What I am thinking about at the moment, and what I would like to reflect briefly on here, is a phenomenon that we might describe as the contrast between trying to “control” things and its opposite (or, perhaps, advancement), “turning it loose.”
I am a person who struggles a lot with letting go of control (or, often, imagined control). There is this distrustful part of me that seems to think that I need to be, and can be, in control of situations – both internal and external situations. This part of me believes that, to borrow an apt phrase from an AA text, if I only manage my affairs aright, all will be well with me and with the world. And so I expend an enormous amount of energy trying to get all the proverbial ducks in a row, making “sure” that nothing is amiss, and calculating all the worst-case scenarios so that I won’t possibly be caught off-guard and surprised (read: disappointed).
But, of course, this is not how reality works. In addition to being a control freak, I am also a fairly good athlete, and so I have experienced the reality of control vs. “turning it loose” all too frequently in the realm of sport. What I have learned there, to take golf as an illustration, is that the harder I try to steer the ball and the more I try to control the outcome of my endeavor, the more tentative and anxious I become, and the worse I perform. I play my best when I am able to transcend that natural, human tendency to want to control the outcome, and I simply (as best as I can) “turn it loose” and play each shot to the best of my ability, from as relaxed a mental space as I am able to access and occupy.
As in golf, so also in life: the good stuff comes when I learn to let go, when I learn to surrender the outcome of any particular endeavor and bring my best “game” to the table. I conserve a lot of otherwise wasted energy, and the endeavor unfolds without too, too many unhelpful intrusions of myself, my egotistic attempt at control, and my fear of disappointment.
Yes, I want to get out of my own way and “turn it loose.” Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t, but, thankfully, I have not abandoned the pursuit.
10th Leper Gratitude 