Learn How to Surrender with the TAIS Formula
‘Everything falls apart, before it comes together.’
This line is from The Golden Tap by Kashyap Deorah, a book on hyper-funded Indian startups. The author was about to clinch a deal, when something didn’t work out…and then something else fell apart, before it all came together.
I later chanced upon a motivational quote — ‘All great changes are preceded by chaos.’
A recurring phenomenon that many may have experienced in their lives… Have you ever felt that nothing is working, before it all starts to work again?
Have you ever felt that you just can’t go on, and then almost in a flash, you get a boost of energy, and you’re ready to start moving again?
The author and the quote make perfect sense… Chaos does in fact precede change.
When things fall apart, and you’ve reached your last straw, is exactly when things come together again!
What do we fear more then — The change or the chaos… The falling apart or the coming together?
I think it’s a little of both… Because both demand we give up control — Control of the current situation and control of the future situation.
The takeaway then is to learn to let go, to give up control, and come into a state of acceptance and surrender.
Surrender may seem impossible to achieve, almost like a concept only for monks… But, once done, it can rid us of all the tension and anxiety that surround those moments when things seems to fall apart.
But, how do we develop an attitude of surrender? I’ve developed an acronym for the technique I use, it’s called TAIS.
Yes, I coined it…and, let me tell you, it works. Perhaps, it should go down in history…but that’s not for me to control, is it?
TAIS stands for…
Trust
It all begins with trust.
If we inherently believe that all situations and outcomes will work in our favour — even if they don’t seem to immediately — we will be in a much better frame of mind to accept what comes our way.
Amitabh Bachchan often quotes his late poet father Harivansh Rai Bachchan, who used to say, ‘If things go your way, great. If they don’t, even better.’ This reflects the poet’s intrinsic trust in the universe, and the fact that it always works for him, rather than against him.
Accept
To give up control, we first need to accept events and people as they are… Not the way we think they ought to be, but just as they are — good, bad, ugly.
An approach of acceptance will help reduce your expectations and disappointments — both symptoms of the need to control.
Also, there is no point in blaming yourself for what ‘could have’ or ‘should have’ happened, you probably didn’t do something for a valid reason at that point in time, so accept it, and move on.
Improvise
Like a failed weather forecast, our lives seldom go as scripted. The year you planned to accomplish so much, or travel to those exotic destinations, is the year when COVID-19 struck and the whole world is in lockdown mode!
Yes, shit happens…and then some more. So, what should you do?
Improvise. Reinvent. Relearn. Comeback!
Use your resources, creative and intellectual, to come up with solutions to respond to the situation. If you can’t travel, stay home and learn more…or start a homebased business!
Don’t fret… Trust that there’s some good in every situation, and the reason will soon unfold.
Support
There are people and causes you will support, and then there are people and causes that will support you… What goes around comes around.
Our job then is to simply support the people and causes we believe in, give them our best, and leave the rest to work itself out.
In my life and career, there have been moments when I questioned all the hard work and support I gave… But just before I could let that doubt overtake me, I would suddenly get a call from the most unexpected person, and the situation would turnaround in a few minutes.
To experience such happenstances, it is necessary to surrender.
Complete surrender is difficult to achieve. It can even take a lifetime…but its benefits are many, urging us to walk the path anyway.
Surrender brings calm, joy, and the resilience to face life as is, without altering and predicting it, but instead embracing it.
So, when things falls apart or life seems too chaotic, be rest assured that it will all come together again… Perhaps, this will require you to make many changes — changes you may not be prepared for — but changes that you can definitely embrace!
The article was first published on Common Sense Living, a digital publication with new-age lifestyle and wealth-building ideas.
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