Embracing change and releasing control

“After all, computers crash, people die, relationships fall apart. The best we can do is breathe and reboot.” - Carrie Bradshaw

Change has always been hard for me to come to terms with. Change is something out of my control, but it’s also constant. Things can’t stay the same and they never will. That is the one thing we can rely on when it comes to change. We can’t control change, which is why my control issues go hand in hand with embracing change.?

I grew up in an unpredictable household. I never knew if I was coming home to my parents arguing, my mom being mad at me about something, or everything being calm for once. So I tried to control everything outside of what I couldn’t control. I tried to control my emotions, control my activities, control my behavior, and nothing ever seemed to fix that anxiety inside of me. I was always thinking of the next thing that would come up and couldn’t stay in the moment because I was worried about what else I needed to control.

Objectively, I know that controlling everything is impossible. We have so much less control over our lives than we think. I didn’t want to believe that. I thought if I could control everything about myself, then I could be perfect. Spoiler alert, that never happened. Instead, I was constantly people-pleasing, anxious, and stressed out.?

Now I know that I can’t control most things. I know that I don’t have to control everything. I’m allowed not to be the illusion of perfection that I told myself I would become if I controlled everything.?

More than that, things are allowed to change. I’m allowed to change. I don’t have to be the same person I was a year ago or five years ago. And I can’t expect things around me to be the same as they were before.?

Embracing change was how I was able to release control.

I still struggle with control and get caught in cycles of wanting to control things, but now I can break out of it. I can remind myself that it’s okay for things to be different. People and the world around us will never stay the same, we live in an ever-changing world. And the only real thing we can control is how we react. Everything being out of my control is overwhelming, but reminding myself that my reactions are within my control brings me back.?

Getting rejected is out of my control, but the bounce back is. My emotions don’t need to be controlled, but how I act on them is something I can control. How other people behave has nothing to do with me, but how I react does.

Lastly, embracing change reminded me that nothing is permanent. My anger, my sadness, and my trauma isn’t forever. I can heal and grow and the world can keep changing around me. Bad things can become good again. It also means that the good things aren’t permanent. Change means people die and they leave you, but you have to keep going. Embracing change means embracing that nothing will ever be like this again which is a privilege.?

Shifting from wanting to control everything to knowing there’s only one thing I can control and accepting that change is inevitable, was life-changing. Now I breathe and reboot.?

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