Letting go of the Need to Control
Written by Cristina Zenato
On the 30th of November 2021, I left a job and position I held for 26 years.
I had invested my life, my heart, and my soul in it. I gave up everything else for the pursuit of that one job.
I had thought about this for a few years, but I never found the right time, the correct line-up, the perfect moment.
I could not feel that the circumstances were in my favor. So I postponed and procrastinated, becoming more uncomfortable with the situation and angry at myself for that choice. I had not learned to let go.
I wanted something that I could not receive, and I held on to a place as a symbol of that possibility.
Then, one day, I decided I would not wait for anything suitable, and I presented my resignations. Out of courtesy, I gave three months, maybe three months too many, but nether the less, they were what I felt was professional behavior.
I did not have much lined up, I did not have the next job, nor location, I improvised and came up with ideas and solutions. I took a giant leap of faith; I could do it because I was no longer holding on.
I had let go of everything, expectations, right circumstances, even suggestions, counsels, and cautionary tales. In the words of a dear friend of mine, I turned into a free but wise teenager. And I soared.
I had not realized how much weight I was carrying in my own two arms and how much more I was trying to pick up on the way.
An old proverb says that to fill our basket, we need first to empty it. That's what I did. I flipped the basket upside down and let all the content fall out.
Letting go of physical and emotional circumstances provides a wild sense of freedom; it allows us to fly high and observe from above the shackles that kept us locked.
It is not easy; letting go is frightening; we choose the unknown over the known.
It's an act of courage, but in my personal experience, it's an act of self-love.
Letting go teaches us what we have been preventing our beautiful souls from experiencing; it shows us the steep ticket price we have paid to carry all the weight for all that time.
Stress, anger, frustration left me with everything else I decided to leave behind. We need to remember that if it costs our peace, it's too expensive.
Many come to the end of the year with a series of resolutions and new strategies.
The best lesson I learned is that the moment we let go and embrace who we are, what our hearts desire, what makes us happy, is the moment we can take that step into the void, face our fears and change them into excitement and a fresh start.
Use these simple steps to practice Letting Go of the Need to Control:
- Use affirmations. When the need for control really gets in your way, affirmations act as an important role to encourage and motivate you.
- Have faith in people, yourself and the Universe.
- Live in the present. Most of the time we tend to live in the past or the future 😉
- Accept your lack of control. We, humans are flawed and try to control everything and that only leads to more chaos and anxiety.
- Adapt to changes. As Darwin said: “It Is Not the Strongest of the Species that Survives But the Most Adaptable” (See our practice on Adaptability from 2021)
- Take accountability. We may feel the need to control when we do not want to admit our mistakes.
- Learn from it. Instead of trying to control a difficult situation, take a step back and see what can you learn from what happened.
- Meditate. It helps you gain control while at the same time teaches you to let go of things you can not control. It helps you gain inner peace and deal with negative emotions you might feel.
- Realize the effects. Needing to feel in control usually leads to frustration.
- Breathe. Just breathe and stop letting yourself get frustrated over something you can not control.
Letting go of the need to control is not easy (at least for me), so for the March Manifestation Box I prepared you tools to help us all let go of the feeling that we need to control everything in our lives and just learn to go with the flow..
Stay strong, stay positive! Love, Szilvia
