Consider the ways you can use your journal writing to reconcile your perfectly natural human longings and needs with the ridiculous lack of control we have as individuals in a vulnerable species on the Earth.
Thinking that you have control over anything is maybe the biggest deception in anyone’s life.
Yet most of us spend most of our time trying to control things.
Tell the truth: you want to feel in control of your lifestyle, your health and welfare, your career, your relationships, your future. Write? We all do. But at the same time, most of us realize that control is an illusion at best.
Shit happens. We are infinitesimally small compared to multiple forces around us. No matter how perfect our plans, we must always leave room for our expectations to be derailed.
But oh man, what a drag when everything all of a sudden goes haywire! You think you have all your ducks lined up and then, splat! your plan liquidates and you’re left dumbfounded and clueless.
It’s almost like the feeling of being robbed. It’s like leaping blindfolded off a cliff. When you lose control, you lose everything.
In short, control is a serious enough issue to take to your Journaling Practice. Try approaching it from different angles:
- List recent experiences in which you felt a loss of control. This could range from feeling helpless to resist the temptation of a frothy dessert to losing control over a car at high speed. One is less immediately life-threatening than the other, but both involve losing your grip, and that’s the phenomenon we want to understand better.
- Now describe how it feels in your body when you lose control. Give yourself plenty of time to examine the sensations. Describe them in deep detail.
- The next time you journal, spend a few moments focusing inwards, concentrating on your breathing, before you pick up the pen. Then begin to write about the meaning of losing control. If all experiences are opportunities for growth, what is the value of an experience in which you lose control? Are there different values for different experiences?
- Think about your customary responses when you realize you are losing control. How do you feel about the way you tend to respond? How would you like to amend your usual reactions? What thought processes or practices would help you modify this behavior?
- Take yourself on a date. Plan where you’ll go, what you’ll do; and then do it! As the experience winds down, pull out your journal and make notes about what happened. Note especially how actual circumstances conformed to your plans – or differed from them. Savor the contrast between your plans and the Universe’s plans.
When it comes to control, the ultimate is to learn to let it go. For every one of us, this is seriously difficult!
What an amazing blessing that we have journal writing to make the process so much easier.
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If it seems as though you have no control at all and you really could use some help with activating the power of journal writing, please do not hesitate to contact me for encouragement and guidance.
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