August 14, 2021 • 18 mins
You’re in control right? You have a belief that you can control situations, control others, and have a well laid plan for your life -- does that resonate with you? If so and you are looking for ways to let go then this episode is for you.
In today’s episode, host Jason Ramsden challenges your illusion of control, shares 5 tips for helping let go of control, as well as a fatherhood story about stopping to pressure his son academically and how it saved their relationship.
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Articles
5 mindfulness techniques for letting go of control by Anisa Purbasari Horton (fastcompany.com)
Letting Go of Control by Stefan James (medium.com)
10 Ways to Let Go of the Need to Control by Lauren Stahl (huffpost.com)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:01):
Hi, I'm Jason Ramsden and I believe we can all work on
leading a more positive andintentional life. And this show
details my journey by sharing mylearning stories and
conversations with guests. Ifyou want to lead a more
intentional life focus on beingthe best you possible. Please
subscribe today. Now, let's getinto today's episode.
Hello, my positivity posse.
Welcome back to another editionof positivity on fire. I am your
(00:22):
host, Jason Ramsden and todaywe're talking about the illusion
of control. And to get your mindright I'm going to start us off
with a quote today. I can onlycontrol myself, my actions, my
work ethic and my attitude thatcomes from Ali Krieger, US
National Women's soccer teamfrom back in the day and current
(00:43):
Orlando pride forward. And I'mgonna say that quote one more
time, I can only control myself,my actions, my work ethic, and
my attitude, which is a perfectprimer, a perfect lead in to the
illusions of control. Now I knowyou may be saying yourself,
listen, I am in control, I'malways in control j, this is
what I do. I take control of mylife. It's no, I'm not talking
(01:05):
about you being in control ofyourself. That's what I want to
talk about today. The illusionof control is believing in the
fact that you have control overother things. You have control
over people, you have controlover the workplace, you have
control of how your day goes,how your plans go, where your
life is headed. The truth is,that is an illusion. We do not
(01:27):
have control over anythingexcept how we act, the attitude
that we have the mindset that webring to each and every day, as
well as how we take care ofourselves, and how we interact
with other people. Now, ifyou're fighting me on this one,
(01:48):
think about this for a moment,you may not be aware. But
psychologists say that when youare constantly trying to control
the situations constantly tryingto be in control of every single
thing in your life, it leads tounproductive stress. Because it
often puts us into constant andextended fight or flight mode.
(02:09):
To put it bluntly, it exhaustsour nervous system, and just it
leaves us wiped out. It leavesus jittery. It leaves us craving
an end to what's going on in ourlife, because we spend so much
time trying to control it. Howmany times have you been in a
situation where you areprojecting about something
that's going to happen? The nextday, maybe you have a meeting
(02:31):
with your boss, maybe you have ameeting with somebody that is on
your team, perhaps you're goingfor an interview, perhaps you're
getting ready to fly and whatyou do, you run through these
worst case scenarios over andover and over in your head,
thinking that perhaps you canpredict what may be the outcome
that will happen or maybe whenit'll happen. And you play it in
(02:53):
your mind over and over and overagain. Rather than just sitting
here right in the moment inpreparing yourself for those
events, you are preparing foryourself for something that may
or may not happen.
In short, you're trying to be incontrol, but it's just an
illusion of control. Now I getit, we like to attach ourselves
(03:14):
to outcomes, we like to push forthings that happened in a
certain way we want to walk tothe beat of our own drum, we
want to have things goingaccording to our own agenda. And
we often try to run the show, Ican tell you that's not reality.
