This morning I woke up slightly defeated, feeling the pressure and the weight of all the various components of my life that have been out of my control for the past 6 months. Covid-19 has only made things complicated, but it has forced the world to slow down and I realise that for me that is the blessing I needed, because I am now allowing myself to slow down too. I’m a high control person, but I am also used to not having control at all over my life. So, when everything outside of me is stripping me of my control, I don’t tend to panic I tend to draw back into a shell of reflection. This is because when everything outside of me is stealing my control, the fog of illusion that I ever had control disappears and the truth of life because incredibly clear and that is we don’t ever have control of anything in our lives; but can be deceived into thinking so. Like a magic trick, it’s not real but you can still enjoy the concept of it as though you can really pull a bunny out of a hat without any deception.
Having control is a feeling we seek because it gives us security, but maybe security is ill defined. Maybe security is not making things happen rather allowing things to be. This doesn’t mean that we don’t strive for things, or we don’t have goals or ambitions. It just means that we realise the role we play in the equation and that is of influence not of control. Why is this distinction important? Why is it important for us to understand that we can influence our lives but not control it? Well, because you can lose control really easily and when you do it can be hard to navigate your way through uncertainty, pain or change. But when you know you can influence things, then you know you only really have control over your own inner narrative and beliefs. Therefore, you can pivot really quickly and find a more pleasant way of experiencing the unforeseen circumstance.
Right now even influence seems difficult because of the rawness and newness of this pandemic. One of my own personal challenges is coming back to stay with my parents as I go through this transition period. Now of course I’m grateful that I am able to utilise this opportunity because I know that there are many who don’t have this opportunity. But, coming back to live with my parents is more of a strain on my cognitive capacity than an ease because of the dynamic that has been formed throughout the years. My parents are incredibly kind and good hearted people – but collectively we have been through so much trauma and change that has moulded us into walking, talking stress balls that have the best of intentions but don’t always know how to articulate this with each other. We are currently still in the midst of my mum battling cancer, this is probably the continuation of the hardest times of our lives. So being in this confined space when all my personal reserve is still under construction or being refuelled, requires a lot of energy and effort.
The issue is, that I don’t think I have the energy or the effort to get through this change, coming back to a family household for an unknown period of time when I have no job, no independence and no freedom over my decisions. I have zero control over the circumstances in and outside of the house but the reason why I’m finding it hard is because I am so used to living with my own illusion of what control means. This is experiencing an unwanted change, this is having to do something that you don’t want to do but have to do – and being my stubborn self, this is the biggest trigger for my ego to go into total sabotage.
There is a lot to unpack here, I’ve had a lot of trauma, change and pain in my life since I was a little kid. Human beings are resilient and can survive the toughest of conditions, but I was oblivious to a really important piece of information and that is mental health. I wasn’t aware of the concept of mental health until I was 21 and I went back to university to study psychology. This is predominantly because of my culture, where there is so much stigma around mental health that it’s not even spoken about, or at least not in a way that one can identify it. It has only been a couple of years that I have realised that there is a lot of unresolved traumatic experiences that I need to heal from.
I want to be clear, people can have mental health challenges and not be diagnosed with a disorder or be classified as dysfunctional. We all need to maintain our mental hygiene and in my case, I’ve just not dusted for the past 20 years! That’s ok though, because now I know that I need to do a full clean sweep and I also know that this process is going to be hard, unpleasant, painful and exhausting! But I also know that I don’t want the past to define my reactions to things and I don’t want to live my life not knowing myself – my true self. Our experiences shape us and we become a product of our environment but that doesn’t mean our nature gets lost, it just gets covered. I want to meet me, the me that has been sitting under the dust waiting to be seen. So I continue on this soul journey every day, little by little.
Back to my current circumstance, I realised that I was being triggered a lot by my dad, that I was being annoyed by the smallest things. To be clear, the issue is in my head and not my dad. But, up until this morning I was consumed with blaming him for the way he does things. Then I realised that there is a difference between his role as a father and him as a person. That I need to stop seeing him just as a dad, because that is where most of the trigger was coming from. When I was able to differentiate between the two I was able to sense a lot more compassion and love towards him and in turn control my own thoughts and narratives that were hurting me.
Moving back with your parents makes you feel like you’ve lost ‘control’, but there has never been any control only influence. So under the current circumstances I could still influence my experiences I just need to find a new way of influencing. Changing my own habits, setting new boundaries and identifying my own triggers. The more I can give myself space to practice this the more I can set myself free from everything outside of me that is not going my way and therefore, making me feel stressed.
If you’re currently living with people whom you are unable to tolerate, or who make you feel anxious, frustrated, annoyed or irritated – take a step back and ask yourself what is it about this whole situation? Is it that person that is to blame or is it something within you that you need to love and nurture, perhaps even pivot so that you can create more peace for yourself? We may not be able to eliminate all these frustrations overnight, but little steps and personal habits can help us maintain on our own mental hygiene during these challenging times.
Optimism is not lying to ourselves about the circumstance, optimism is looking at the circumstance with different perspectives and finding a lens that helps you maintain your peace and balance.
You will get through these challenging times, you already have come so far.
Love Always,
M
Souloom™ 