Control Vs. Love

Shadow and Light by ~theLastWanderer

They say, "If you love something, set it free. If it's meant to be it will come back to you." At least, that's my version of this common expression.  I've always heard this adage in the context of loving other people, but it can be applied just as well to self-love. Unconditional love does not involve control, whether that be controlling another person or controlling oneself. Transforming my relationship to myself and developing unconditional self-love means freeing myself rather than controlling myself. It means facing my shadows directly and healing my darkness through acknowledging it, rather than hiding and burying the darkness as deeply as possible. Transformation is both an acknowledgement of What Is, and a vision of What Can Be. Transformation is bridging the present and the possibility, bridging the ephemeral and the eternal. Transformation happens through finding new effective ways to set myself free - free from expectations and assumptions, free from perfection and control.

Rewiring my brain, a project I started last November, involves developing and refining tools to connect my heart, mind, body, and soul. Over the past five months I've been developing habits, skills, resources, and neural pathways through this rewiring program I developed for myself. The first 90 days were the intensive training period to develop habits of self-care and every day presence in my life. Now in Phase 2, I am strengthening the habits and neural pathways of love, awareness, connection, and freedom. This is building my resilience, allowing me to delve deeper into the shadows of my life. These shadows, these fears and hangups and past failures, deter me from taking audacious risks toward my true callings. I am working to shed these layers, to embrace failures as learning opportunities, to embrace fear as excitement, to embrace risk as potential. This means letting go of control by giving myself the freedom to fail. To choose love over control is a clear choice, and yet one I find so hard to make. The daily practices of listening and reflecting, of gratitude and hope, of acceptance and communication are the ingredients I need to make this decision a reality in my own life. What do you need in order to feel safe making the choices you know are best for you? What does our society as whole need to stop destroying ourselves and our planet, to make the choices we know are best for us?