The reality is things go a lotmore smoothly, life proceeds at
(03:35):
a better pace. Things happenwhen we let them happen when we
allow them to happen when weopen ourselves to being able to
be thoughtful about what couldhappen, as opposed to trying to
control every single element ofa day, a week, a month or a
year. Now if you're a regularlistener to this show, you know
(03:58):
that I'm a big proponent ofmeditation, I'm a proponent of
mindfulness and mindset, believethat mindset is a way to kind of
get ourselves focus in the rightway as we go through life. And
so for those of you who struggleto be in control of things,
where it feels like you'reconstantly on the hamster wheel
(04:20):
going around and around andaround, let me share with you a
few things where the importanceof letting go of control could
certainly help you. Now you mayknow the name Deepak Chopra is a
prominent alternative medicineadvocate. He's the author of
metta human, unleashing yourinfinite potential. But what he
(04:43):
says is that one of hisprinciples that he stands by,
when it comes to being mindful,is that you need to completely
detach yourself from theoutcomes. He doesn't have a goal
or a hope on whether or notNot things that he doesn't feel
like things that he will do inhis life will have a positive
(05:04):
change. No, he simply chooses toshare what's on his mind to
share his ideas with those whoare interested in learning about
them. And it's independent, hesays it's independent of hopes
and despair, whether or not tomake a difference. And I love
that mindset. I love thatthinking, because that is
exactly what I am trying tobring to you each and every
(05:27):
Saturday is that, trying to getyou to understand that if you
let go of control, if you let goand let life happen to you,
rather than trying to imposewhat you believe, should happen
in your life, on to it, you'regoing to find yourself in a much
better spot. So today, I havefor you five things that you can
(05:51):
help kind of losing control.
This comes from a Fast Companyarticle. And you know, I'm
always gonna bring you someresearch. So what I'm talking
about, but what I findfascinating about these five
things, is it's pretty simple,right? The tactics that you can
use in your life, to remove thatcontrol that you're trying to
(06:13):
impose upon it are fairlysimple. You just need to get
your mind wrapped around, getyour mindset headed in the right
direction, and get yourselffocused on making that change.
Now, I know I talked about ithere on the show before,
the challenge of change isdifficult. Sometimes we look at
it. And we're afraid to change,we're afraid for what it means
(06:34):
in our life, we're afraid to letgo of control. And oftentimes,
you wonder whether or not youhave the courage to change. And
all I'm saying is you need thecourage to take the first step
towards changing. So here arethose five things. Number one,
identify your triggers. So ifyou're in a place right now,
(06:54):
where you can stop, where youcan have a pen and paper without
causing any harm to anybodyelse, this is what I want you to
do. Write down those things thattrigger you when you feel you
need to control things. In mylife control for me is always
about being a little obsessivecompulsive around the way the
(07:15):
house is kept to making surethat there's a place for
everything and everything is inits place. That's something that
I like to control, because it'ssomething I can have control
over. And what triggers me arewhen things a mess, when there's
piles of things everywherethings are left behind, or
people don't push in a chair orclean up after themselves.
That's a trigger for me. Sothere's an example for you. So
(07:38):
go ahead. And if you need topress pause and write down your
triggers. Go ahead and do thatnow.
Okay, do you have them? Readthem over? What What did you
come up with? Are there thingsthat perhaps you realize now
that are triggers for you, Igive you example of what was the
trigger for me, put thosesomeplace, put them someplace
where you can remember to reachfor them, put them in your
(07:59):
phone, write them on a piece ofpaper, put them in your your
notebook, your purse, whateverit may be, whatever you carry
with you regularly, hold on tothat, that you know what's going
to trigger you to have thisdesire to control things. Number
two on the list, do a mentaldump of your feelings, let's
just just get them out of yourhead, get them down. The need to
(08:23):
control sometimes is a reactionto unpleasant feelings. So go
ahead, take those emotions rightthere. They're difficult to
regulate. You may be in a placewhere you are trying to suppress
emotions, don't let them go.
Right? Once you kind of dumpthose out, put them on the
table, if you will, you get thiskind of sense of ease a sense of
(08:44):
calm that comes over you. Butwhat happens is that when you're
trying to control things, wekeep the emotions inside we
repress them, we push them down.
And what that does to us, allthat does is build into that
rabbit wheel of stress andanxiety and
irrational emotional outbursts.
Because we're trying to controla situation and we can't we take
(09:08):
all the stuff, we put it downinside and the next thing you
know we're exploding at somebodywho doesn't need to be exploited
that that's not a way to gothrough your life. Number three,
employ some distance. Sosometimes, when we are out there
trying to control other people'sthoughts and actions, I get it,
(09:28):
we can't, you know, you know,deep down you can't, but you
still try to do that. Right? Sofor example, you may have a
friend that always tellsinappropriate jokes or makes
inappropriate comments, and theymight even still do it after
you've had the courage to askthem to stop doing it. You may
even get into a disagreementwith that friend. So what are
(09:51):
you gonna do? employ somedistance? Sometimes it's easier
to employ distance thanContinuing to try to control a
situation that, yes, theillusion of control that you
have no control over. When youdon't employ that distance, what
happens, right, you play thingsover and over in your head, you
(10:13):
start to remember the thingsthat they did to you, you start
to remember, perhaps, in yourhead, why they did it to you,
you perhaps wonder why they didit to you, you don't understand.
