What’s your way – d’you tend to react, or, respond to life?
Recently we’ve been looking at how expectations can result in frustration and disappointment, at how the beliefs that fuel our expectations keep us in a box, limiting our choices.
When we don’t achieve the outcome we planned, when things don’t happen just when we want, it’s all too easy to react with anger and impatience – and that energy has impact on everyone around us. A negative impact.
What would it mean to you to let go of control? How d’you imagine that might look? Chaos?! What if…in fact… it meant the opposite…that it would allow you to open up to possibilities, to be spontaneous and in the moment, that life would become an adventure full of surprises?
What stops us from letting go of control? Often, we think that we know best, we know what we want and that’s that! What if the Universe has other ideas, ideas way beyond your imagination that could bring a mountain of joy?
When we insist on doing things ‘my way’, that closes us off to collaboration, it separates us from others.
Of course, there are so many things that we can’t control in life – the weather, the internet, financial markets, what other people say, think or do. So, the idea of being in control is in fact an illusion. It’s a mechanism we create when we don’t trust ourselves to respond to life, often as a means of coping when we’ve been hurt.
A wise and loving being asked me recently –
“Has your ability to control delivered for you the outcomes you wished?”
The answer to that was a resounding ‘No’!
So, next time you find yourself feeling impatient, I challenge you to understand what your expectation is, then, to pause, and ask ‘Is there a higher purpose to what is occurring? Is the delay perhaps because this is not the time or the next step?’
When we wait to respond, we respect that there may be pieces we’re not yet aware of that need to unfold first.