Are You Really in Control?

In the last week, how much of your time did you spend trying to control the outcome of something? In the last month, how much of your time were you resisting your feelings about something?

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Viktor Frankl

Many of us have been taught about results and consequences. When you do A, you will get B. If you don’t receive B, we often believe we have failed in some way. We sink deep into failure and shrink back in shame.

If this person doesn’t like me, there must be something wrong with me. If I’m not picked first, I must be inferior. Our self-worth plummets and our value decreases.

Each moment and each experience slowly chipping away at our self-esteem and confidence, our worth and value.

When the results aren’t quite what we want, we assume we did something wrong.

But what if that wasn’t true? Yes, we may play a role in the results, but there are times when we have done everything we could and did everything “right”, but the results just weren’t as we desired.

What about the things we have no control over? We cannot control how another person responds to us or their actions. We cannot control the weather or the price of goods. We can affect these things, but we cannot control them.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”  Viktor Frankl

How do you respond to things out of your control? I get upset and fuss about it. It drags me down. I feel challenged and threatened. Then, I take a breath. I allow myself to feel what I feel, but then, I let it go. I cannot control what happens, but I can control how I let it affect me. I choose not to waste a lot of time and energy worrying about it. I do not want to give my power to it and let it consume my day. I choose not to let myself be drug down energetically.

It’s not easy. It has taken some time and retraining to get out of the habit of responding like a victim. When we’re in the mindset of a victim, we focus on what has happened to us. Someone did ____ to us. We’re often experiencing negative emotions like anger, rage, frustration and hurt. We relive it over and over and tell it over and over–how could this happen to me? We’re giving our power to the situation or the person who harmed us. (Read more on victim mindset at http://healthythinking.org/victim.html)

Recognizing that cycle and breaking from disempowerment to empowerment is a big shift. When you shift from being a victim, you move from a place of responding to a place of creating. You are able to see solutions and opportunities. You are able to see a new way to go, a new path.

How do we make the shift? Keep an eye out for the next post.

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I could have written this entire article with quotes from Viktor Frankl. I highly encourage reading “Man’s Search for Meaning” if you haven’t already done so. Frankl shares his experience as a prisoner in a concentration camp and his mindset throughout the experience. He also developed logotherapy and brought more attention to existential therapy.