Day 50: The Illusion Part II

I will choose to find a positive perspective under even the most negative circumstances.
I will choose acceptance over resistance.
I will choose to focus on the things I value about my children, not the things that drive me nuts.
I will choose to extend the same grace, love and forgiveness to myself that I try to lavish on my husband and children each day.
  
Fear and insecurity. Nobody likes to feel them, and certainly nobody likes to admit to them. They fuel the need for control, they turn powerlessness into rage, and they cloak themselves in clever disguises, like perfectionism or arrogance. In fact, they're so good at this masquerade that most people who carry a heavy load of fear and insecurity don't even know it, at least not consciously.

It took me years to figure out that my need for control was born out of fear - then years more to say it out loud. But if the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, I'm on my way, because boy do I have a problem!

Part of The Illusion is the idea that a person in control is a person with power. But, as I'm learning with most of life, things aren't always as they seem. Strength and power don't accompany control, they are tied to trust and acceptance.

A person living in fear and insecurity desperately grasps at any control within reach, real or imagined. Without external control this person is left face to face with her fear; fear of powerlessness, fear of the unknown, fear of being unable to cope with feelings or circumstances she considers negative. 

A person grounded in trust, on the other hand, doesn't need to exert power over anything external because her security isn't dependent on the world around her. She trusts that whatever she experiences, wherever her relationships lead, whatever she feels, she will come out on the other side not only in tact, but maybe even improved.

If I'm able to experience that trust in the big things, I know I'm capable of learning to embrace it in the small things. And, although I hadn't planned on a part III, it looks as though we're headed there as I embrace the fact that I can't control that my baby is teething and my toddler needs help with a puzzle.