Tag: control

Categories
let go Trust God

The Greatest Sin

for getting to put God and Jesus in the centre of all we are and all we do.

The sky on our drive home on Tuesday looking towards Eryri photographed by myself whilst in the car hence why it is a bit blurry.

When we go to the Anglican church there is always a prayer of confession which talks about repenting for things we’ve done and things we’ve not done but last week it stuck me that one of things we don’t repent of is not putting Jesus in the centre of things, of not trust that God has a plan through it all. Surely that is one of our main tenants of faith – that God works all things to good [Romans 8:28] – yet too often we don’t believe it. Instead we try to do it on our own, with our own skills, with our own strength. Ok so we might pray that prayer “Jesus help me with my work/family/this situation/this decision I have to make” but then we get back to working out the answer, of putting together pros and cons, putting together contingency plans, and worry and worry and worrying. And so we get stressed, grouchy, and of course that can lead to various health issues if we read Gabor Mate, etc.

Over the last month or so we’ve had loads of curveballs thrown our way from family issues to car issues to boiler issues to getting a rescue dog – something we wanted but maybe the timing was out? I found I was getting more and more stressed and so not being able to see through things and not being able to truly enjoy the new dog.

This is our something good – a new dog called Willow who our old dog Renly gets on well with

We all have deep-seated different motives for why we take on board what we take on board. For myself I wanted to “get it right”, to “please everyone”, and to “be a good girl”, and to “prove myself”. None of which are what God wants.

So how does one put God at the centre? It is really hard work but also really easy. For me it was to trust that God knew that all these things were going to happen at this time. God also knew I could handle them, but not in that way that I had to sort it all out by myself but that I was able to rest with God and let them deal with all the curveballs. I don’t even need to catch the curveballs. That is God’s job.

I do have to be willing to let go of controlling outcomes. Not that any of us can control outcomes anyway but, oh my goodness, we all do try very hard to keep control of all situations, which just leads to more stress. If God was willing to give each of us freewill surely we should let our family and friends have freewill, even if we think we know best or could do better.

So once I’d let go of it being my responsibility for sorting other people I could hear what God wanted me to do in those situations – to be able to leave my old and new dog peacefully with a friend as I went away, to leave relationships for God to sort and not see them as a reflection of me. And I do think we too often see the way our children, especially, behave as a reflection on ourselves and how we brought them up. Instead of being as gracious as God is with us and letting them have the freewill to do what they want. That doesn’t mean we don’t pray for them but it must be a freewill prayer filled with love and grace. I think we can pray “your kingdom come” in both personal and world situations but we cannot pray “your kingdom come and it looks like X,Y,Z” because, for one, that is controlling and, two, we really really do not know the whole situation but God does.

So for me with all that was going on I was able to turn my heart toward God, to trust them in all things, to let go of trying to control and to hear what I am to do. Interestingly this has made settling the new dog into the family much easier and has helped me sleep better. Has it sorted the other things out? No! But, even though I care, I know they are not mine to sort.

So I have put Jesus back into to the centre of my heart and my life – though of course have to keep turning back to doing that again and again and again – and my life becomes much simpler.

God is good when we acknowledge that they are.

Categories
control freedom peace

Control

Dog on a train to Cardiff as always giving me all control – photographed by myself July 2024

I said I was going to come back from Cardiff and start on a series around the Aramaic version of the Lord’s Prayer but …. that was me making a plan and trying to be in control. Nothing is coming and if I wrote it would be dull without life. So I’m not doing it.

This, and a recent incident, got me thinking about control – controlling others, controlling outcomes, keeping control of ourselves.

Whenever I think of control the Gossip’s Standing in the way of Control song slides through my mind. Lots of crashing guitars, angsty singing over mega meaningful lyrics.

But what does standing in the way of control look like in my life?

