Learning to Let Go of the Need to Control or Impress

Happy Monday!

Today I am going to share one of my own personal struggles as I move into what I hope is a more peaceful way of living:  Letting things go.

I am not good at letting things go.  As some of you may remember, one of my New Years resolutions was to stop gripping the club too tightly.  That isn't always easy.

The big thing I am working on these days?  Letting my world unfold as it will.

This is not easy.  This is hard.  I have been a planner my entire life.  If you needed something organized from about 1965 onward (hey I had to learn to walk before I could really orchestrate things!), I was your girl.  I helped plan our summer vacations as a kid.  I decorated the Christmas tree.  I had a plan for everything.  And every plan had me at the controls, working very hard to get the results I wanted.

Don't get me wrong; those are good skills to have.  But controlling tendencies, coupled with over-thinking, can lead to peculiar behaviour at times.

This year, when I threw all of the puzzle pieces up in the air, trusting that everything will work out, has been the most humbling and scary year of my life.  It has also been the most invigorating and exciting.

Recently, when I saw Deepak Chopra speak,  he spoke of the Law of Detachment.  I had to look it up so I could explain his concept properly:

The Law of Detachment says that in order to acquire anything in the physical universe, you have to relinquish your attachment to it.  This doesn't mean you give up the intention to create your desire.  You don't give up the desire.  You give up your attachment to the result.  Deepak Chopra, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success.

Deepak argues that as soon as you decide that you want something to happen in a certain way, you close the door on all of the other possible ways that that thing could happen.  For Deepak, detachment is "based on the unquestioning belief in the power of Self".

So while I intend to take care of myself through my writing and other more creative pursuits, I have no idea how that will all happen.  I am just believing that it WILL happen, or something even better.  This is a leap of faith based on the belief that I am a creative, interesting person that someone, somehow will want to take a chance on.

I recently faltered in this concept of letting go with respect to this very blog.  Since I was suddenly seeing myself as writing and creating, I thought I ought to work harder to make this blog sexier (I know, as if it could be ANY sexier!).  I wasn't making the changes because I wanted to make it look neater, I was making the changes because I wanted to appear more competent blog-wise than perhaps I actually am.  And you know what?  It didn't seem authentic to me.  So from now on, if I am tinkering here it is because I may really love chartreuse more than sky blue (oh that's a lie, I will always prefer sky blue to chartreuse!) not because I think I should try harder to impress you all or to get more followers.  So I will just continue to write what's in my head and in my heart, unfiltered, and be glad of whomever stops by and gives me a hearty halloo!  Because whoever stops in to say hello was supposed to stop in.  And I will always choose to share the personal with the belief that if I am writing something that even one person likes or finds solace in it, I am doing the right thing!

Gosh, I am so glad to get that off my chest!  You didn't know it, but I did, and I was finding it hard to be truly authentic if I was worried about that stuff.  And yes, I am completely detached from how it is received! :-)

Any of the rest of you having difficulty not trying to control the universe today?

Stay safe out there?