There are a number of things going on in my life right now that have really gotten to me like the state of my health or my partner’s health or our vehicles or most recently, our yard and because of them, my mind keeps trying to convince me that if I could just get them all to where I think they need to be, that life would finally be grand. But, I’m pretty sure that’s all an illusion that is often far too easy to buy into.
You see, the reality I’ve found is that life is and has always been full of unsettling things for my mind and ego. And just when I clear one of those unsettling things off of my plate and feel in control of my life for a moment, another unsettling thing appears and becomes the source of my misery, immediately causing my life to feel out of control again.
It’s as if I’m on this endless quest to be free of all unsettling things and yet I continue to find that it’s an impossible feat to ever achieve and only attempting to still do so ends up driving myself totally insane.
Take our yard for example, I have spent countless hours and dollars doing my best over the past few years to make it green and lush and perfectly manicured, all with the idea that it could look pristine enough to appear on the cover of some home and garden magazine someday, or at least at the very minimum, be the one thing I could feel in control of given the number of things that seem out of my control lately. That all went out the window though when I came home from my vacation last Sunday night and saw that the disease and insect damage I had been constantly fighting with one chemical after another before I left, had fully taken over the majority of my yard leaving it with massive brown and bare spots everywhere.
At first, I was angry, then sad, and eventually just numb. Numb because I came to realize that no matter how much control I seem to exert on things like my yard, or my health, or my partner, or our vehicles, or anything really, that it only leads to more misery and very little peace of mind. And it’s then I began to wonder if maybe God was allowing all these things to happen to help me finally see and accept the real truth. Truth that the only way to achieve peace of mind and peace in general in life is to let go of every unsettling thing I think I need to control and simply accept them as being exactly the way they are supposed to be at this moment.
That means letting go of trying to rid my yard of all its problems and accepting its current disease and insect-riddled nature as being exactly the way it’s supposed to be at this moment.
It’s means letting go of trying to find a solution to removing all my health issues and accepting that every ailment I feel is exactly as it’s supposed to be at this moment.
It means letting go of trying to prevent our vehicles from breaking down any further and accepting that any repairs that arise are exactly what’s supposed to be at this moment.
And it means letting go of trying to control my partner’s weight and 12 Step recovery work and accepting the state of both is exactly as they’re supposed to be at this moment.
I must say that I have been relatively unsuccessful thus far in doing this, yet, for those rare moments where I have ever achieved that state of fully letting go and accepting something that has been totally unsettling in my life as exactly the way it’s supposed to be, I’ve become far more content and at peace, and also been able to witness how the problem simply seemed to resolve itself, all on its own.
While I know this process of letting go and accepting all those unsettling things seems relatively easy in concept, it actually is far harder in application and usually feels like it’s going against the grain of a human being’s inherent nature.
Maybe that’s why so many of us become so miserable in life, because we keep sticking to our inherent nature, rather than going against that grain to see where it may lead?
What would happen if we all let go of control and accepted all those unsettling things that enter our life as being exactly the way they were supposed to be at that moment?
I’m quite sure our fears would probably tell us the results would be far from good.
Yet, maybe, just maybe, the results of such a massive step into the unknown might lead to an everlasting peace and connection to Source, one that I know I for one want to achieve way before I ever take my last dying breath…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
