In my most exhausted and anxious moments, I’m spinning… thoughts, webs, and various mismatched plates.
My mind and body are orbiting around over extended obligations and unhealthy exhibitions of control. I’m constantly busy, but hardly productive, leaving me terse and hypervigilant.
Rest is fitful at best and a pervasive ache consumes my heart space.
I take up uncomfortable space in both realms of not enough and simultaneously too much. I feel dizzy, inebriated from the waves of competing expectations hurled in my direction.
I find peace when I finally drop it all. And intentionally realign with me- my values, my flow, my spirit. I recalibrate my locus of control, which extends to me alone. And really, only the conscious, uncovered parts of me.
I cannot control my autoimmune disease, but I can choose what I consume to avoid inflammation.
I cannot control my emotions as they are responses to the conditions I have placed my body and soul in. However, I have some control over the conditions I create and even more control over my response to my emotions.
Freedom is found in releasing that which we cannot control.
We have no control over anyone or anything else. And while this can be incredibly frustrating for my type A soul sisters, it shifts to freeing with enough acceptance.
Unhealthy habits, like codependency melt away with enough acceptance of your locus of control. Relationships, careers, and even parenting become easier and more joyful when you release what is not yours to control.
Release leads to space and clarity. The opportunity for definition which is crafted through vision- deciding what you want your life to be. Clearly identifying how you want to feel, what you want to experience, and how you want to live. Create a clear picture of your ideal life and intentionally plan backwards from here.
What are your ideal experiences, relationships, and feelings?
What do you want? And more specifically, who do you want to be?
What values align with your goals and dreams?
Because where focus goes, energy flows.
Magic lives in the alignment of words, intentions, and actions. We begin the building process at the bottom by returning to the locus of control- in this example, we’ll use my environment.
I am fortunate to have the means to buy a home in this turbulent economy, however I landed in a region that does not speak to my soul.
I crave alpine mountains with towering evergreens. Deep, white winters bundled in cozy couch nests with bottomless cups of tea to warm the soul. A roaring fire to melt the bitter cold from our bones. A cabin illuminated by strings of dancing lights in the long night. A contentment found only in the exhale of rest while the collective world sleeps.
But I live on the coast, surrounded by flat, boring land. And vast seascapes that leave me feeling exposed to the elements. A landscape that beckons long days of bold adventures under scorching summer skies. Sweltering, sun soaked crowds. And small towns drunk on nostalgia packed with tourists sticky from ice cream and pina colada scented sunscreen.
When the July heat blisters my winter skin and the season of no left turns backs up traffic to my driveway, I return to myself- my locus of control.
Self identifying as a reluctant transplant on the shore, I cannot will the land to swell with elevation. However, I have full control over the interior of my home.
I cultivate the cozy whenever possible. Calling upon an enchanting trio of fairy lights, warm candles, and soft melodies. The ambiance invites the familiar comfort of my grandmother’s kitchen and unlocks the creative channels of thoughts, words, and movement.
In the absence of natural elevation, I build my own mountains. Warm, heavy, blankets with pillows adrift invite winter hibernation.
I lean into the life I want through that which I can control. This practice nourishes my soul and invites my highest self to dance in the bliss of the moment. I cultivate space in my heart to appreciate what is simply here now by intentionally finding beauty in small, picturesque moments.
I mindfully seek out the subtle charm of what has always left me trepidatious- the sea. The shore. The tourist typhoon. The sun, sand, and salt.
In the winter stillness, I see the shore in all of its wild vulnerability. Barren and impatiently revenant. Aching to wake- a restless giant who dreams of summer dawn.
I see the loblolly pines vigilantly sheltering the marsh. I find grace in knotted limbs languidly adorned by the intermittent red of cardinals and berries. The blood of life in a sea of slumber.
The marsh sleeps and invites us to do the same under muted browns and sleet grays. And while the shore cannot provide the rugged embrace of elevation, it has a charm that belongs to itself.
A charm that can be appreciated. Admittedly, reluctantly (at first), but easing with intentionality. A subtle appeal that can only be seen when I take time to find my alignment.
I find peace by leaning into cultivating what can be controlled: my home, my mindset. And release that which cannot be controlled: the environment in which I live- the neutral elevation; the anxious sea.
There is freedom in the release. There is peace in alignment.
Great read, Sarah. Really enjoyed it