And when you don't give yourselfthat distance, that then sparks
more controversy, more hurt morefights. And so you just really,
(10:37):
again, employing some distanceis a pretty good strategy. When
you're trying to control someoneor something that you can't
control. Number four on thelist, choose to deal with it in
the future, just put it aside,it's okay to yourself, hey, not
right now, anxiety, not rightnow stress, I hear you, I
acknowledge that you exist. ButI'm going to put you over here
(11:00):
for now, I'm going to put you onthe side, I'm going to write you
down on a piece of paper, I'mgoing to come back to you later.
And I'm going to continueworking with my life right now,
I am going to set aside time forworrying. So that could be a
great strategy as well is if youtake a moment of your day, or a
moment of your week, where Okay,here's my worry our
(11:25):
it's at a time or a place justfor me to kind of worry about
the things I need to worryabout. And when it's over, it's
over. Let it go. Drop it andmove on. You're never going to
find an answer to your worries,it's going to be hard to find
any answer to your worries,especially if you're trying to
control things you have nocontrol over and you just
(11:45):
relentlessly worry about them.
But set some worry time aside.
And finally, number five, learnto see uncertainty as a part of
life. Yes, we do it every singleone of us does it. I do it
myself. A perfect example ofthis is like when I go into a
restaurant or I go into abuilding or if I go into a plane
(12:09):
or train anything, whatever itmay be, I am doing a what if
scenarios in my head? What ifthis happens? What if this
occurs? What's the closest exit?
Can I see all the exits? Can Isee people coming towards me? I
have no idea where that comefrom. I jokingly make fun of it
when I'm out with people and Ineed to have my back to a place
where I can see the door I callit the Lincoln complex. I do the
(12:32):
what ifs? What if we justdecided you know what
uncertainty is a part of life, Ihave to accept that it's a part
of life. It If I don't, it canmake me unnecessarily miserable.
Because I'm always doing whatifs. Now, in my example, it's
not always doing what else I'mdoing in certain situations
(12:52):
where I feel like I need to knowhow to get out of a situation.
But what if you just said toyourself, you know what,
I can't control life, I can'tcontrol what happens. I can't
control other people, I can onlycontrol how I interact with the
world around me, I can onlycontrol my own attitude, my own
(13:16):
work ethic, I can only controlhow I go about my business, I
can't control anything else, oranyone else. I would say to if
you if you can't if you strugglewith control, if you struggle
with the ability to let go. Andas a good friend of mine says
let go and let God you may notbe religious, but that's a great
(13:37):
saying is that reach out forsupport. Find somebody to
connect to know that you're notalone know that there are people
who can help you through.
times when you feel like youhave to control certain certain
situations. Reach out to someoneyou value and trust and then
talk about how you're feeling.
Talk about what it is that youfeel like you need to control
(13:57):
and search for answers on howyou can kind of free yourself
from that. And as you start toprocess more of the content of
the show, I would just ask youto ask yourself, what would
happen if you let go of control?
What's the worst thing thatcould happen to you in your
(14:17):
life, if you let go of control?
If you step back from thesituation, if you elevated
yourself 30,000 feet into theair, and you were able to kind
of look down on what was goingon. And you could rationalize
looking at yourself and lookingat a situation and say to
yourself, gosh, that person downthere, they actually can't
control the outcome of what'sgoing to happen over there. So
(14:38):
why are they bothering it? Whyare they Why are they going
through the motions of trying todo that? I can see from up here
that it's totally stressing themout. So stop.
Say to yourself, what is theworst thing that could happen if
I let go of control of thethings that I cannot change in
(14:59):
my life?
