Control

I once told a new client I was a recovering Control-a-holic. Her face whitened, her eyes widened and her posture changed. She said, “You mean, you’re going to use handcuffs or tie me down during session?!”  Blink. Blink.  Whaaa!??? NO!  Oh my!  What I was trying to communicate is that I would thoroughly explain what was to take place during her intuitive Reiki session. Yikes!

My early spiritual growth was intensely painful only because I didn’t listen the first 947 times God gently tried to get my attention. I was determined (read: stubborn), self-motivated (read: impatient) and enthusiastic (read: obsessive). Therefore, I respectfully overlooked (read: ignored) a lot of what could have been much easier lessons for me to learn.

I believe there are several stages God (or the Universe or whatever you want to call it) goes through in order to get your attention. It may start with the “Soft, Gentle Whisper.” If you repeatedly ignore that, you’ll get the “Loud Booming Voice.” Ignore that and you’ll hear the “Banshee Yell.”  Then it moves on to the “Punch in the Gut” and to what I like to call, “The Fetal Posish.”  I like to think that last one was created just for (or because!) of me.

Because of the aforementioned attributes, I have personally experienced the “Fetal Posish” several (hundred) times. {Cough} I didn’t know then if I would have just dealt with the ant hill the first or even the ninth time I heard the whisper, I may not have had to deal with the seemingly insurmountably painful mountains later on.

In hindsight, if I had simply (simply?! Pishaw!) given up control, I might have been living on Spiritual Easy Street.  Instead, I spent a fair amount of time living on Agony Avenue because I tried (‘tried’ being the operative word!) to control people, situations and outcomes. Hey! It’s what I knew. It’s how I was raised and it was comfortable. Change can be scary.

As my girl Susie often said directly to me (ahem!), “Control is an illusion.” Man, I just didn’t get it. What do you mean, it’s an ‘illusion’??! I didn’t even begin to understand the truth of that statement until years later.  I mean, in the physical world, if I worked hard, I was promoted. If I was promoted, I earned more money. If I earned more money, I could afford nicer things. Wellll…..in the spiritual world, it doesn’t quite work that way.

If you’re trying to advance or grow spiritually and you’re a control freak, you’re going to have to go against what you’ve done your entire life. If you push and push in the spiritual realm, you can bet on a whole lot of nothing, except frustration, coming your way.

You see if you push, you muddy the spiritual waters. This makes it harder for you to see what needs to be done and for your Astral ‘Managers’ to do their job, which is manifesting your wants/needs/desires. Think of it this way. Trying to force things to happen in the spiritual realm is a lot like trying to push a string; it just gets balled up and snarled.

So what do you do?  Well, here’s what works for me.

1. Get out of your way. Whatever that means for you. Maybe it’s letting go of ego. Maybe it’s being kinder to yourself. Maybe it’s practicing forgiveness (that comes up a LOT in sessions!).  Maybe it’s stopping the pity-pot meltdowns and foot stomping when stuff doesn’t appear or happen on YOUR timeline.
2. Trust. You can’t see oxygen but we need it to live. Same with Trust. You cannot advance spiritually unless you know how to trust. Trust in yourself, trust in others and trust in things you can’t see, hear, touch, or smell.
3. Let your Universe know exactly what you’d like, not what you don’t like. Believe me, there is a difference. Write it down. Post it on your fridge. Make it your computer password.
4. Repeat steps 1 and 2 as needed and repeat step 3 every now and then. The Universe HAS heard you.

There it is! These four items, in my opinion, are the backbone of it all. Let go of control. It ISN’T real. Seriously. The only person you can control is yourself and sometimes we don’t do a good job of that, either. If you want to try to control something, maybe take a look at how you express your anger. Does that need to be changed or tweaked?

I’ll leave you with this. If the thought of letting go of control fills you with fear, panic and/or anxiety, then you may be in for a lifetime (insert echo here) of “Punch in the Gut” and “Fetal Posish.”  And what’s worse? I believe if you don’t learn the lessons you came here to learn, you’ll have a least one more lifetime in which you get to repeat the same (or worse) mistakes. The same (or worse) experience that result in the same (let me hear it! OR WORSE) hurt/frustration/agony. And you may not start out with the ‘Soft, Gentle Whisper’ next time. Nope. You may start out with the ‘Banshee Yell.’ Lovely to think about, isn’t it? NOT!

Do what you need to do to grow. Don’t worry about anyone else, as they’ll need to deal with their own set of illusions, whispers and gut-punches.