Well, I had a recent incident where I had come up with a plan to make everyone happy on a family weekend then one part of the team refused to submit to my plan. Yes that’s now how I see it. They would not submit and say what a great plan it was. I know them well enough that I could have used all those old techniques to manipulate and guilt trip them into my way of control. Instead, because I am walking through this healing journey, which includes letting go of controlling situations and controlling others and stopping letting old patterns and ways control me, I had to accept this person’s decision, lovingly release my plan, and actual stand in the way of my control.

Ok so it wasn’t easy and I had to a lot of realigning and regulating my autonomic nervous system so all the adrenaline was not pushing me to my usual defensive “safe” positions. Of course the old patterns did try to peek out but I have let go of so much through QEC and talking with God that I knew they had been beaten and were just those old pathways not the new green pathways I was now free to walk.

If I am a whole person, loved unconditionally by God/The Universe, and can make my own decisions by listening to my heart, then I have to trust that others can also make their own decisions whether I like them or not.

Interestingly even though there is a little sadness in my heart I feel at total peace about the coming event. There is no angst within me at all. And, from what I remember, when I have had a tightly controlled plan for a family type event I have felt tense because I then need to coordinate it all. Letting go of control means that I can now just be and let all those I love who will be there just be themselves around me.

I have stood in the way of my own control and it is good. It is freedom. Perhaps it is also another thing to add to the True Freedom post 🙂

Categories
others self

Letting Go Of Self

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?

Categories
control shame

The Need For Control

St Asaph Monday 15th April 2024 Photgraphed by myself

What’s your default mode? What’s the place you go back to when you are feeling tired, stress, anxious, attacked?

In some of the Josh Luke Smith “Speak into the Chaos” stuff he talks about how our shame causes us to want to control our situations. And the more we let go of our shame, forgive ourselves and others, accept as Gabor Maté says that lots of what we do was programmed into us before we had logical thoughts, forgive into those situations and take agency with them, the more we change our belief systems about the world, the more we can let go of needing to control.

I’ve had a few interesting situations over the last couple of weeks where I have firstly felt myself wanting to take control but have ANSed, let gratitude roll through me and let go of the need to control. But then I have spoken something that rock the boat a bit, unintentionally. I was just saying how I saw the situation. I have then been met with a barrage of the other person regaining control in a quite forceful way.

For each of us, until we can let go of our shame and need for control we will all have a default method of dealing with that.

  • There is the person who goes tight lipped and says nothing
  • There is the one who comes out fighting – either with fist or with tongue
  • There is the explain it all away
  • There is the person who will suddenly change tact and agree with everything their supposed attacker is saying
  • There is the person who just walks away and won’t talk about the situation again.

For each, and the myriad of other types, it is a way of keeping control.

My default rolled between going in with words to fight my corner or cutting the person out of my life. I have now come to see that a lot of the time I don’t care. Like with a meeting recently where I’d voiced an issue and the other person was defending themselves way beyond what my concern had been and they gave no hint to the issue I had raised and whether it was valid to me.

Before QECing my default would have been to no longer have anything to do with this person and their organisation. I would have dismissed the whole lot, bad mouthed them to other people, and ignored emails etc from them or emailed to tell them exactly what I thought of them. Instead, no longer needing to have that control over the situation, I allowed myself to feel sad and disappointed that they did not hear my concern, allowed them to waffle on till they had finished, and then went on to the next point I had on my agenda that needed dealing with.

Because I did not go into my old default way of keeping control I could let things wash over me, decide what was important, forgive them for not hearing me, and move on.

Too often we lose the most important thing because we “throw the baby out with the bath water” because we need to keep control, because we refuse to give ground to the other person.

I think Jesus did that. When challenged he didn’t come out fighting but would tell a story to emphasis the point. He’d bring the energy of the encounter down a notch or two. But I think that’s because Jesus knew and trusted his own heart. Too often our hearts are full of shames and hurts and wounds that we ignore them, we don’t see them as important. We don’t see they are trying to communicate with us. So we shut them away. We hold on to our shame, our hurt, our wounds.

For those old enough do you remember the “What Would Jesus Do” [WWJD] bracelets, mugs, etc used to help us know what to do? Well I think in any and every given situation that arises Jesus would breath, not rush to an answer, would check his autonomic nervous system was in balance and regulation, know he carried no shame, guilt or hurts, and would be able to respond with a gentle, strong, clear heart.

