“Life is 10% what you make it. And 90 percent about how you take it.” – Irving Berlin
We can control very little of what is going on outside us. One thing we CAN control is what is going on inside us. At any moment you can pause and decide how you are going to respond to whatever is going on. We need to be accountable and be held accountable, for our reactions. In other words, we have to make sure the emotions we feel are authentic. If we are sad, we should show sorrow. If we are happy, we should act happy. If we are angry, we should express our anger and then get through it. (Note: not ‘over’ it, because thinking such means that you will be inauthentic \and that is denial or manipulative reactions.) Being emotionally authentic means that, when something huge happens, out of your control, you will react properly. Life can be such that we spend most of it learning to live with drama, etc. You can only control your reaction to life. To think you can control everything is not truth.
On that note, do you find you get depressed after major incidents? Do you fill with regret, anxiety? Depression comes from the past. Anxiety comes from the future. Outer stressors, triggers, pressure is one thing, but when we react to those incidents with depression, it, typically, means that we can not cope because we are lugging old experiences and our reactions to such, with us. We insert all the other incidents, no longer factual nor have any business being drawn in to whatever it is that we are reacting to. We do so because we choose to do so. We have all, and the ONLY, control over our reactions. We choose to allow it to take residence in our heart and soul. Some lessons are hard. But, we have to clear the air of one incident before another one comes rolling through. Being authentic in our feelings and communication of such, is the key to being positive.
Accepting that we have no control over outer things can be really tough./ We want to judge, to chastise, to soothe, to correct. We have ur bag of tricks that we pull out of yesterday to use on leveraging a difficulty. We push prod, pry to no avail and the only emotion left is anger. Why won’t ‘they’, ‘it’, ‘she’,\.’he’, change? We sit back and think that we tried hard but the person, place, thing, will not change. Then we choose to slip into the sadness of the proclaimed failure.
As we take responsibility for how we react to times of stress, trauma, we begin to truly become who we were supposed to be. You begin to get confirmation that you are walking the right path/acknowledging your flaws and gifts, and lie becomes easier. Setting good boundaries for yourself (those inner voices need boundaries). Looking for the ‘why’ of other people’s reactions help us have calmer relationships. Life just gets easier as we work on our reactions to all things. There is a more sense of peace. Yes, there will always be problems in the world, close to you, occluding you…practicing asking yourself if this is ‘about’ you and then walk away.
Things go wrong when we mistakenly think that we can control life. Life can, indeed, be full opf groan and grind and as long as you turn the wheel, you will never solve its problems. Let go…simply walk away. I, for one, have a hard time biting my tongue. I prefer talking it out. In the end, I have no control, of course. As long as I control myself, the incident does not include me.
Some time life gets in our way. Sometimes things go sideways. Don’t resist it. Put your shoulder to the wheel and carry on. Sounds easy enough. It is not!!!
©Carol Desjarlais 8.27.23
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