My best advice for you to sum upthis show is to let go loosen
your grip and live your life. Anexample of this from my own life
is this when my son was inschool, especially in the early
years now he could memorizefacts like no one I knew, he
(15:20):
could regurgitate, spit backanything that he read, when he
got into eighth, ninth and 10thgrade. Now it's the time when
school becomes more aboutapplying the information that
you learn rather than justmemorizing it. He started to
struggle, he lost his footingacademically a little bit, now
in my infinite wisdom, as theFather and because Truthfully, I
(15:43):
saw him struggling in schoollike I had as a kid, and I
didn't want him to do that. Ipushed hard on him to achieve
more. I've tried to control howhe worked. And I was constantly
constantly on him, truthfully tothe detriment of our
relationship. And then somewherein the middle of 10th grade,
something clicked for me. Irealized we only have about two
(16:08):
more years at home together.
And for some reason, I don'trecall exactly why. But for some
reason, I decided to back offand let him find his own way.
And not surprisingly, he did.
And our relationship improved.
shocker, right, shocker thatonce I tried to stop controlling
(16:30):
his life and focused on what Icould focus on, which was
supporting him, and asking goodquestions of him, and being
someone who he could turn to asopposed to turn away from things
changed, and they have beenamazing ever since. And what I
didn't realize was in thatmoment, in those 13 1415 year
(16:54):
old years, I could have done orcontinued to have done serious
damage to our relationship, andwe couldn't have ever gotten
that back. So just think aboutthat for a moment. Think about
something in your own life thatperhaps resonates with you along
the lines of that story. Andjust just remember, if you want
(17:19):
real control, drop the illusionof control. Let life live you.
Because it does. Anyway. Thankyou, Byron Katie, for that
amazing quote. As we get readyto wrap up, I asked you this
question, what do you need tolet go of control of in your
life, if you have the courage toshare reach out to me at Jason
(17:42):
at positivity on fire.com, I'dlove to connect. I'd love to
hear what you're working on. Andas we close this show, as I do
every single time, I just wantto thank you for being here. The
time that you commit to my showas a fan, the time that you
spend listening, you can't getthat back, you give it to me and
that means the world to me. Andalways remember be well be
(18:07):
happy, be you and until the nexttime. May your quest for
positivity begin today.
For more of my positivity quest,follow me at underscore j y
Ramsden on Instagram tik tok andTwitter. If you liked today's
episode, please give us a fivestar rating and review on your
favorite podcast app or visitpod chaser comm and search for
(18:30):
positivity on fire.
Positivity on fire is aproduction of impact one media
LLC All rights reserved.
Hi, I'm Jason Ramsden and I believe we can all work on
leading a more positive andintentional life. And this show
details my journey by sharing mylearning stories and
conversations with guests. Ifyou want to lead a more
intentional life focus on beingthe best you possible. Please
subscribe today. Now, let's getinto today's episode.
Hello, my positivity posse.
Welcome back to another editionof positivity on fire. I am your
(00:22):
host, Jason Ramsden and todaywe're talking about the illusion
of control. And to get your mindright I'm going to start us off
with a quote today. I can onlycontrol myself, my actions, my
work ethic and my attitude thatcomes from Ali Krieger, US
National Women's soccer teamfrom back in the day and current
(00:43):
Orlando pride forward. And I'mgonna say that quote one more
time, I can only control myself,my actions, my work ethic, and
my attitude, which is a perfectprimer, a perfect lead in to the
illusions of control. Now I knowyou may be saying yourself,
listen, I am in control, I'malways in control j, this is
what I do. I take control of mylife. It's no, I'm not talking
(01:05):
about you being in control ofyourself. That's what I want to
talk about today. The illusionof control is believing in the
fact that you have control overother things. You have control
over people, you have controlover the workplace, you have
control of how your day goes,how your plans go, where your
life is headed. The truth is,that is an illusion. We do not
(01:27):
have control over anythingexcept how we act, the attitude
that we have the mindset that webring to each and every day, as
well as how we take care ofourselves, and how we interact
with other people. Now, ifyou're fighting me on this one,
(01:48):
think about this for a moment,you may not be aware. But
psychologists say that when youare constantly trying to control
the situations constantly tryingto be in control of every single
thing in your life, it leads tounproductive stress. Because it
often puts us into constant andextended fight or flight mode.
