I feel like I’ve been living in a dream world, and it hasn’t been a great one. It’s been hard to endure, and although I feel relieved that my foot is finally healing, I also feel reflective. I realize that everything we do, every feeling we have presents us with a choice. How to react. How to present ourselves to others. How to present ourselves to the world. I used to be so focused on my need for order, my desire for cleanliness. I was being driven and I didn’t even know it.
For the past two months I have sat and watched things pile up and get messy and have had to force myself to not react. I’ve had to look at it and not give in to the desire to get up and fix things. My job was to fix my foot, and the only way to do that was to do nothing at all. I had to let go, and I have found a great peace in doing so. I let go, and it’s clear to me now that that actually works. In letting go I can stop being anxious. I can stop being edgy. I can stop being angry….
I suppose this need to control my environment is due to the fact that I have a hard time controlling my own self… my emotions, my reactive nature, my anger at knowing that the feeling of being in control is only temporary. It’s an illusion… and although this has been said before by many others, it really doesn’t sink in, doesn’t apply to ourselves unless forced upon us.
My greatest discovery out of all of this is that I can make my anger go away. It’s not about trying to control anger, that has never worked, but ironically letting go of control releases the anger. It just disappears. It doesn’t come around. In the past, when I’ve had these epiphanies, I would say to myself, “I hope this feeling stays.” This time, I have a different understanding. I know how to make it stay.