If we want to get to be more like Jesus that is the place we need to get to.

Version 1.0.0

Categories
Holy Week maundy thursday

Maundy Thursday

I don’t believe that Jesus’ “Last Supper”, that final Passover meal where he reveals everything was like DaVinci’s painting.

Leonard Da Vinci’s Last Supper painting – Wikiart

I think it was a much more chaotic affair with families and friends and children and noise. The nearest I could get from my photos was when they did the conga at my son’s wedding back in December 2021. Some people loved it. Others really did not. And I think the goings on at that meal would have been similar. Some would have loved it and some would have not. Maybe they wanted to hear Jesus and someone was chatting. Maybe there were kids charging about as kids can be known to do. Perhaps that was why John was leaning on Jesus chest. Not as a sign of affection but so he could hear properly!!!

I am a bit of a planner, especially when it comes to an occasion. My son and his wife were planning their wedding for nearly a year, and much of that was so they could get the venue they wanted. How many of us on a lovely Sunday lunchtime struggle to find a pub or restaurant that is free because there are only limited spaces and other people have booked in advance?

For me one of the amazing things on this Passover day is that it is only on the actual day that the disciples say “Where do you want us to prepare the Passover meal?”.

Now we know Jerusalem is packed full of people because of the crowds who greeted Jesus on Sunday and then those who shout “Crucify him” later on. This is a big celebration where families come to be together. I’m wondering if the disciples’ families had come to join them too? It would be wrong almost to celebrate this huge occasion in the Jewish calendar away from your loved ones, I think. Also would Jesus have done this big reveal to just the clique of 12 or would he have wanted to include all those people who were not in the chosen 12 but had been following and supporting him for the years of his ministry? So we’re possibly looking for a venue and food for between 13-100 people. But nothing has yet been arranged.

Now as a planner, the one who says to my husband on a Saturday afternoon that if we are thinking of having Sunday lunch out we should book somewhere on said Saturday afternoon, would have struggled not having a place to go. But had everyone got to that point, remembering things like the feeding of the 5000, etc, where they trusted Jesus that he would come through with something.

Perhaps they had learned from the tale of Mary and Martha where Martha is told she is worrying too much about other things, about preparing, when being with Jesus and listening with him is the most important. So they believed by now that Jesus would come through. Trust! Belief!

We don’t know who the two disciples were that finally asked what the plan was for that evening. Though in Luke it says it was Peter and John [Luke 22:7-13]. But when Jesus tell them to “follow a man carrying a water jar” [Mark 14:13] they don’t say “what???” as many of us might do. They trusted and obeyed.

But it is not just his disciples/followers who trust but that of the man who owns the room where they have the Passover meal. We are not told who he is or how he fits into everything [plot hole!!] but whoever he was he had kept his room free for whatever reason when there must have been people clamoring for it. He could also get hold of and prepare enough food for the 13-100 of them that came.

For my son’s wedding we had to give our menu choices about two weeks previous so the hotel could get everything in and prepare it. We were about 35-40 people in total for the main do. And even for the meal with just family before the wedding [about a dozen of us] we still had to have our menu choices in a couple of days early. But on the day Jesus says “yup this is the time and this is where it will be” and everything comes together in time.

I did first think of how long the lamb would take to cook but have you ever made flat breads and salads of bitter herbs? These things are really time consuming – especially if it was for so many people. But it was done and done well. Well enough that Jesus had time to explain what was going to happen next.

For me my “lesson learned” is to not expect to know in advance. The more I’ve gone through healing I’ve realised that having to tightly ordered plan for everything is a control thing that is to do with anxieties from past traumas and so I am learning to let it go, learning to trust the process, learning that if it doesn’t happen then the world won’t end.

I wonder if Jesus’ disciples had reached that point of not having to control things [apart from Judas], of not having to have all their ducks in a row, and had got to a point of believing that Jesus would make things happen as they were meant to happen? And if they didn’t happen then that was ok.

