Happy Spring: Accommodating Your Life
Do you ever feel as if the need to control is dominating your life? Trying to control your life probably isn’t working for you, just like it didn’t work for me. Relinquish your control and take back your life, because trying to control everything just doesn’t work..
We all want exactly what we want. However, we often don’t get what we think we want. In fact, a lot of the time we get exactly what we think we don’t want. Sound convoluted? Well, perhaps it is sometimes. So what can we take away from this confusing cycle of desire vs. acquire? We can learn to ask the universe for what we think we want and then learn to be flexible and adapt to whatever comes back to us. Often the universe sends us exactly what we need.
This past month has been a whirlwind filled with travel and the hectic moving of my office. Every weekend has been jam-packed with endless things and tasks that I needed to accomplish. I kept reminding myself to just stay focused and in the present moment as much as possible, which helped me stay on task and get the job done (most of them anyway). Needless to say, not everything went smoothly or as planned, because let’s face it, life rarely goes as we plan. Practicing patience and tolerance was the key to being able to let go of what I could not control and embracing the way things turned out.
I used to be a control freak and it wasn’t pretty, for myself or for others. Just ask my former husband. When I was a child I loved to have all my things neat and tidy in my bedroom. I shared a very small room with my older sister for several years. We had an unusual kind of closet that separated in half, quite fortunately. Her side was chock-full with stuff so disorganized that when she opened the door, things would come pouring out onto the floor. As far as I could tell, there was no sense of organization in the slightest. In stark contrast to my sister’s, my side of the closet was neat as a pin. I knew exactly where everything was and each object had it’s proper place. Now, years later, my sister and I are just the opposite. Although still somewhat organized, my closet is definitely not arranged in the Feng Shui style I so obsessively followed as a child.
As I got older I used cleaning as a way to feel in control. When I was in college, I would have to scrub the house clean and put everything in it’s proper place before I could sit down and study. I loved to look around my home and see the orderliness and the serenity that came with it. My need to control my surroundings often distracted me from what I really needed to do though, STUDY! When your desire to control, whatever it may be, gets in the way of your life, it’s time to take a step back and evaluate what’s truly important.
I still love it when my house is clean and tidy because everything feels so much more harmonious, but I have learned that life is not always so neat and tidy, nor should it be. Everything is not always as it should be or how we’d like it to be, and the sooner we accept that, the better our lives will be. I used to fight this with all my being because I wanted everything to be the “right” way, in it’s right place at the right time. Somewhere along my journey, after great losses, I learned that life just is what it is. There is no “right” way that life should be. We have and then we don’t have. We win and then we lose. We choose something we want and then we get something completely different. Now I scrub my house and put everything in it’s proper place out of a healthy desire to live in a peaceful and organized environment.
I spend much of my day talking with people about how and why they are fighting life. When we fight what comes to us or how life is for us, we are creating a stress response in our body, otherwise known as the Fight or Flight Response. Chronic stress is what causes us the many health problems that have become ubiquitous in our culture. Headaches, stomachaches, indigestion, ulcers, back pain, cancer, skin problems, early aging and so many other stress-induced health issues stem from the struggles we create in our minds. Yes, the fight against life all starts in the mind, but it can also be stopped by the mind.
Our perception and outlook can make all the difference to our general health and well-being. What if we learned to just accept what comes to us and stop the fight and anger that can come when we don’t get what we thought we wanted? This doesn’t mean that we give up going after what we want. It means being receptive to life and working with what we get, because everything happens for a reason.
When I moved offices, I moved from a spacious 220 square feet to a mere 120 square feet. When I first started the search for a new office, I never dreamed of downsizing. I didn’t want to consider anything that was further from my home, smaller than what I had, or darker than what I was used to. I knew what I wanted, and thought I knew exactly what I needed. Needless to say, office spaces with my exact specifications were few and far between. When my new office came up, I was so hesitant; it had great light, it was in the perfect location, but the size was less than ideal. I almost passed it up because I was fully convinced that I NEEDED more space. Turns out, that office came up for a reason, because with the right furniture, organization, and open mind, I’m happier with it than I ever thought I could be. I got rid of things I forgot I had, cleared the clutter, and made room for the important things that really make my practice run smoothly.
What are three things that would be helpful for you to let go of, do less of, or stop altogether? Open your mind to possibilities that right now may seem impossible. Often the greatest life changes come from embracing the inconceivable and creating something you are truly proud of. I am very proud of myself for having created a warm and welcoming new office space with 100 less square feet than I had become accustomed to. In fact, my office move has inspired me to de-clutter and reorganize my house with a quality over quantity mindset that I’ve wanted for years.
15 TIPS FOR STOPPING THE FIGHT IN LIFE
Be conscious about how and why you are fighting things in your life
Embrace what you get, try not to dwell on what you don’t get
Work with what you have
See the benefit and positive aspects in everything you receive
Learn to accept that you get what you need and not always what you want
Be creative in reorganizing your thoughts, spaces or life choices
Get to the present moment and stay there. The fighting in your mind is about dwelling on the past or future. Right now is always perfect because it just is.
Breathe deeply and frequently
Be mindful of how you do things
Allow yourself to be curious about what comes to you and use everything to your advantage
Learn to see your life in a new way. Try viewing it from the eyes of a stranger, it may offer you an incredible new perspective
Detect your ability to be flexible and adaptable
Use stress releasing techniques daily or more frequently as needed
Find out how resilient you can be
Discover the energy and power you have to heal your life