I often do volunteer work.  You do, too!  We all do volunteer work, even if we don’t recognize it while we’re doing it!

I decided to help someone I had met through amazing synchronicity by supporting her on a trip to China, for medical treatment of her special needs child.  I knew all along that I volunteered for a number of reasons…not just to help someone who needed help, but to see and experience the country and it’s people, and because I’m interested in the health treatments there.

I looked at the trip as a positive adventure.  The trip was indeed an adventure, but the adventure was in my personal growth, not in the intended experience. 

We don’t always get what we came for…sometimes we get more.

I set out for my adventure feeling I was doing a good deed, and I would enjoy my journey on many levels.  I had no idea then, that there were expectations for my support, ones I hadn’t volunteered for.  I also discovered, to my great surprise, I had an agenda of my own operating.

I often write and speak about agendas.  I even developed a course called Surrender Your Agenda: Finding Your Life Purpose, and yet agendas sneak up on me all the time. 

An agenda, you know, is born in our minds, and often consists of something we think we want to accomplish.  That’s why we often call them personal agendas.  While I was in China, my personal agenda, ran head on into someone else’s personal agenda.

I finally got a big piece of my lesson in agendas.  In China, I learned anytime I think I know the only way something should be, I need to give my agenda up to a higher purpose…I need to make a joy choice…I need to surrender.

There are many times in life when things just don’t work out the way we imagined (in our wildest dreams sometimes!)   Times when we have walked  head on into a situation which is very negative, even though we know we had good intentions!  Are you feeling this? 

In these situations, we can fight, run, or surrender.  Let me tell you why surrender is the winning move.

Surrender often gets a bad rap.  Surrender doesn’t mean lose, in fact, in it’s purest sense it simply means “to give up to.” 

Surrender was the answer in China, because my agenda was fogging up my purpose for being there.  My purpose involved being loving to others, and myself.  The agenda that existed in my mind, however, consisted of having this be a win/win experience for everyone involved.  The dynamics of two opposing agendas was causing friction. 

I had a choice to stick to the agenda in my head, or to check with my heart for an answer.  I chose to surrender the agenda, cancel, and give up what I wanted, so I could remain loving to myself and to the others involved.  These are steps in the forgiveness I teach, so this was a simple choice.

I came home with some incredible benefits.  I have no negative feelings about the trip, even though it was far removed from the joy it could have been.  I have happy memories, and any angst disappeared when I looked for the good in the situation.  I now see the connections that were made…the beautiful people I met there, who will be friends for life, and the amazing growth and understanding that I gained.  The expression, “Go in peace,” has a new meaning for me.

Joy & Blessings, Carole  xx