Success Coaching: Is It Time To Get A Grip?

Is It Time To Get A Grip?

Welcome back! This week we’ll take a closer look at whether or not it’s time to get a grip on your life.  If you feel increasingly out-of-control, if you've got the tiger by the tail and there's no hope of things turning around, then you might very well wish that you did have a better grip; hoping that your life in some way resembled the images you see around you everyday … like the perfectly calm and organized moms and dads on TV whose houses are tidy, whose bills are paid and whose children play in their manicured backyard while Mom prepares a nutritious dinner indoors. 

Perhaps getting a grip on your life means that you first have to get real.  It might mean admitting to yourself that those highly-manipulated images of perfection to which you compare yourself are, in reality, a copious blend of jive, sham, and shuck… in other words, being in that kind of control of your life is a load of B.S. . Getting a grip may very well depend upon repeatedly acknowledging that you are, in fact, human and that any striving on your part to achieve and/or maintain some ideal lifestyle is actually quite UNdesirable.

Why, you may be asking, is that undesirable?  Because at best, being in control maintains a belief in a way of being that’s not grounded in reality.  In the worst-case, pursuing perfection of that kind is not even attainable.  And, if you remain focused on maintaining such control, the majority of your time and energy fixes you to that commitment to having it seemingly all together. And the point of being on this planet is NOT to have it all together, but to be fulfilled, joyful and enlightened in a way that allows you contribute your best self for the benefit of the world.

You see, to be alive is to be in motion.  Living is a verb.  It’s fluctuation, action, and reaction. It’s not standing still, maintaining balance or getting things in order and then keeping them that way. The funny thing is, I know you know it's true, but I also know that you’re probably still trying to achieve what is essentially unachievable.  For example, have you ever cleaned your kitchen spic and span and then told your family that they were no longer allowed in your fresh, clean kitchen?  Did you ever just want to have a situation stay exactly as it was… like savoring the most rich and tender part of a cookie that you save for last or relishing a few moments of deep connection to another that you wish would go on forever?

The reality is that, as quickly as these moments come, they also go. That's what it means to go with the flow because the mounting evidence suggests that the more tightly you grasp to the minutiae of life, the more suffering you’ll endure. Eventually, clutching of that sort will strangle the life right out of the wonderful possibility that exists for all of us, even you. The truth is that you’re not living as a separate entity.  By virtue of your being human, you’re inextricably connected to an uncontainable and therefore, uncontrollable web of life.

When an unforeseen event is introduced to that web, chaos may ensue. One strand pulls and stretches those surrounding it. The interconnectedness simply cannot be avoided.  So... the very best you can ever hope to achieve is to hone your skills at coping with and accommodating the never-ending introduction of change. Control isn’t possible but responsibility is. And if what you want is to be responsible for the success of your life, then what you’re obligated to do is exercise your ABILITY to RESPOND to life. That’s true RESPONSIBILITY. What a simple yet powerful awareness!

Now that you have that understanding, I’d like you to picture for a moment the beauty of your two hands.  Look at them and admire them even with scars or wrinkles or other evidence of what life has wrought.  Thank your hands.  Honor them for serving you so consistently and well.  Recognize them as the powerful tools of creation that they are.  Understand that your hands have both great skill and great responsibility for they turn ideas into realities and reach out for that which sustains you and brings you joy.

Your hands however, if tightly gripped about the stuff of your current reality, the stuff that is, cannot perform their most vital function.  If your hands are indeed grasping the illusion of control, they are precluded from opening, receiving and accepting that which exists beyond your control.  Yes my friend, to keep your hands open means letting go and assuming an available, receptive, trusting position.

It means saying to your self, perhaps I don’t have to fix this situation. Perhaps all I need to do is observe and see what happens on its own. And just maybe, if you were to do that, were to let go completely, you might create the space necessary for something bigger and better to enter. The juiciest part of this is that you won’t know if you don’t try.

Beloved poet Pablo Neruda wrote the following piece that I’d like to share with you because it so beautifully conveys how letting go of control and releasing your grip on life ushers in a void of endless possibility. He wrote:

And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense, pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens unfastened and open,
planets, palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry void,
likeness, image of mystery,
I felt myself a pure part of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.

Here’s my 7-day challenge for you:

Rather than of getting a grip on your life, I suggest that you get perspective instead.  One of the ways that has proven so useful to putting my own life in perspective is to put it on paper.  Journaling or other forms of self-expression serve to free your energy by discharging it out of your system and giving it a new form.  That new form will then exist outside of you, providing the distance that’s essential to objectivity and ultimately, receptivity.  Writing releases and opens; allowing mental, emotional and spiritual energies to flow, letting ideas flow, and prosperity flow.

As you invite the details of life to flow outward you are also welcoming the potential of life to flow inward.  Therefore, giving up control includes being ready and willing to receive inspiration at any time and in any place.  To give you an example, the idea for this essay came to me around 3 a.m. one morning.  So instead of resisting it or telling myself I could remember the idea the next day, I got up and grabbed the notebook off my headboard and began to make notes.  As I did, seeds for another 10 or 11 essays came through clearly at the same time.  It's really just a matter of being absolutely open for the only perfect time and place to receive divine direction is right now.

Please join me next time when I ask "What are you waiting for?"

Until then, I leave you with abundant peace.