What You’re Really After Is Control

People want control. We’re all desperate for it. What we wouldn’t give to have more of it in our relationships, work, and lives. Not that we come right out and say so. Instead, we hedge a bit, asking coaches, therapists, and friends how to better manage our careers and other people. How we can change this or that aspect of ourselves or our circumstances — how we might better deal with specific situations and relationships. Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with wanting growth and development. Yet that’s not what most of us are really after. Subtle as we try to be, the proof is in the pudding of our thoughts, feelings, and actions; in spite of all our questioning and questing, many of us feel pretty stuck. No matter the energy we exert, we remain in a standstill. Why is this? Why do we as a culture persist in attempting to control our way to personal, creative, and professional freedom? The answer, I’ve found, is pretty interesting. And that is that most of us don’t actually want freedom. Before you disagree, take a look at your own life. Look at the areas in which you wish you had a greater level of freedom, peace, and aliveness. If you’ve yet to achieve these things, I’d gamble that what you’re really after is control. Or said another way, freedom your way. Taken from “Giving Up Control” by Jennifer Hamady (Huffington Post) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-hamady/acceptance_b_2432159.html

It makes no sense to worry about things
you have no control over because
there’s nothing you can do about them,
and why worry about things you do control?
The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized.
Wayne Dyer

Learning to Say No & Yes – Chapter II

“Like everything in life, any time you take anything to an extreme—either you say “yes” to everything or “no” to everything—you’re going to be in a position that’s often untenable and often unhealthy,” says Dr. Nancy Elder, an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Medicine. We can get stressed out by nearly everything on the planet: money, women, money, personal problems, money, etc. The largest, however, may be the actual drive to become successful. A work hard and ye shall be rewarded kind of thing. It’s tough to work hard when you have extraneous obligations getting in the way of your main goal, though. “The most important thing that people who [say yes or no] well is to temporize,” Elder says. “It’s important to acknowledge the request. ‘Yes I hear you asking this. Yes I hear you asking to put this on my plate,’ then saying, ‘Give me twenty-four hours to think about this.’” There’s an old Zen saying that goes like this: “If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.” Keeping focus is one of the hardest things to do, but it’s a necessity to get where you want to be, and the ability to say “no” when you need to is an overlooked, under-appreciated tool able to help us get to that place. What it comes down to—well, what everything seems to come down to—is attaining balance. It’s about being ever-conscious about your decisions and never letting your ideal endgame get out of sight…and keeping the path up there as straight as possible. By Gin A. Ando http://www.primermagazine.com/2012/live/the-importance-of-learning-to-say-no-the-power-of-learning-to-say-yes

Learn to say ‘no’ to the good
so you can say ‘yes’ to the best.
John C. Maxwell

Broken

He is broken in three ways, sometimes four. I count them.
* He believes himself to be human, but is not actually. At least not anymore. This is similar to the way he believes himself to be alive.
* He has a grim affinity for drugs. This comes with no caveat and no parentheses. This is just a fact of life.
* He is doggedly unhappy and once decided to kill himself. Sadly, he has not really stopped.
* On certain occasions when these first three things have ceased to be bad enough, he loves me. The other sins are commonplace, forgivable under a big enough umbrella. This fourth is irrevocable. Unconscionable. In a word, it is utterly damning. Brenna Yavanoff

An intelligent person can rationalize anything,
a wise person doesn’t try.
Jen Knox

We Always Have A Choice

One obstacle to living authentically… is people having soft personal boundaries. Boundaries are limits we consciously or unconsciously put in place to take good care of ourselves. By using the term “soft-boundaries”, I refer to people feeling that they do not have a choice. When we feel we are without choice we find ourselves doing things we don’t want to or things we think we should or must do. Soft-boundaries occur when we act one way, but feel a completely different way and do it because we feel we “have to”. It can be as simple as saying you will call someone when you don’t want to, or hosting a big event because you feel it is the “right” thing to do. If you hear yourself say, “I have no choice,” that is also an indication of a loose boundary. Remember – we always have choice. Kim Illig http://www.kimillig.com/documents/Learning-to-Set-Your-Personal-Boundaries.htm

“No” is a complete sentence.
Anne Lamott

Nothing Stays the Same

Life changes. You get it all lined up just the way you like it and then something beyond your control comes along and bumps you off-center. How nice it would be if you could get everything just the way you want it and say, ‘Okay, now, stay.’ But nothing stays the same. You grow up, make friends, lose friends, go to college, lose track of people, meet new ones, and sometimes you ask yourself why. But all I can tell you is the every single experience you go through like this changed you in some way. Every new person who comes into your life changes you. Every moral dilemma or emotional experience you come up against changes you. It’s your job you decide how. That’s how character is developed. From “Hollie’s Quotes”

