Tag Archives: control

raise the quality of your life: how to look uncertainty in the face

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i keep climbing. yangshuo, china

Listen closely for this quote. It may be the most important thing you read today…

“The quality of your life is directly proportional to the amount of uncertainty that you can comfortably deal with.” -Tony Robbins

How is the quality of your life related to facing fear and uncertainty?

Every time you get out of bed in the morning, you risk. You could stub your toe, trip, spill the milk, who knows? I say this not to scare you; rather, to show you that you can worry A LOT if you so choose.

Most of us manage these fears. Thankfully, you no longer need your hand held crossing the street–you’ve learned to trust yourself and the universe enough to traverse cities.

Thus, the context of uncertainty changes.

As we grow and explore, we face more and more uncertainty. Even following an American dream (a path well traveled)–having children, applying for advance degrees, taking challenging tests, proposing marriage, starting businesses–is fraught with fear. We risk judgment, criticism, failure, loss, sadness, loneliness, challenging fear as much as comfort levels can handle, choosing to risk more or less based on how we can handle those fears.

The quality of your life increases exponentially based on this risk. If you only get out of bed and go to the kitchen, your anxiety level will stay level and your potential for growth will not rise. In contrast, if you get out of bed and go across the world–not only physically, but mentally, traversing your soul–the quality of your life rises.

If you get the value of uncertainty, how can it be not only tolerable, but inspiring?

First, trust yourself.

Look at how far you’ve come! Each of us have conquered hills in life.

There was a point you wouldn’t have been able to read this blog post! To read, you had to learn and fail and try again.

When I was little, I trusted myself tremendously. I walked with my head held high, my shoulders back, without doubting my words. Then high school, rejection, and failure happened. For years, the fear of repeating painful experiences paralyzed me to the point of silence. With travel, yoga, and a choice to trust myself, I learned to look fear in the face.

I have recovered my voice. Not only do I write verbose blog posts, I teach yoga classes to rooms of 60 people with my head held high, my shoulders back, without doubting my words. I trust myself because I have failed, looked fear in the face, and dared to try again.

Though I may not know you, I know you have overcome some kind of difficulty. If at the time you experienced worry, fear, or doubt, it doesn’t matter how big or little the feat, you did it. You overcame fear once. Trust that you can do it again and again.

Second, trust the universe.

The universe is going to unfold as it will. I go back to my original point: unless you choose never to leave your bed, there is no amount of planning, worry, and anxiety that will avoid the things you cannot control.

We think that by trying to control life, i.e. “playing it safe,” we somehow avoid pain. This simply isn’t true. If you don’t live your dreams, leave the house, try something new, are you going to LOVE life? Are you even living life or just existing?

I’m not saying to just “tolerate ambiguity,” which sounds like uncertainty is to be suffered and endured. I’m saying we need to “embrace the unknown”–invite and engage uncertainty as a source of opportunity!

Embracing uncertainty, we LIVE life rather than exist! And the extraordinary is possible…

“Snuffing out uncertainty leads to a sea of prematurely terminated mediocre output, when the ‘sweet mother of God’ breakthrough was just over the hump if only we’d had the will to embrace uncertainty, risk, and judgment and hang on a bit longer. If only we’d learn how to harness and ride rather than hunt and kill the butterflies that live in the gut of every person who strives to create something extraordinary from nothing.” -Jonathan Fields, Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance

strip down the layers of self-hate. choose self-love

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You’ve probably heard somewhere, and your common sense says, that hatred is not the way to peace and joy. Still, we maintain layer upon layer of self-hate, obscuring that path.

What do I mean by “self-hate”?

Self-hate is guilt, regret, shame, jealousy. Self-hate is abusive thoughts and abuse of your body. Self-hate is not being able to give or receive compliments. Self-hate is being addicted to food, exercise, toxic people, drugs. Self-hate is knowing something or someone is hurtful to you, yet you keep going back for more. Self-hate is trying to be someone you’re not.

Sound familiar? So why do we do this to ourselves?

