Have you ever felt as though your life was part of the tornado scene in the Wizard of Oz? There you are, minding your own beeswax, trying to simply live your life from one moment to the next and swoooooosh…something seems to derail your best “staying centered” intentions. It’s as though what began as a seemingly easy day suddenly has the proverbial cow flying by in the whirlwind of the tornado.
Sometimes things just seem to spin out of control and we find ourselves dazed and confused, wondering what happened that pushed us over the edge. And what seems even more challenging is when we have days like this that stack up on top of each other. We begin to feel that our life is not looking like we want it to look and feels busier and less gratifying than we want it to feel.
So, how can we come into each new day and not get bowled over by life?
I often suggest to clients that one way is to recognize what you can actually control and what you can’t. We live in an illusion that we have more control over things than we truly do. How does it go when you try to control someone else’s situation? How about when you make a plan and something (like a road closure) stops you in your tracks? How does it feel when someone says, “but you make me feel this or that way”? When we believe that we have more control than we really do, we begin to enter into a place of suffering.
In both Buddhism and yogic philosophy, attachment and clinging are addressed as prime roots of suffering. When we attach ourselves to things, people or beliefs we set ourselves up for the pain of separation from these things.
- The one true thing that we can control is how we react to situations. When we begin to recognize this truth, we create a buffer of forgiveness that communicates it’s not always our fault when things go awry or that someone feels a certain way. Through our yoga practice we learn to stay with our breath as the challenge escalates, observing our experience yet staying connected to the essence of stillness and calm.
In order to stand in a place of peace in the eye of the storm, we need to own what is ours and let go of the rest. That’s it…let go by opening up the clenched fist that’s clinging onto what feels secure and watch yourself soar!
