What Are You Trying to Control?

I’ve been thinking about control lately – of trying to control things, of wishing I could control things, and of the feeling I experience when I’m trying to control.

What control looks like for me:  I want a person to be different.  I want them to start doing xyz or stop doing xyz.  I want a situation to be different.  I want things to go the way I want them to.  I think that I should be able influence a situation to have a certain outcomes.  I want a guarantee. 

When I try to control something, it doesn’t feel good.  The feeling is hard to put into words.  Resistance.  Holding onto something . . . tightly.  Constriction and discomfort.  Hardness.  Shortness.  Sharp.  

Significant life transitions often mean doing something completely new.  Career changes, personal changes, and finding a path that allows you to your time and energy in ways that are meaningful to you – often means going into uncharted territory.  Doing something you’ve never done before.  Looking at your world in a new and different way.

Getting off the rails, and hacking your way through the bush. 

• Do you find yourself wanting security and stability as you go through a big life change?
• Do you want to know what comes next, what you can be sure about, in the midst of ever-present uncertainty?

I do too.

And . . . {SPOILER ALERT}

Going through a major change to get to a new and different place requires letting go of control. 

It’s likely that:

You’re not going to know how it will turn out. 
(In fact, how you approach it will affect the results you get.)

You’re not going to be guaranteed success. 
(But how you approach it will affect the outcome in a big way.)

You can’t control every single aspect of a life change. 
(And if you try to, you’re likely missing out on opportunities along the way.)

It’s hard to let go of control. Believe me, I know.  I was a woman who wanted to be completely self-reliant and self-sufficient.  The stuff of good ‘ole American dreams.  I wanted to be able to do it all.  (Okay, I still want to be able to do a lot, but I realize now that I can’t do it all on my own.  In fact, that idea of needing to do it all on my own sounds just dreadful now.)  I still struggle with wanting to control. 

Yet sometimes when I feel like I’m working really hard, I notice that I’m operating with the belief that, “It’s all up to me.  I have to make every single piece of this thing happen.”

And the belief that It’s all up to me has an impact on what I do:  I am so focused on the map ahead that I forget to take a side path and discover something new.  I forget to listen to messages from my heart.  I don’t let the magic in.

On the other hand, when I’m willing to let go of control I can still work hard and trust that good things will come of my hard work.  I just don’t have to be 100% responsible for making them happen. 

I can acknowledge that my 100% input may yield 50% result on one day, and 800% result on another day.  I acknowledge that some days I may be able to only put in 40%, and that’s okay.  It doesn’t mean that I’m a failure.   

Letting go of controlling every aspect of a thing can be the most terrifying thing you’ve ever done . . . and there is a wonderful warm bath of trust waiting for you. 

Letting go of control allows for more movement.  It allows for miracles to happen.  It allows for a natural unfolding.  It allows for more ease and less tightness. 

Because when you let go of control, you are aligned with a greater truth: 
You can’t control everything.  Plain and simple. 

You can show up and create something important and meaningful, but you don’t have to have every single step of that process planned out to a T.  Because that’s not how life works. 

When you give up trying to control, you allow the magic to happen. 

What are you trying to control right now?  What’s possible if you let go of that control?

Yours in wildness~~
Lisa

Why Nature Matters So Much (To Me)

If you’ve read my blog, you might have noticed that I use images of nature to illustrate the life concepts that I often write about.  If you’ve read more than a couple entries that you’ve probably noticed that I use photos of nature very often in this space.  

As I look back through my blogs over the last year I notice that virtually all of them use images of the natural world.  And virtually all of them (99.8%) are photos that I take in my daily travels and select specifically because I feel that they resonate with the writing for the particular day. 

You may be wondering...

Why so much nature, Lisa?
Isn’t it all a little too abstract?
Don’t you take photos of anything else?

Sometimes I wonder about these things myself.  Yes, I do take photos of other things, but the majority of my photos are of nature.  I mostly them on my iPhone, and I also take them on my Canon 50D.  I take videos of trees blowing gently in the wind because I am awestruck.  I take photos of grass and flowers and trees as if I were a scientist studying them – from different angles, capturing just-the-right light, documenting them.

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Why?

Nature moves me.  It speaks to me.  It evokes my emotions – reverence, amazement, gratitude.

When I go out into the natural world, somehow I remember who I am.  My internal voice comes through loud and clear.  My head empties out and I can hear what my heart is saying to me. 

I am at peace. 

I experience a different perspective of reality on this Earth – of tiny humans on a big planet, the vastness of it all, and how small a human life is while at the same time holding infinite potential to have an impact on this planet and its inhabitants.

When I am out in the natural world and slow down, I think about how the air (oxygen) I’m breathing could have come from the tree next to me.  How the sun shining on my forehead is the same sun that fuels the life of the grass beneath my feet and the food that grows in fields miles away from me. 

It makes me realize that the kale I ate in my salad tonight was grown with the help of the very same sun and the very same oxygen (and much more, of course), and that by eating it, then the Earth becomes part of me.  The sun becomes part of me.  The oxygen becomes part of me.  It fuels me as I go about my day to day life.  Same thing for the chicken that was on my salad. 

I realize what I’m saying is something learned in a middle school biology class, and yet when I experience it, I am amazed each and every time.

Because everything is connected.  There is no Lisa without the sun, just as there is no trees or air without the sun.  What I breathe, eat and take in from my environment becomes part of me – literally!  (And it leaves me and becomes part of something else, but truth be told I know much less about that whole process. But ‘nuff about that for now!)

Thich Nhat Hahn says that when you drink a cup of tea, you can see a cloud in your tea.  The simplicity and truth of that is so beautiful.  So beautiful it feels beyond words and comprehension sometimes.

And then there’s the effect that nature has on our souls, our spirits, our hearts – whatever you want to call it. 

Nature heals.
Nature calms.
Nature brings us home to ourselves.

You know that sense of peace that seeps in when you walk through the woods when you’re mulling over a thorny issue?  The quiet of the trees, the rustling, the breeze.  It seeps deep into you and soothes.  It helps you, and you may not even know why or how.  But it does.  You come home to yourself with help from the trees and the breeze. 

What a gift we have to be on this planet.   We can’t ignore that fact.  And the power of nature – what it can do for our wellbeing, our minds and our hearts – is something that I’m going to be exploring more and more.  In real life, and on this blog. 

Nature helps us to know ourselves more deeply.  It gets us in touch with the natural parts of ourselves, the wild parts of ourselves, the parts that are free and deep and knowing. 

The world needs humans who are in touch with these wild, natural, free, deep and knowing parts.  It’s how we’ll heal ourselves, our relationships with each other, and our connection to our planet.  

Stay tuned for more :-)

How has the natural world spoken to your soul recently?

Yours in WILDNESS,
Lisa

Today, notice how you use your energy.

Notice how you use your mind.
Notice how you use your heart. 

AND, notice the impact you have on others. 
When you’re around, what happens?

For today, just notice.

Yours in wildness~~
Lisa