Taking Back Control of Your Life

Do you sometimes feel that life conspires against you and makes your journey more challenging than it needs to be? Do you ever overwhelmed by the stresses and pressures of work, family and all the things you try to cram into your day? Do you sometimes just close your eyes to shut out the pressures and hope that when you open them again everything will somehow be better?

The pen that writes your life story must be held in your own hand.

-??????Irene C. Kassorla

Don’t worry. You’re not the only person on the planet who feels that life is often spinning out of control. It’s an all too familiar facet of modern life.

Think about it for a moment. We spend hundreds of thousands of years as a species following the daily rising and setting of the sun, adjusting our life according to the seasons, moving at a very predictable pace that follows the needs of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

And then, within a few generations, we suddenly find ourselves living in an incredibly complex social environment that bombards us with constant pressures, twenty-four-a-day distractions, fractured relationships and the ever-present threat of uncertainty. No wonder we suffer from the feeling that we're not in control of our lives. Technology might’ve developed at an unprecedented rate but we’re essentially the same creatures that evolved to chase down our food and dig for roots over hundreds of thousands of years. In many ways, we’re still struggling to adapt to all the changes.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

- Buddha

One of the major causes of anxiety, exhaustion, burnout and depression today is the belief that we’re no longer in control of our lives. It’s a toxic belief system that leads to a form of paralysis, a sense of being powerless and unable to act. Some people describe it as being like a small animal caught in the headlights of an approaching juggernaut. Does that sound familiar to you? Considering the alarming increase in depression rates around the world, it’s a major issue that deserves our fullest attention so that we can address the problem and explore the most effective ways to eliminate the underlying causes.

Take the power to control your own life. Take the power to make your life happy.

-??????Susan Polis Schutz

One of the first mechanisms to deploy is a greater degree of awareness of how your body’s responding at any moment. Those reactions are predominantly driven by subconscious impulses but the programming isn’t set for life. It can be changed. And it can be changed remarkably quickly.

The relationship between your muscular tension – the framework that holds much of your posture in place – and your emotional responses has been thoroughly explored, detailed, described and researched. In fact, we’ve known for several thousand years that if we change our posture, we immediately introduce changes into how we think and feel. As you learn to relax your face, neck, jaw and shoulders, unclench your fists and breathe more deeply, your mind will become calmer. Your feelings will calm down too. Within a few moments, you experience a profound shift in your thoughts and feelings. You feel more centred. You’ve just demonstrated in the clearest possible terms that you can control your body, your thoughts and your feelings. And that’s a huge step forwards on the pathway to taking control of your life.

Control your thoughts. Decide what you will think and concentrate upon. You are in charge of your life to the degree you take charge of your thoughts.

-??????Earl Nightingale

If the world around us responds at a subtle level to the inner world of our thoughts and feelings, this is the most obvious place to begin the task of resuming control of our lives. As we learn to calibrate our responses according to our new and more positively framed expectations, our connections to the world and the people around us will change. We no longer react like a loose leaf blown around in the untamed winds of our emotions. We feel centred, peacefully yet powerfully removed from those old, knee-jerk reactions. This is the pathway to self-control. This is the way that leads to greater control over our lives. We learn to choose our thoughts and feelings with more care.

Success is hastened or delayed by one’s habits. It is not your passing inspirations or brilliant ideas so much as your everyday mental habits that control your life.

-??????Paramahansa Yogananda

Initially, this change in your emotional and mental architecture may be mistaken for a limited way to exercise greater control over the rest of your life. And yet, the benefits are perhaps far greater than might be apparent at first glance. As you expand your control over your thoughts and feelings, you automatically extend the same principles to other areas of your life. This new sense of personal empowerment ripples out across all aspects of your domain. The shift in your belief systems opens up new avenues for you to express your talents and potential. The evidence of your new levels of personal control reinforces your confidence in your ability to exercise change and control over any area that you choose. And that’s an incredibly powerful and life-changing experience. It might be one of the greatest gifts that you can give to yourself.

Are you ready right now for a completely fresh approach to life’s great adventure? Get in touch with us today for a free session to discover how the growing global movement for personal growth, success, change and empowerment can enhance your life!

Greg Parry created The Wellness Foundation and the Cognitive Empowerment Programs specifically to help people master their stress, overcome their limitations and explore the power of their true potential.

If you enjoy these blogs, you can imagine how much fun it is to have Greg in the room as an inspirational and highly perceptive speaker. If you’d like to invite Greg to talk to your company or organisation or event, feel free to get in touch.

You can contact Greg at:

[email protected]