...then you will walk through life reacting instead of responding.
When you lose control then you lose power to make positive and healthful decisions. Your mind will be restless worrying about what someone said. You will never get to know your true self. You will mindlessly eat and drink whatever is in front of you since you are stressed. It is time to get your power back.
It is like a beach ball on the waves. The waves go up and down and the ball succumbs to the power of the waves and has no chance.
There are two worlds in which we live- our internal world or what goes on inside of us and the external world or what happens around us. If you learn to keep your internal world stable and strong regardless of what happens around you then you will have a better chance to not react to everything. Instead you will be proactive and decide what you want to let in. This is the better option, since living in a reactive state leads to such things as stress, emotional eating and drinking, and losing sleep.
While in India I asked Swami Chidanand Saraswati, “I will soon leave this peaceful, spiritual place along the Ganga and go back to the United States- a country that is exact opposite. How can I take India with me?” He said, “My dear, you don’t have to take anything with you. Peace is on the inside. It is with you wherever you go. While you are here in India, find your anchor. Plant the anchor and be a stable ship that will stay grounded regardless of the storms and waves on the surface.” So each day until I left I would go into the Ganga and imagine my legs as an anchor.
The Swami further explained that we should be like the deep waters of the ocean. These waters are calm and still even though on the surface there can be a hurricane with huge waves crashing up and down. Our internal world, our true self, our soul is perfectly stable as it is. But yet, we find ourselves being agitated by what everyone ‘does to us’ or by what the media is saying or by what someone said to our child at school. How can we stabilize our internal world?
To start, stop worrying what other people think about you. Stop worrying that someone did not ‘like’ your most recent Facebook post. All of these things are in your external world and have nothing to do with the beautiful person that you really are.
I went to Nags Head with my family this past summer and there was a hurricane off the coast. The waves were huge. We still went in the water and as the waves rolled in, my brother would yell, “Go low, duck, lie on ground.” He was right. Those huge waves did not impact me and I was stable and strong. It was then that I understood what the Swami told me.
Below the surface, there is peace and calmness. Learn ways to keep yourself calm and stay below the surface when the waves above are crashing down. Get your power back by standing up for yourself and making decisions based on what is best for YOU. Learn to say NO when you feel overstretched. Don’t take what others say or do personally. If you do, you will continue to be that beach ball that is tossed around.
Do you ever feel that you are bouncing on the surface of the ocean? Is there something in your life that you feel you lost control of?
Comments