Tuesday, May 14, 2013

schemers trying to control their little worlds...

today i feel full to bursting with a certain knowledge. it's something i've learned over the last long while through my marriage ending, my illness and the surgeries.

you cannot make a person feel or be ANYTHING.

you can't force loyalty, love, respect. you can't control where people decide you belong in their life no matter how hard you try. think you can? sorry, but you can't. if you're a controlling person by nature, like i (was), then that sucks to hear. you may even be in denial about it for awhile. but it's a fact, and the thing about facts and truths is that you can't alter them to fit your vision, either. no matter how hard you try and how hard you may want to. you can't make something so just because you pretend it is. in fact, going along pretending something IS when it's an absolute truth otherwise is sheer insanity! but we do it anyway.

let me give an example...i used to HATE winter. (i don't really love it now, even). i hated it so much, that i pretty much pretended it didn't exist. if you live in a place like utah, where it's winter for a big chunk of the year, and winter is REALLY really wintry...then you know how absolutely nuts it is to pretend otherwise. but i pretty much did. so guess what? i failed at dealing with winter. my SAD would come rear its ugly head every year and completely own my face, because i refused to learn how to cope with winter. i was too busy ignoring its existence. but guess what? it didn't go anywhere. nope, winter showed up every year like clockwork (who'd have thought?! ha) and like clockwork, i was miserable every year. and everyone around me knew it. just ask derek. there is a reason i believe the guy should be nominated for sainthood ;)

anyway, long story short is this....when i got sick, ignoring it just made it worse. to the point that i almost died a couple of times. so, i started to learn. but i REALLY learned when i had to have the dreaded bag. i hated it. it was my worst nightmare come true. and i couldn't pretend it away. it was there, and i couldn't  control it. in fact, my surgery was rescheduled SEVERAL times...i believe with all of my heart that this happened to teach me this lesson. i could NOT control when my surgeries were. i could NOT wish the bag away. i learned to deal with it, to accept it. i learned to wait for the surgeries. i learned that i couldn't make other people understand what it was like to have the bag, and that i didn't want to waste energy on trying to. i learned to relinquish control. to STOP trying to control everything and everyone around me. people don't like when you try to control them. it pushes them away. i've learned for myself that i refuse to allow anyone ELSE manipulate or try to control me, either. and man, it's been a lovely change!! why didn't i figure all of this out sooner? ;)

i've just learned, though it's taken a LONG time, that the thing you CAN control is yourself. your reactions, your feelings. i could learn to stop hating the bag, and deal with it. i could learn to be patient and see something good in having to wait for my surgeries rather than being angry about it. the awesome thing about nobody but you controlling you is that nobody can make you be ugly about something. nobody can make you feel hate or anger or any of those kinds of emotions. just ask emperor palpatine...he really would have loved to force luke to feel anger...but it didn't work ;)

but seriously....the worst things can happen and you can meet them any way you wish, no matter how hard anybody may try to make you feel to the contrary. that's a freedom that can't be taken away! there's true dignity in that.
you cannot FORCE anybody to feel or be anything. you cannot control other people. the sooner you relinquish your stranglehold on everything, the happier you'll be. i realized that i wasted a lot of energy trying to control everything around me. it takes a lot less energy to learn to control yourself.
take it from someone who has grown from being a very controlling person.

of course....i can't MAKE you do anything ;)

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