(02:09):
To put it bluntly, it exhaustsour nervous system, and just it
leaves us wiped out. It leavesus jittery. It leaves us craving
an end to what's going on in ourlife, because we spend so much
time trying to control it. Howmany times have you been in a
situation where you areprojecting about something
that's going to happen? The nextday, maybe you have a meeting
(02:31):
with your boss, maybe you have ameeting with somebody that is on
your team, perhaps you're goingfor an interview, perhaps you're
getting ready to fly and whatyou do, you run through these
worst case scenarios over andover and over in your head,
thinking that perhaps you canpredict what may be the outcome
that will happen or maybe whenit'll happen. And you play it in
(02:53):
your mind over and over and overagain. Rather than just sitting
here right in the moment inpreparing yourself for those
events, you are preparing foryourself for something that may
or may not happen.
In short, you're trying to be incontrol, but it's just an
illusion of control. Now I getit, we like to attach ourselves
(03:14):
to outcomes, we like to push forthings that happened in a
certain way we want to walk tothe beat of our own drum, we
want to have things goingaccording to our own agenda. And
we often try to run the show, Ican tell you that's not reality.
The reality is things go a lotmore smoothly, life proceeds at
(03:35):
a better pace. Things happenwhen we let them happen when we
allow them to happen when weopen ourselves to being able to
be thoughtful about what couldhappen, as opposed to trying to
control every single element ofa day, a week, a month or a
year. Now if you're a regularlistener to this show, you know
(03:58):
that I'm a big proponent ofmeditation, I'm a proponent of
mindfulness and mindset, believethat mindset is a way to kind of
get ourselves focus in the rightway as we go through life. And
so for those of you who struggleto be in control of things,
where it feels like you'reconstantly on the hamster wheel
(04:20):
going around and around andaround, let me share with you a
few things where the importanceof letting go of control could
certainly help you. Now you mayknow the name Deepak Chopra is a
prominent alternative medicineadvocate. He's the author of
metta human, unleashing yourinfinite potential. But what he
(04:43):
says is that one of hisprinciples that he stands by,
when it comes to being mindful,is that you need to completely
detach yourself from theoutcomes. He doesn't have a goal
or a hope on whether or notNot things that he doesn't feel
like things that he will do inhis life will have a positive
(05:04):
change. No, he simply chooses toshare what's on his mind to
share his ideas with those whoare interested in learning about
them. And it's independent, hesays it's independent of hopes
and despair, whether or not tomake a difference. And I love
that mindset. I love thatthinking, because that is
exactly what I am trying tobring to you each and every
(05:27):
Saturday is that, trying to getyou to understand that if you
let go of control, if you let goand let life happen to you,
rather than trying to imposewhat you believe, should happen
in your life, on to it, you'regoing to find yourself in a much
better spot. So today, I havefor you five things that you can
(05:51):
help kind of losing control.
This comes from a Fast Companyarticle. And you know, I'm
always gonna bring you someresearch. So what I'm talking
about, but what I findfascinating about these five
things, is it's pretty simple,right? The tactics that you can
use in your life, to remove thatcontrol that you're trying to
(06:13):
impose upon it are fairlysimple. You just need to get
your mind wrapped around, getyour mindset headed in the right
direction, and get yourselffocused on making that change.
Now, I know I talked about ithere on the show before,
the challenge of change isdifficult. Sometimes we look at
it. And we're afraid to change,we're afraid for what it means
(06:34):
in our life, we're afraid to letgo of control. And oftentimes,
you wonder whether or not youhave the courage to change. And
all I'm saying is you need thecourage to take the first step
towards changing. So here arethose five things. Number one,
identify your triggers. So ifyou're in a place right now,
(06:54):
where you can stop, where youcan have a pen and paper without
causing any harm to anybodyelse, this is what I want you to
do. Write down those things thattrigger you when you feel you
need to control things. In mylife control for me is always
about being a little obsessivecompulsive around the way the
(07:15):
house is kept to making surethat there's a place for
everything and everything is inits place. That's something that
I like to control, because it'ssomething I can have control
over. And what triggers me arewhen things a mess, when there's
piles of things everywherethings are left behind, or
people don't push in a chair orclean up after themselves.
