Who's in control?

Who’s in control?

We sail through life in a flurry of life events and situations, often feeling as though we are being pulled out of control, that we are being swept away from our normal life towards events we do not wish to venture.   

But who is in control of it all? What if I were to tell you that it is, in fact YOU? That you have control over your life? Would you doubt me?

It is true, and inevitable that life throws things at us, but we have choice; we can choose the direction we take after the situation presents. Whilst we cannot control the situation itself, we do control our thoughts over it, and we control our actions and reactions thereafter. This is why two people may react differently to exactly the same situation. I call this a Gene Kelly moment; I’ll explain – two people wake in the morning and open the curtains to discover that it is raining. One rolls their eyes in despair and declares their whole day ruined! The other choose to ‘Sing in the rain’. You see it is not the rain itself, but our thoughts towards it that creates our mood. This therefore applies to many situations we find ourselves in, even when faced with a phobia, remember it is not the spiders’ fault that you are afraid of it! If we apply our thoughts logically, if we view things from a different perspective we could unlock a whole different view of life!

Richard Carlson PhD. once wrote “Once you see that your thoughts cause your negative feelings, you can watch yourself creating your own misery”. He goes on to write that people are completely unaware of the effect that thinking has on their life, ‘that people need to catch themselves thinking about an issue and then dismiss the thought from their mind’. Ironically the person he refers to is called Katie! Despite writing this and sharing the knowledge with you, I can confess that I sometimes fail to catch myself. Refer back to my last Blog, ‘Are you living like a Human?’ In the blog I go on to state that negative emotions are ok! What then is the purpose of this Blog? Although I stand by my previous blog, what is the harm in applying ways in which we can avoid the negative emotions becoming too much and engulfing us!? Because nobody wants that. I would go on then to state that negative emotions are alright in small doses, but if we can avoid them, then why not?! Next time you find yourself in a negative mood, catch yourself, think about the situation from a different perspective, think about someone you admire, how would they act in the situation? Remind yourself that YOU are in control of your thoughts, your actions and reactions, that YOU choose how you are going to deal with the situation that has presented itself. To quote Richard Carlson again, “The thoughts that you should pay attention to are the thoughts that brighten your spirits, pay attention to the thoughts that are based on wisdom, gratitude, perspective and common sense. Ignore those grounded in low pessimistic mood, thoughts of gloom and doom, fear, lack of appreciation, hopelessness, despair, negativity and anger”, how ideal this sounds! Of course, and I refer once again to my previous Blog, that there will be times when we find this difficult to achieve, but if we just try and remember that things will get better, we are already half way there.

And how do we know whether we are paying attention to the right thoughts? By how we feel of course – because “you feel the way you think!” Richard Carlson 1961-2006, an inspiration.