We think we can control our life and the outcome of events. We save money so that we have provisions for emergencies. Our purpose in life is to pursue a career to gain status, money and recognition. Anything to provide a perceived material security. We rely on our partner and family to make us feel loved and valued. We take out insurances for everything possible so that our life never gets out of control. All people have the same general primal fears that keep them trapped in control.
Fear of change keeps us stuck in our comfort zone, which never works in the long run. Because the comfort zone is always just a stopover. The soul is here to learn and when the ego refuses to move on and stays in the cozy comfort zone, drastic events often happen that brutally throw you out of the nest, so you learn to fly.
But let’s first look at what you cannot control:
– The past
– The future
– The actions of others
– The opinions of others
– What is happening around you
– What other people think about you
– The result of my efforts
– How others take care of themselves
You see, you can actually never control everything that happens on the outside and it would be best to give up control right here and now (I know, that’s easier said than done…).
But there is also a lot you CAN directly influence:
– Your thoughts and actions
– Your boundaries
– The goals you set for yourself
– Who or what you give your energy to
– With whom and what you give yourself to
– How you talk and think about yourself
– How you approach challenges
You have no control over how others talk about you, how they treat you and themselves, what happens around you, BUT you have the power to change how you react to it. It starts with how you see yourself, how you think and talk about yourself, and whether you love yourself enough to put yourself first in your life.
No one can hurt you with a statement unless there is a trigger within you with a docking point that responds to it emotionally. ANY emotional reaction is a trigger and a chance for you to look at it. If, for example, you have low self-esteem because you were always called stupid as a child, then every derogatory statement hits you like an arrow to the heart and hurts terribly. If you are completely in your center and know your worth, then you can see through the insult and realize that the other person is just in a trigger reaction himself. This probably learned as a child that attack/aggression is the best way to deal with it.
Without a docking point, you can respond to the attack with empathy and take the wind out of the person’s sails because you are reacting completely differently than they expect. If someone is in an absolute fighting mood and has just gone on the attack to release energy, but you skillfully dodge and remain friendly, that confuses the person to such an extent that they can no longer attack verbally at all, or they will probably retreat angrily.
So, it is your responsibility how you react to life. Whether you see the glass half full or half empty, whether you go out with the intention that you have a perfect and pleasant day today or whether you have already decided in the morning that everything will go wrong anyway. And EXACTLY the same way it will present itself, because the outer world is always a reflection of your inner world. You do not meet solely annoying people who treat you badly by coincidence. You broadcast the specific energy that tells other people that you want this kind of treatment because you don´t deserve better.
You are in control of how your life turns out – not because you control the external circumstances, but because you control YOU. Thought hygiene is one of the most important practices we can learn. It is one of the many topics I address in the new course, “The Universe Within You.” False beliefs, traumas and conditioning stick with us. You can’t just “think” these things away with your mind. It takes various processes, exercises and insights to transform us from brain users to brain owners, as Vera F. Birkenbihl so perfectly put it.
Feel into yourself and observe yourself throughout the day. Where do you recognize triggers, negative emotions and beliefs that get in your way? Realizing and understanding how you function is the approach to initiate change. Because if you don’t know why you always react the same way, you are a victim of your own circumstances.
A good exercise that I can directly recommend to you is to start every morning with the Serenity Prayer – this puts you in the perfect mindset for the day:
“God, give me the serenity to accept things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to distinguish one from the other.”
The origin is not entirely clear, but it probably stems from Reinhold Niebuhr.
