Well, I guess you can open a flower with a sledgehammer, but the result isn’t going to be pretty. That goes for life as well. We can force things to go our way, try to speed things up or manipulate them in our favor but most of the time we will destroy what is there by trying to play God and make things happen the way we want or in our own time. I spent most of my life doing this repeatedly, always expecting different results. The definition of insanity at it’s best. It was only when I learned to do things gently and be open to it happening on life’s time schedule and not mine, that I allowed more flowers to bloom in my life.
Not forcing things into being took some work on my part. I had to learn to let go of my own expectations or will to have things turn out the way I would like them to be. Just the thought of that, in the beginning, caused my anxiety to spike. But letting go of my false sense of control I thought I had actually was liberating. I had felt like I was running the show, the fact was, I never really was, but I thought I was, so to release that responsibility actually let go of a huge weight I had been carrying around. I also had a tendency to be a bit of a bull in a china shop, and sometimes that bull comes back out, but I would just throw myself into situations without much planning and then try to figure it out on the fly, if I thought of everything as a delicate flower it reminded me to be gentle, to think things through before diving in and to allow that flower to open as it would. A lot of this new way of doing things for me was about doing the footwork and getting out of the way of the results, and that’s where some more breathing came in. My life before was run off of fear, and the fear was so strong the only way I knew how to try to keep it at bay was to try to control everything, which really, just made the fear grow stronger because I couldn’t control everything, no one can, and I felt like I was a juggler who had way too many times in the air, balls, plates, chainsaws, puppies, you name it I was trying to juggle it. But by relieving myself of the responsibility of having to control the result I could do what I could and then let it go. Now, letting it go got me the same results as it did when I tried to control it, because, in reality, I never really had control, but it did relieve my stress and anxiety and, it taught me to slow down, to be gentle, or more gentle, and to investigate and think things through, which, ultimately did get me more of the results of what I wanted.
We all have wants, desires and needs, but us coming at them swinging our sledgehammers doesn’t get us any closer to them, in fact, it will likely distance us from them in the end. It’s important to remember that our wants, needs, desires and goals are not the only ones, each individual person has a set of their own, and, perhaps the ones we want aren’t what’s ultimately best for us anyway, as the saying goes, we get what we need not what we want, so by trying to force our way we may actually be doing ourselves a disservice because something better might be waiting for us if we just loosen our grip a little. Next time you’re coming at life with a sledgehammer, stop a moment and give life a chance to open on its own. SLAY on!
SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you tend to force things to happen or do you let things unfold as they will? Do you come at life like a bull or do you take the time to investigate and thoughtfully move through life? If not, what can you do to slow down and look at things instead of just charging for the finish line? Give an example when you used a sledgehammer in a situation and it backfired. Give an example when you backed off a little and things went smoothly. What was different about the time you backed off over the time you used a sledgehammer? Why do you sometimes take out a sledgehammer instead of letting things unfold in their own time? Forcing our way usually doesn’t give us the results we want, and even if we do get them, often we stop on someone else to make it happen, so why not put the sledgehammer down, do what you can and stay out of the way of the results, you may be pleasantly surprised at what happens next.
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
State Of Slay™ 