Not feeling in control of your life is one of the most disheartening and self-defeating predicaments you can be in.
You feel a victim to life and the circumstances within it.
You’re always asking yourself “what’s the point?” (since I’m not in control anyway)
I’d be lying if I said there’s a 5-step process to take back control of your life, or that this article will miraculously give you a sense of control by the end.
There are. however, a few things for you to understand that may help you wake up, shift a perspective, or trigger an insight.
I think the most important thing to understand first is that control is an illusion, so that’s where I’ll begin.
Understand That Control is an Illusion
This may be uncharted and potentially uncomfortable territory for you, but I encourage you to soak it in with an open mind. To question your current beliefs surrounding control.
I’m close with someone who believes in God and Jesus. Although I’m not religious myself, I can relate through spirituality. I simply use different labels that point to the same source.
This person is a strong Type A personality. Crosses all their T’s and dots all their I’s. Their sense of control gets thrown for a loop if plans don’t go the way they envisioned or predicted.
The other day they opened up to me about a challenge they’re having with dipping their toes into entrepreneurship. A challenge most (if not all) entrepreneurs have at some point in time—facing the many unpredictabilities. Ultimately, facing the unknown.
They feel a lack of control with not being able to predict the outcome, and these feelings are valid and real. Their ego built a wall of resistance once it realized the illusion of control and wants to retreat. This is very common when we are faced with the unknown.
As I told them, the hard truth is this “you’re religious, right? So you know that at any moment if God wants to take you from this earth he will, right? None of us know when that will be, it could be 30 sec from now, tomorrow, or 30 years from now. We simply don’t know, it’s not in our control. We live with this whether we choose to accept it or not. We give ourselves a sense of control by leading an immaculate lifestyle, which may or may not affect when it’s our time. Our actions can improve our chances but we don’t control them.”
OK, you might be thinking “I may die tomorrow without my consent, how does this help me feel more in control?”
By seeing that you’re not in control, that you’ve been duped by your ego to thinking it’s in control.
Control is an illusion our ego creates to feel more secure. It’s purely made of thought, there’s no ultimate truth to it.
There’s no steering wheel of life to grasp onto so we can feel in control
And as I told this person above, there’s an old religious saying “Let go and let God.”
Sometimes all the signs are given for us to follow a certain path. We have an inner knowing that this is our path. But there’s one big problem, we don’t know where it’ll lead us. It’s a path that requires faith and trust in the source that showed us the path.
Befriend The Unknown
For many of us, assembling a sense of control is our way of resisting the discomfort of the unknown. Leading us to believe that thinking we’re in control will offset an unknown future.
There’s one problem, humans are absolutely terrible at predicting the future.
You can find evidence of this when you watch your thoughts every day and observe how many times you attempt to rehearse or predict moments in the future.
Then, after the moments arrive look back and see what your batting average is.
The truth is, all we ever know is now. Not one second from now, not even a millisecond from now, just now.
We can’t even predict what thought will pop into our head a second from now let alone what may happen to us, for us, or around us.
Trying to control the uncontrollable will only lead to suffering and a feeling of being out of control.
I propose a shift in perspective, instead of trying to control your life, what if you stopped trying and started trusting?
Stop Trying and Learn To Start Trusting
Trust what or who you may ask?
Well, yourself firstly.
Do you trust yourself with your life?
If not, this is a foundational place for you to begin your journey. This process is beyond the scope of this post, but I will say this, you must get to know your higher self. The unchanging you that is beyond the ego, the intuitive you that guides with an inner knowing.
And, if you’re religious, you may also trust God or Jesus to light your way.
Trust what? Life.
Life may seem an untrustworthy source for you if you have had a rough history. It’s perfectly valid for you to feel this way.
It may seem like life hasn’t had your back, threw you under the bus, chewed you up, and spit you out.
Yet, you’re still here, searching for answers. If you weren’t strong enough you wouldn’t have made it this far, but you did.
Life doesn’t challenge us with anything we can’t handle. We’re given a choice of how to handle or not handle.
We’re given a gift called thought that allows us to view our past and think about what it means for our future.
How we think today about what happened yesterday will create our tomorrow
Trust and control cannot coexist in the same space
Control is a manifestation of the ego while trust is innate to your higher self.
Trust is unwavering and unchanging. It just is.
Control has a definition that changes according to our thoughts and feelings at any given moment.
I encourage you to focus your energy on building trust instead of grasping for control.
Ditch Control, Invite Love
Control is an egocentric concept. Providing it with a sense of being able to predict the future by attempting to control the present moment.
We get so caught up in trying to control the present moment to
Let go of trying to control the way and let love light the way
What Is It That You Really Want?
More to come!
