How many times in a conversation do you get frustrated when you want to unload about something and the other person butts in with their unload? Or how often are you talking with someone and you realise that either they or you have turned it round to self? Or how often do you get upset when things don’t go your way? Or don’t happen as you want them too?
I think one someone dies we grieve for ourselves rather than for them. If someone doesn’t get healed we take responsibility worrying that we didn’t “pray hard enough”.
Each time we do that we are putting “self” , our ego, at the forefront.
How often do I want a dry day, at least for those times when I’m out dog walking without any regard for what my country really needs? Or get narky because a friend is busy when I’d like to see them? Or the traffic is snarled up and I want to get home early?
Jesus tells us to “die to self” – which I think just means letting go of wanting to control the world.
I like to control my world. It makes me feel safe. I’m sure that is the same for all of us. We don’t like to not have a handle of things.
My friend in AA says one of the biggies is when they reach the step that talks about letting go of needing to be in control/letting go of self.
Only when we let go of self and our need to control a situation can we really let God/The Universe/A Higher Power than ourselves into the situation; into our lives.
It is scary letting go of self.
More and more I’m learning to let go of self and let God, but often this means more times I have nothing to do. This is because I don’t go looking for work or actively volunteering for things or even actively finding things to do. I now sit and wait and listen. Though often I spend times distracting myself from the listening by playing games on my phone, reading books, even reading the Bible can be just a distraction to be busy rather than finding what God really wants me to do in that moment.
I think most people are scared to let go and wait and trust in God. I wonder if it is back to that thing of not knowing we are loved unconditionally just for who we are and feeling like we have to work at being loved by God?
One reason I think is that if you aren’t filling your life and your head with other things you get time to ponder and then you see things in the “unseen” world.
Two you have nothing to tell anyone when they ask you “what did you do today?” How often do we all greet each other with “what have you been up to today/yesterday/last week/last month/etc?” Those yearly newsletters which have to put in what we have been up to. It is rare for someone to say “how are you really feeling today?” and really want to listen.
I think that brings us to the third reason why we don’t want to let go of self, of being in control. Don’t want to wait. If we stop rushing around being busy – which I think is what holding on to self equates to – then we get to think how we really feel about a situation, our lives, our towns, our relationships, our relationship with God. And then maybe we might see the gaps, what’s lacking.
Maybe too by letting go of self we won’t just be putting God/The Universe/A Higher Power first but will start putting each other first.
What would a conversation look like if I bit my tongue and really listened to the other person?
What could the world look like if we took the time to really hear what each other was saying without thinking how that relates to us and jumping in with our anecdote?
Aspirational Adventures 