however, I’ve learned what seems to be a major tool for letting some of the good stuff in, particularly things for which I’ve been waiting for what appears to me to be a particularly long time.   And, it doesn’t involve trying and trying to give everything I have to improving a situation.  I finally got it.  If the improvement hasn’t come in for what seems to be a very long time, it usually means one of two things:  (1) the timing isn’t perfect, and the Universe knows more about every detail of what I want than I do and, therefore, knows the perfect timing; or (2) my continued efforts to focus on the desire are somehow slightly off, that is, my focus on the desire is creating a mixed vibration which is keeping the situation exactly the way it is.

I’m sure you’ve heard of surrendering to the Universe or God, or dropping the oars (as Abraham is fond of saying), or letting go and letting God, or, I almost hate to use the phrase “giving up.” Yikes.  Yet, in a few instances recently I came to the conclusion that I really should just give up my continued efforts to improve a situation. I still had high expectations for everything working out fine, better than fine, but I knew that I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing and expect any progress.  In these situations, my previous efforts had involved focusing on the positive aspects of the situation often and ignoring the negative as much as possible.  Still, things just seemed to stay pretty much the way they’d been.

So, I said to myself, “I give up.  There’s nothing I really can do to change this situation from where I stand.  My perspective would have to shift somehow.  And that hasn’t seemed to have happened despite my best efforts.  So, I’m just going to put it on the back burner, try to forget about it.  I’m not going to positively focus on it; I’m not going to focus on it at all.  I’m turning it over to the Universe.” And then, when I began to worry about it, I reminded myself that the Universe was “on it.”  There was nothing for me to do but focus on things that make me happy and appreciate everything else in my life that deserves my appreciation.

I want to be clear that I reserve this strategy for desires that haven’t responded to what I thought was my positive focus.  The simple daily rituals in the ebook “How to Allow” work miracles for me in everyday situations and have resulted in manifesting some of my truly important desires.  This strategy of Letting Go only comes into play when the usual rituals haven’t worked because somehow my continued attention to the subject isn’t creating the pure vibration I intend.  Somehow I’m letting what I no longer want still enter the mix when I focus on the desire.

It’s hard to believe, but letting go of the focus on my desire, even the mostly positive focus, resulted in a slew of improvements even in unrelated areas of my life.  Not only did the “issue” improve, but all sorts of other things started streaming in.  I received awaited messages, phone calls, contacts from old friends, gifts, invitations to lunches and dinners, praise for my book, praise for my blog, improvements in existing relationships and even improvements in the health of a family member.  Lost objects were found (actually four of them), my car was fixed, new contacts were made and things just seemed to keep getting better and better.

So, now when I perceive a problem and yet the solution, which I know has already been created in my vortex, seems far off or just baffling, I say, “Hey, I give up.” The Universe is on it.  I’m going to give myself a break.  Let’s see what happens.  And, of course, “Thank you.”

I’d love to hear if you’ve had any similar experiences with “Letting Go.”