Character is, for the most part,
simply habit become fixed.
C. H. Parkhurst

The Killer

Codependence kills! Everyone knows there are diseases that kill rapidly, but it is a surprise to many that a dis-ease like codependency is a killer. It snuffs out relationships. It destroys careers. It emotionally lacerates lives. Then there are the “addictions”: alcohol, drugs, sex, food, money, gambling, smoking and more that kill more slowly, but just as surely as a fast acting poison. Each comes from an attempt to mask the hurt and feel better, yet all that is accomplished is to trade one type of pain for another. As long as an addiction is active, most can never see the root of their problem and why they work so hard to medicate and hide it away. Frequently, if not almost always, codependency is at the root of an addict’s addiction. Until it is treated successfully and recovery is underway, old behaviors will usually come back again and again until codependence shows itself as the killer it is.

If you were to meet me on the street
and I’d smile and introduce myself
could you tell the scars I hide underneath theses clothes?
would you see thru my eyes?
that I’m killing myself slowly inside
or could you only tell that they are blue.
From “Killing Myself Slowly” by “silenttears09”
Found at allpoetry.com

Plains of Hesitation

There are many things dreamed of, places I want to go, experiences imagined and memories I hope to make. I hesitate making them come true while saying to myself “someday” or “not yet” or even “that’s a stupid thing to want”. Then the voice of my being says “It’s your life and should be lived as you dream and hope”. Yet I stop short, somehow believing I can’t, don’t deserve it or simply find courage lacking to be true to myself. After all, who am I to want the life I want? Codependency can rob one of the confidence needed to live life parallel to their needs and desires. Instead time is used mostly living for and through others. For family and those we love, sacrifice is necessary for the balance necessary for a working relationship. But denying ALL my greatest hopes and dreams is beyond what is healthy for me and is nothing to be admired. After a point, I do best for others when I am first loyal to my own aspirations and greatest wishes.

On the plains of hesitation
Bleach the bones of countless millions
Who at the dawn of victory stopped to wait,
And waiting, died.
author unknown

Like A Howling Strong Wind

Boats don’t sail well directly against a storm’s wind and can get spun around aimlessly if faced straight into a squall. A sailing ship instead makes its way forward best by being turned at an angle to the wind’s force and continuing forward slowly with caution. Life’s trial, trouble and tribulation often comes as a force much like a howling strong wind. If I face adversity head on, my progress is stopped and I frequently am blown about with a loss of control. But if I angle my approach carefully into the wind of difficulty then slowly I continue forward. How I move toward trouble decides if it stops my progress completely or just slows me down.

Not to have control over the senses
is like sailing in a rudderless ship.
Mahatma Gandhi

Who and What I am

Every choice I make each day shapes my life experience. Choosing to get out of bed in the morning is a choice. Going to work, what I listen to on the radio, watch on television, taking quality time with loved ones, how much time I spend checking email, surfing the web, talking to a friend, stopping for a beer after work or making plans for the weekend are all choices. I make hundreds of them daily that combined set the course of my existence. Once I accepted the truth that more than any other force I shape my life, fundamental change became possible. Through a thousand little choices made differently over time small changes become substantial differences. I make choices and then the choices make me.

I do not seek perfection.
I simply seek to remember
who and what I am every day.
I seek the people and places and practices
that support the expanding of this awareness
in my day, in my life, in choices.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer

The Best Life Any Man Ever Had

Sorrow and happiness are reversed reflections of each other. Each one pierces us deeply so the other can be more fully known. Only a man who has been sorrowful can truly appreciate being happy and likewise happiness opens one to know the true depth of sorrow. That is the way life is; always has been; always will be. I used to constantly be waiting for the “good times” to arrive thinking there was a point when life leveled out to be all happy and smooth sailing. Pure delusion! The best life any man has ever had was a great deal of happiness with lots of heartache and tragedy mixed in. In all of time, no man has ever had it better! To wish and hope and dream for more is to chase a mirage.

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards;
they try to have more things, or more money,
in order to do more of what they want,
so they will be happier.
The way it actually works is the reverse.
You must first be who you really are,
then do what you need to do,
in order to have what you want.
Margaret Young