What Control Do You Have?
The control you have is real and powerful – but you alone can choose to take it.
The human mind is so powerful that science and medicine still only barely understand its capacity.
What’s more, your mind is not just the central processing unit (CPU) of your physical body. It is where you reside in the form by which you most identify.
Thoughts and feelings are to your intangible self as water is to the tangible. Water makes up more than 70% of planet Earth, and around 60% of your body – thoughts and feelings make up probably 75% of your intangible self. The rest? Memory, psyche, the subconscious. But that 25% runs really, really deep.
This has been one of the most devastating years for virtually everyone. A global pandemic that the United States, at least, has let run amok – not to mention a widening political and frankly moral divide amid some of the ugliest politics ever. What’s more, this is impacting people on every imaginable level – from news you have no control over to your personal life.
COVID-19 took 3 people from my life thus far. Many of my friends are coping with children not being able to safely return to school – and still working full-time. Teacher friends of mine are trying to determine how to teach without being exposed, too. Chaos is dominant because the upper echelons of leadership are incapable of leading.
I know nobody who hasn’t been impacted by this insane situation. It is frustrating, uncertain, and scary. And it leads to complicated, difficult to answer questions. What can you do? How and when will this end? Ultimately – what control do you have?
Accepting some unpleasant truths
I can’t sugar-coat this, so I am going to make it plain. The world pre-COVID-19 is no more. It is the end of the world as we know it – and few people feel fine.
Change ALWAYS happens – but seldom this drastically, unexpectedly, and irreversibly. That, in turn, is causing other issues to come to light in a way that further complicates peoples’ lives. For example – the protests ongoing in the face of clearly racist policies. Why else is a heavily armed white kid allowed to WALK RIGHT PAST cops while unarmed black people tend to be shot? This is why Black Lives Matter is a hugely important movement.
Because this change has been so powerful – we are seeing some very negative reactions to it. And, since it serves them and their pals, the Trump administration is working on widening all the divides rather than bridging them as real leadership should. The impact then echoes and resonates with our personal lives.
When you go out and see people ignoring mask-wearing orders and social distance; when a friend or family member you thought was reasonable shares one of the ludicrous conspiracy theories; if someone you care about does something racist, sexist, or otherwise ugly – it hits home.
This brings me to the second, far larger, and unpleasant truth: You can’t alter anyone else. You have no power to change how someone thinks, feels, or acts – no matter how much you love them. If they are convinced that their opinion is right – you cannot change it.
This breaks apart families, destroys friendships, and amid a forever-changed life – that is even more devastating.
However – once you recognize these unpleasant truths – and others like them – you gain the ability to move past them.
What control do you have?
When all is said and done – you control YOUR life.
On the surface, for many people, this seems like bullshit. There are bills to pay, obligations to be met, children and family to care for, and other matters that can’t be ignored. Your job won’t work itself – or if you have no job one won’t just find you along the way.
Be that as it may, you still can control your life. But if you have been living subconsciously – allowing patterns and routines to carry you along – this is going to take some effort.
What does that even mean? Let’s face it – the vast majority of people exist. They don’t truly live – at least, not often. They exist.
The collective consciousness of our society is not designed to support the individual. This is ironic because there are all sorts of messages that prop-up the individual over all else. But the truth is that individuality tends to cause derision.
It is a wonder we’re not more schizophrenic as a society. In America, for example, vast swaths of advertising sell sex. Eat this, drink this, wear that – you increase your sex appeal. BUT – then the almost ancient Puritanical values come up and sex is forbidden, taboo, and guilt-causing.
America has NO problem with excessive violence – but nudity? OH MY GOD COVER THOSE BITS! The pearl-clutching publicly is almost surreal. Especially when, behind closed doors, the BDSM toys are employed.
My point is that expressing yourself as an individual is expected to only occur behind those closed doors. Publicly, you need to meet-up with how the collective consciousness expects you to.
Hence, most people just exist – but now and then they go behind the closed door and take control of their life.
But why should truly living life be so limited?
Empower yourself with choices and decisions
Every single day of your life you have the power to make choices and decisions. No two days are ever alike. Similar – but never the same.
You can choose to take control of your life. The decision to live versus to exist is up to you.
Even in the framework of expectations you can work with this.
Why bother? Because I believe that nearly all the conflicts we experience are due to not taking control of thoughts and feelings – and acting unintentionally as such. Literally, thoughtless acts impinge upon our interactions.
Think before you speak or type. Feel how what you are doing, saying, or posting will make people feel. Consider if you are generating positivity or negativity with what you are doing.
That’s all it takes to assume control. Being mindful of your thoughts and feelings – conscious and aware of them here-and-now – puts you in control. That allows you to make choices and decisions that can direct your life – even with all the other craziness going on.
When you are in control you are accountable – and that puts the onus on you in a way that is empowering. It’s ironic how so many find accountability to be disempowering – but it’s not. Placing blame – almost a national pastime – is utterly disempowering.
Which is why you see so much of it. The more those “in power” disempower everyone else – the more they believe they have control. But the truth is that they don’t. Why? Because only you are in your head, thinking thoughts and feeling feelings.
The control you have is real and powerful – but you alone can choose to take it. Practicing mindfulness opens you to conscious reality creation. But more than that – it lets you assume control over whether you live life – or simply exist.
Taking control isn’t hard – but it does require thought, feeling, and action
Knowing that you can choose to be in control over your thoughts and feelings, you can decide to make use of that. When you practice mindfulness to make use of that control, you are also choosing to live rather than just exist – and that ultimately empowers you.
When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that can spread to people around you. This can create a feedback loop of awareness and positivity.
You can build more positive feelings and discover further reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve numerous aspects of your life for the better, help overcome the overwhelming negativity of the current situation, and generate yet more positivity and gratitude.
An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of immense positivity. That positivity can generate even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.
This is the three-hundred and forty-third entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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