I can only hope and pray that I can move more towards that place so that worries are no longer there. Not that I have to give them to Jesus but that they are just no longer there because I live in a place of knowing that no matter what Jesus has it covered – like those disciples appear to have got to with the Passover meal.

Categories
Resist Submit

Submission

Sea birds that were calmly feeding on a sandbank flying off as they submit to the incoming tide. Taken by Diane Woodrow
Seabirds submitting to the incoming tide. Taken March 2022

Submission is something that is often preached on, especially within the “Wives submit to your husbands” [Eph 5:22] generally meaning “wives do what your husbands tell you.

I read this quote by Shams of Tabriz when I was reading “Forty Rules of Love” by Elif Shafak a while back and it got me thinking

Submission does not mean being weak or passive. It leads to neither fatalism nor capitulation. Just the opposite. True power resides in submission a power that comes within. Those who submit to the divine essence of life will live in unperturbed tranquillity and peace even the whole wide world goes through turbulence after turbulence.

Rule 34

This got me thinking. Submission is not about obeying and doing what you are told but able accepting the situation, of staying tranquil when all around you is falling apart. It is finding something deep within and living calmly.

Then this verse from James popped into my head. My son learned it by heart when he was about five and would shout “flee” at the top of his voice at the end.

Submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee

James 4:7

James is actually talking about how people should stop arguing with each other, stop being proud, stop needing to be right. For him the “devil” was the thing in side which makes as do things that upset others and upset ourselves. So if we submitted to God, that calm space within us, and also if we believed we were loved unconditionally we would not need to be angry, not need to fight, not need to fear, not need to be prideful, have nothing to be anxious about. We could go to that place that Shams talks about the divine essence, the tranquility within.

So how do we do that? I am going to sound like a worn out record but I do think it comes from slowing down, from not rushing into doing or saying things, acting not reacting, which I think comes from not thinking we need to be busy busy busy all the time.

We accept. We breath. We allow peace to come from within. And once we let that out then we can submit in all situations because we are allowing something bigger than us to take control. Submission is like trust. We can submit if we trust that something bigger will support and take care of us. Only then can we “resist the devil”; the sum of all our fears and anxieties.

Categories
new road trust

Another New Road

A winding path through woods taken by Diane Woodrow
A walk in the woods, April 2020, taken by myself

The wonder of being brought, by God, around a corner and to realize a new road is opening up, perhaps—which He alone knows. And that there is no way of traveling it but in Christ and with Him. This is joy and peace—whatever happens. The result does not matter. I have something to do for Him and, if I do that, everything else will follow. —

A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk’s True Life, January 23 and 24, 1958

I go through phases of taking photos of the same thing. Paths have been an ongoing theme. I love the nature of paths. The way they lead you onward and how much one puts ones trust in a path. I think this is why this quote jumped out at me. And the whole thing of being at the start of another year, and my husband had said about someone he follows on Facebook had said about a bend in the road.

But it is Merton’s joy that comes through here about the wonder of a new road. With all the changes that have been going on since the start of the pandemic, which for us in the UK was March 2020, we are tired on new roads. We are tired of walking roads we have no map for. We really do not want to go round another corner and see something new opening up.

Yet Merton talks of wonder and trust, of joy, and of not worrying about the results. And whatever our religious beliefs most of us do fight worry, which the media encourages.

I wonder how different life would feel if instead of being fearful about the new road, instead of hoping the new road will be similar to something we knew, we could step out in joy and wonder, in trust of each other and something bigger than ourselves, not fearing what is to come, letting go of needing to control the situation.

I’m not talking of not doing anything about the injustices of the world, or ignoring climate change, or pretending everything in the garden is rosy. I’m talking about having eyes that are open about what is going on and of wanting to do something to change, but in a joyful, wonder-filled, trusting way

I think we would feel more peaceful, many of our nations mental health worries would ease, and I do wonder if actually we would then have more energy and confidence to really change things instead of living in fear?