That's a trigger for me. Sothere's an example for you. So
(07:38):
go ahead. And if you need topress pause and write down your
triggers. Go ahead and do thatnow.
Okay, do you have them? Readthem over? What What did you
come up with? Are there thingsthat perhaps you realize now
that are triggers for you, Igive you example of what was the
trigger for me, put thosesomeplace, put them someplace
where you can remember to reachfor them, put them in your
(07:59):
phone, write them on a piece ofpaper, put them in your your
notebook, your purse, whateverit may be, whatever you carry
with you regularly, hold on tothat, that you know what's going
to trigger you to have thisdesire to control things. Number
two on the list, do a mentaldump of your feelings, let's
just just get them out of yourhead, get them down. The need to
(08:23):
control sometimes is a reactionto unpleasant feelings. So go
ahead, take those emotions rightthere. They're difficult to
regulate. You may be in a placewhere you are trying to suppress
emotions, don't let them go.
Right? Once you kind of dumpthose out, put them on the
table, if you will, you get thiskind of sense of ease a sense of
(08:44):
calm that comes over you. Butwhat happens is that when you're
trying to control things, wekeep the emotions inside we
repress them, we push them down.
And what that does to us, allthat does is build into that
rabbit wheel of stress andanxiety and
irrational emotional outbursts.
Because we're trying to controla situation and we can't we take
(09:08):
all the stuff, we put it downinside and the next thing you
know we're exploding at somebodywho doesn't need to be exploited
that that's not a way to gothrough your life. Number three,
employ some distance. Sosometimes, when we are out there
trying to control other people'sthoughts and actions, I get it,
(09:28):
we can't, you know, you know,deep down you can't, but you
still try to do that. Right? Sofor example, you may have a
friend that always tellsinappropriate jokes or makes
inappropriate comments, and theymight even still do it after
you've had the courage to askthem to stop doing it. You may
even get into a disagreementwith that friend. So what are
(09:51):
you gonna do? employ somedistance? Sometimes it's easier
to employ distance thanContinuing to try to control a
situation that, yes, theillusion of control that you
have no control over. When youdon't employ that distance, what
happens, right, you play thingsover and over in your head, you
(10:13):
start to remember the thingsthat they did to you, you start
to remember, perhaps, in yourhead, why they did it to you,
you perhaps wonder why they didit to you, you don't understand.
And when you don't give yourselfthat distance, that then sparks
more controversy, more hurt morefights. And so you just really,
(10:37):
again, employing some distanceis a pretty good strategy. When
you're trying to control someoneor something that you can't
control. Number four on thelist, choose to deal with it in
the future, just put it aside,it's okay to yourself, hey, not
right now, anxiety, not rightnow stress, I hear you, I
acknowledge that you exist. ButI'm going to put you over here
(11:00):
for now, I'm going to put you onthe side, I'm going to write you
down on a piece of paper, I'mgoing to come back to you later.
And I'm going to continueworking with my life right now,
I am going to set aside time forworrying. So that could be a
great strategy as well is if youtake a moment of your day, or a
moment of your week, where Okay,here's my worry our
(11:25):
it's at a time or a place justfor me to kind of worry about
the things I need to worryabout. And when it's over, it's
over. Let it go. Drop it andmove on. You're never going to
find an answer to your worries,it's going to be hard to find
any answer to your worries,especially if you're trying to
control things you have nocontrol over and you just
(11:45):
relentlessly worry about them.
But set some worry time aside.
And finally, number five, learnto see uncertainty as a part of
life. Yes, we do it every singleone of us does it. I do it
myself. A perfect example ofthis is like when I go into a
restaurant or I go into abuilding or if I go into a plane
(12:09):
or train anything, whatever itmay be, I am doing a what if
scenarios in my head? What ifthis happens? What if this
occurs? What's the closest exit?
Can I see all the exits? Can Isee people coming towards me? I
have no idea where that comefrom. I jokingly make fun of it
when I'm out with people and Ineed to have my back to a place
where I can see the door I callit the Lincoln complex. I do the
(12:32):
what ifs? What if we justdecided you know what
uncertainty is a part of life, Ihave to accept that it's a part
of life. It If I don't, it canmake me unnecessarily miserable.
Because I'm always doing whatifs. Now, in my example, it's
not always doing what else I'mdoing in certain situations
(12:52):
where I feel like I need to knowhow to get out of a situation.