Because everyone does it? Pretty much. From birth, we’re conditioned to survive through discipline. We hear some form of “Don’t do that!”; “Why would you say that?”; “Put that down!”; “You should know better”; “What were you thinking?”; etc. etc. etc.

Yesterday, my spiritually-in-tune, loving mother said, “You didn’t say that, did you?” (Mom, I forgive you.) Parents do this because it was done to them. This is called “child-rearing.”

At some point, however, we conclude there is something wrong with us. There must be, right? Otherwise, why would people say those things to us… WRONG!!!

With this false belief under our belts, we take it one step further…

We think that we must continue punishing ourselves this way to survive.

In There is Nothing Wrong With You, Cheri Huber describes the thought process:

Student: If I don’t do my work, and don’t make money, then I won’t be able to pay for my house, and I won’t have any food. And if I follow that along far enough, I realize that I believe those things on [my] list are designed to keep me alive. And, if I don’t do them the ultimate consequence is death.

Guide: And that’s what happens, isn’t it? Do this task or die. (laughter) Even if its get a haircut today…

So if we don’t threaten ourselves with punishment and failure, what would drive us to succeed? What would motivate us to keep going? We even chastise ourselves for not being these ultimate spiritual beings–we should be by now, right?

What is so wrong with this form of self-discipline–this feeling of control?

These layers of self-hate are keeping us from our intrinsic, inherent enlightenment. Self-hate is keeping us from learning and loving our true selves. The self-hate isn’t you. You’re beneath the self-hate.

How can you choose self-love instead of self-hate?

First of all, there is nothing wrong with you, so there is no secret that will fix you.

When we stop trying to change into someone else, when we respect our feelings, desires, hopes, and dreams, when we stop thinking of ourselves as separate from one another, when we have compassion for our hateful conditioning, then we can discover who we really are. In other words…

ACCEPT YOURSELF… as you are…right now.

This is pretty challenging. In acceptance, there isn’t anything “to do” except be who you are and love it.

“This is a lifelong process. If you decide to learn to care for yourself, to live your life in compassion, you will be required to practice that until you die.

An internal relationship must be worked on and maintained just like an external relationship.

And that’s good news! When you fall in love with someone, you don’t say, ‘Oh, no, how long am going to have to love this person?’ When we’re in love, we love to love that person, and we hope it will last forever.” -Cheri Huber

things we cannot change… a lesson in words

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The Serenity Prayer, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference,” will never go out of style. It will have meaning as long as human beings strive to create a semblance of order in life.

Whether you believe in a God, the universe, or nothing, survival depends on recognizing, and hopefully accepting, things we cannot control and changing the things we can.

This is particularly powerful with words.

In the legal realm, in a courtroom or in writing, your biggest consideration is how your words will be interpreted. Lawyers alter their intention for persuasion–this is both the scary and brilliant aspect to the profession.

This legal consideration teaches us that we always have an intention behind our words–the law just asks that that intention is conscious and in your clients favor.

The Serenity Prayer’s element of “changing things we CAN change” is knowing your power with words. This applies to facebook posts, texts, tweets, etc.–acknowledge your intended audience appropriately and know why you are posting, texting, tweeting. Simply, who do you want to reach and why?

I’ve had a few instances this week where my words had unintended consequences. My intention was to speak or write these words in order to inspire or soothe. Yet, they were not interpreted that way. [Forgive me for the vagueness. The wounds are still open.]

This is what I cannot control: how my words will be interpreted once they’re uttered. The lack of the control in interpretation feels frightening.

As Mastin Kipp says, however, one thing we can control is the MEANING we give these events.

When people interpret your words in a different way than they’re intended, paralyzing fear could arise. I could choose not share my words for fear of their repercussions.

Or I can choose acceptance. Notably, acceptance is not passivity. Quite the opposite actually. The Serenity Prayer makes that clear by saying that you should change the things you can change and accept only what is out of your control. Acceptance is the ultimate strength in the face of the uncontrollable.

Thus, I choose to be fearless, but mindful. I choose to speak my truth with conscious, pure intention, then accept the uncontrollable once it’s uttered.

This inability to control likely will produce some sense of pain and discomfort for the rest of your life. Where you go from there is what defines your character.