Can’t Sleep? 7 Simple Changes to Better Rest
(Health Secrets Newsletter) I’m a control freak and proud of it. Or, at least I was until I understood what that really meant. As long as I was in control of everything and everyone, life was humming along just perfectly. Then, one day someone shared the following quote with me:
“I am that which I am, and while I am that which I am, I allow you to be that which you are. I am out of alignment with the Law of Allowing if I believe that another person needs to think, feel, believe, and act according to how I think they should. If I need to make everyone conform in order to feel good about myself and my world I will never experience freedom.”
Wait a minute! What? I could feel the life lesson coming fast and furious and it was hitting me like a Mac truck. After spending a lot of time reflecting on this Abraham-Hicks quote I realized there was a personal development opportunity hidden in it that would be worth exploring.
We all have a life based in our individual freedom (free will) in which to make choices. It’s not up to me to control or change another person so they live their life according to my rules or my choices. It’s my role to accept them for who they are – not make them into who I want them to be or who I hope they will someday be.
There was something very freeing in this for me as I realized I wasn’t responsible for someone else’s behaviors, choices, or thoughts. I enjoyed giving up the control and allowing others to just be. No judgment of wrong, right, good, or bad. I just allowed people to be, listening for understanding but not forming an opinion. I was simply witnessing people, events, or situations. And, in doing so I was finding a lot more satisfaction and joy within my own life.
Incredible clarity came as I began to question beliefs and thought patterns. Why would I want to control others? In taking away their freedom to choose, their freedom to be, their free will, I was also taking away mine. As I gave up the need to judge, I acknowledged that in looking for and seeing weakness or error in others and reacting to it as if it were real – I made it real. If I simply remained neutral and didn’t add meaning to it, it wasn’t real for me. I learned that it could only be true for me if I believed it was true. So, I embraced the skill of questioning my thought process, my beliefs, and drilling down to a point where it no longer had meaning. Things just were, I just observed, and I no longer believed every judgment my mind offered. A belief is just a thought you think over and over. To change a belief, you have to think new thoughts – over, and over, and over. I practiced and practiced the skill and did the work of retraining my brain.
As you see others, you see yourself. As you control others, you also are controlled. The fastest way to happiness and peace is to change the way you see and respond to other people.
Read more at Donna’s blog http://renovateyourlifestyle.com/
