Who is in Control Here?

Today, I sit here still trying to breathe.

No, I am not having an asthma attack. I am just trying to breath and relax. Trying to take in the present moment and live in the "now" is more difficult than I imagined when I started. Ever since my realization of how deeply my claws were in the details of my life, trying to control and maintain a sense of independence (I don't need anybody!), I have been trying and trying to let go. Wow, this is something else.

The longer I thought about it, the more stuff I realized were in part due to this delusional mindset. Maintaining my weight, never a bad thing, turned into a calorie obsession, triggering a splurge-deprivation cycle of guilt. My joy of cleaning and organizing (yes, I am weird like that) turned into a sense of anxiety anytime someone dropped a sock outside the hamper or tracked dirt into the house. My home is not pristine, lest you think otherwise, since I do not have the time to be a 24-hour maid. This only made things worse. It turned me into a 24-hour ball of tension. These are not the only areas that I have tried to keep tight control over. My daughter is almost four. As most children her age are, the wonder of the world around her slows her down to closely observe. This comes at inopportune times. Inopportune to me. Like on our way to the car in the morning when we are already running late to make it to work and daycare. At that moment, she decides that the bird in the distant tree is glorious to behold or that she wants to spend just-one-more-minute with mommy playing chase. Yes, it is with a heavy heart I have to say I rush her everytime. God forbid I arrive fifteen minutes later than normal and have to leave fifteen minutes later that afternoon to make up the time. So, I push her out of enjoying God's beauty or pick her up and place her in the carseat, clearly distraught, because I can not and will not spend a moment more than necessary on this impromptu quality time.

Anyway, continual guilt, aggravation, the feeling of less and less time to do anything I "needed" to do only worsened. Note the quotation marks. I really did not need to do all this, to take on this weight of what I believed were my responsibilities.

I was recently diagnosed with anxiety and some obsessive compulsive tendencies. We caught it before it turned into a full-fledged disorder. This is not what the doctor said. He did not indicate that it would ever become that. I did. I see my path and see where it was leading. I am done with living on periphery of life, lost in constant thought and worry. I did not realize that I was living there, only that I was constantly biting my tongue from speaking in irritability, I never just sat and enjoyed spending time with my daughter for any real length of time (how could I with such a full to-do list!), and the house never seemed clean even after hours of cleaning (HOURS. I literally did not sit down or eat dinner sometimes just to clean.) I was lost in it. My therapist even suggested that cleaning can be meditative, a focused, mindless task that I was using to do with my anxiety issues. Maybe that is true. Maybe I was still digging myself further into the anxiety by doing it in the manner I was. Do not get me wrong. I will still clean plenty and organize my fill (I enjoy it, strangely enough), but I want to turn it into what my therapist suggested: a meditative activity. The moment it turns into an obsessive worry, I am going to stop for the day and pray.

I have also stopped counting calories. If I gain weight, so what? I am trying desperately to cling to a sense of control over my body as if I feel deep inside that I have little control over my life. But that is the thing, is it not? The truth is, I DO have little to NO control over my life. And I am not the only one. Only God controls this world and all that happens in it. And he loves us and will take care of us, no worries. I love this quote from the Bible:

Matthew 6:25 - 34 - “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life ? 28“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Know what else? I have a to-do list already written up, out of habit, listing all the chores I "need" to complete today. Not one of them are necessary, at least for today. I think I will write a new to-do list and write only one thing on it: Play with Cady. That sounds doable. We might even play chase and do some bird watching.

Have a blessed day.