If you’re like me, trying to control almost anything in my life right now seems pretty futile.
Whether it’s the virus as it moves across the world, our social life, our work situation, the people we live with or even our emotions…
The strategies we used to keep order in our lives and get our needs met don’t work right now since our lives have been turned upside down.
You may not have thought of the ways you got your needs met as control…
But now we all have the opportunity to take a good look at those strategies and decide if maybe there’s a happier, more peaceful way to live.
While we know we can’t control the spread of the virus or most outward circumstances…
We still may be trying to control someone else’s feelings and behavior, our own feelings…
Or maybe the opposite is true.
A great example of this is that I keep “inviting” Otto to online strength training classes since he can’t go to the gym…
And irritatingly, he doesn’t take me up on these offers.
I seem to have taken it upon myself to try to control his amount of physical activity because I want to keep him “healthy.”
While this may seem like a very insignificant desire when so many people are having to navigate difficult issue right not…
No matter how well-meaning my intention was in this stay-at-home environment…
When I look beneath my repeated offers, I see an attempt to control my life so I’ll be okay when the world seems so crazy.
I also see fear underneath those offers…
That Otto won’t be okay if he doesn’t keep up his exercise and then my life won’t be okay.
When I get quiet enough to see the fear, irritation and so many other feelings clearly…
I see that this is just a fearful story I’m telling myself.
I’m telling myself that I know best…
But the truth is that I don’t know.
When I see that this is really an invitation for me to not know and be okay with that…
When I see the root of my fear is the feeling of being left alone…
I don’t have to try to control a future that can’t be known or controlled.
I don’t have to impose my “story” onto Otto.
He’s got his own stories and strategies to get his needs met that have nothing to do with me.
I love the poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke’s quote that was at the end of the wonderful film, “Jo Jo Rabbit”…
“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
Allow all your feelings to be–the pleasant ones and the scary ones…
Don’t stop them by trying to control your outward circumstances which can’t be controlled and your inner landscape.
Sure we do have the choice to choose our reactions to situations…
But I’ve discovered when I ignore my feelings without seeing what’s beneath them, I fall into trying to control something that doesn’t need to be controlled.
When I’m conscious of all of this, my calm reaction to crazy situations comes naturally and not forced or manufactured.
When you pause to look beneath, you’ll see the love that’s always there inside everyone of us.
And from that love, comes honest, loving communication with others as well as with ourselves.