What are you clutching so tightly? Control, perceptions, limited believes, expectations, guilt, or shame? Has your focus been less than laser because you’re worried about loosening your grip and letting go? In a world full of multi-tasking melodramas, what a weird feeling it would be to be free. Free from the pressures of propping up the world. Free from searching for positivity while absorbing, classifying, and managing negativity. Free from society’s expectations to look, act, and be someone who you aren’t. Free from the heaviness of regret. How free would it be to just let go?
Are you ready to go with the flow? Sounds easy enough right? Why then do we create obstacles for ourselves? Imagine a river current, beautiful, rapid, motivated. Now let’s throw in a dead log of shame, some out of control brush, unrealistic expectation boulders, and why not top it off with a powerful perception undertow. Are you getting down that thing in one piece? Doesn’t sound like an enjoyable ride, does it?
To go with the flow you have stop fighting, loosen your grip on the things you are dragging behind you, and let go!
Our minds get clouded with misconceptions and convince our hearts that we are right in our feelings. In some ways, we know that line of thinking is somewhat upside down but the “What-ifs” keep us from truly being able to let go and walk away. What if they need me? What if they can’t go it alone? What if the naysayers are right? What if I really am a failure? What if they think I’m selfish? What if no one likes the real me?
What does it take to be classified as a “good day” in your book? Easy morning routine, traffic was non-existent, got a great parking space, work was easy, hitting targets, getting noticed, great lunch, good conversation, children behaved, homework was easy, bedtime was a breeze, and I fell right to sleep. Let’s say you have a hiccup in that perfect schedule of events? Just throw a wrench in any one of them.
- Overslept
- Out of coffee
- Traffic due to construction
- Best spots were taken
- Challenging projects
- Boss showed disappointment
- Lunch was subpar
- The watercooler was a bunch of negative Nellies
- Children were defiant
- Homework felt like college-level
- No one wanted to go to bed but me!
- I tossed and turned most of the night
How would you describe your day if even one of these things happened? Challenging? Horrible? A complete mess?
My point is, one negative event gets all the power and always trumps the good. Unless you make an intentional effort to notice, clarify, and quantify.
- Notice: What actually happened. Now, stick to the facts here. No embellishing.
- Clarify: How big of a deal was this negative event and be honest here. An annoyance, costly, harmful, dangerous? We can tend to have the “sky is falling” type mentality for anything that presents a challenge.
- Quantify: if you listed all the events of your day how much good can you list that will outweigh the bad? Don’t give one bad event the power to crush the good.
Let’s change our thinking for a minute. What if, the whole world isn’t against you? What if you are being propelled through the bad with all the good? What if opportunities keep presenting themselves because you are meant to succeed? What if your challenges and the way you’ve overcome them have been an inspiration to someone else?
Are we starting to see that freedom is possible? “Yeah I’m free…but.” No buts allowed in a freedom speech. If you were about to attach a condition to your but, just back away. You aren’t free yet. We need to unpack some more things, purging the bad to find the good.
An emerging theme here is control and your lack of. You can’t control another person. We all have choices and right or wrong, we will all make them and no matter what you do, life goes on. You can’t control past events. Sometimes we get hurt and sometimes we hurt others. Since the past is just that, past tense, all we can do is learn from the mistake because life goes on. You can’t control someone else’s expectations of you. All you can do is be the best you, and life goes on.
What would happen if none of that mattered? If it was just you, living your best life. Sounds glorious huh?
Where you lack control you do possess power. The power to make real changes in your life and the lives of those around you. Doing the work to free yourself from the things that have you trapped will fuel your power over the positive.
Once unencumbered you have the power to:
- Change your perception. You can see the positive first. You can challenge limiting beliefs and test your abilities. You can rewrite your ending. You can choose to believe in your strengths while embracing your weaknesses.
- Forgive yourself. You can revisit your failures looking for the lessons. You can give yourself permission to move on. You can use your experiences to help others overcome challenges. You can be kind to yourself.
- Impact others in a positive way. You can choose to send out positive energy letting go of negativity. You can encourage someone without even knowing their story. You can help others see the blessings over the challenges.
- Live your best life. You can start giving priority to your wants, needs, and desires. You can explore new territory, meeting new people, and learn new things. You can start putting yourself first.
CHALLENGE: Accept your lack of control and embrace the power you possess to challenge, change, and let go. Allow your mind to float unencumbered and take you to places only you can go when you are free to live your best life!
I Know YOU Can Do It!