But what if you just said toyourself, you know what,
I can't control life, I can'tcontrol what happens. I can't
control other people, I can onlycontrol how I interact with the
world around me, I can onlycontrol my own attitude, my own
(13:16):
work ethic, I can only controlhow I go about my business, I
can't control anything else, oranyone else. I would say to if
you if you can't if you strugglewith control, if you struggle
with the ability to let go. Andas a good friend of mine says
let go and let God you may notbe religious, but that's a great
(13:37):
saying is that reach out forsupport. Find somebody to
connect to know that you're notalone know that there are people
who can help you through.
times when you feel like youhave to control certain certain
situations. Reach out to someoneyou value and trust and then
talk about how you're feeling.
Talk about what it is that youfeel like you need to control
(13:57):
and search for answers on howyou can kind of free yourself
from that. And as you start toprocess more of the content of
the show, I would just ask youto ask yourself, what would
happen if you let go of control?
What's the worst thing thatcould happen to you in your
(14:17):
life, if you let go of control?
If you step back from thesituation, if you elevated
yourself 30,000 feet into theair, and you were able to kind
of look down on what was goingon. And you could rationalize
looking at yourself and lookingat a situation and say to
yourself, gosh, that person downthere, they actually can't
control the outcome of what'sgoing to happen over there. So
(14:38):
why are they bothering it? Whyare they Why are they going
through the motions of trying todo that? I can see from up here
that it's totally stressing themout. So stop.
Say to yourself, what is theworst thing that could happen if
I let go of control of thethings that I cannot change in
(14:59):
my life?
My best advice for you to sum upthis show is to let go loosen
your grip and live your life. Anexample of this from my own life
is this when my son was inschool, especially in the early
years now he could memorizefacts like no one I knew, he
(15:20):
could regurgitate, spit backanything that he read, when he
got into eighth, ninth and 10thgrade. Now it's the time when
school becomes more aboutapplying the information that
you learn rather than justmemorizing it. He started to
struggle, he lost his footingacademically a little bit, now
in my infinite wisdom, as theFather and because Truthfully, I
(15:43):
saw him struggling in schoollike I had as a kid, and I
didn't want him to do that. Ipushed hard on him to achieve
more. I've tried to control howhe worked. And I was constantly
constantly on him, truthfully tothe detriment of our
relationship. And then somewherein the middle of 10th grade,
something clicked for me. Irealized we only have about two
(16:08):
more years at home together.
And for some reason, I don'trecall exactly why. But for some
reason, I decided to back offand let him find his own way.
And not surprisingly, he did.
And our relationship improved.
shocker, right, shocker thatonce I tried to stop controlling
(16:30):
his life and focused on what Icould focus on, which was
supporting him, and asking goodquestions of him, and being
someone who he could turn to asopposed to turn away from things
changed, and they have beenamazing ever since. And what I
didn't realize was in thatmoment, in those 13 1415 year
(16:54):
old years, I could have done orcontinued to have done serious
damage to our relationship, andwe couldn't have ever gotten
that back. So just think aboutthat for a moment. Think about
something in your own life thatperhaps resonates with you along
the lines of that story. Andjust just remember, if you want
(17:19):
real control, drop the illusionof control. Let life live you.
Because it does. Anyway. Thankyou, Byron Katie, for that
amazing quote. As we get readyto wrap up, I asked you this
question, what do you need tolet go of control of in your
life, if you have the courage toshare reach out to me at Jason
(17:42):
at positivity on fire.com, I'dlove to connect. I'd love to
hear what you're working on. Andas we close this show, as I do
every single time, I just wantto thank you for being here. The
time that you commit to my showas a fan, the time that you
spend listening, you can't getthat back, you give it to me and
that means the world to me. Andalways remember be well be
(18:07):
happy, be you and until the nexttime. May your quest for
positivity begin today.
For more of my positivity quest,follow me at underscore j y
Ramsden on Instagram tik tok andTwitter. If you liked today's
episode, please give us a fivestar rating and review on your
favorite podcast app or visitpod chaser comm and search for
(18:30):
positivity on fire.
Positivity on fire is aproduction of impact one media
LLC All rights reserved.
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