Control Is a Delusion
(And I'm having a huge art sale!)
I recently returned from Mexico after six months of what felt like a trip to the underworld, side swiped by challenging situations abroad in the US and Berlin, on top of navigating the new environment in Mexico, alone.
You go somewhere thinking A will happen, but B happens instead and you’re faced with two choices.
You can either A) complain or B) let it crack you open until you are shaken into a billion pieces. Let the brutality of becoming do what it’s supposed to do—show you your shit, all the ways you keep yourself small and sick and stagnant.
If there is a fight, it’s the one in service of surrendering. To reach the final act—you raise the white flag— and you can—because even your big fat ego is beat.
Eventually, a rebirth. You rise from the dead ashes of your old self a bit different.
I’ve had very little desire to write, also very little interest in thinking these days and it’s extremely liberating because I often make use of my mind to control things. And we all know:
In Mexico, I realized how often I try to control my feeling of safety in the world, including trying to control the safety of others.
For example, when people you love make repeated decisions that put them in harm’s way, it’s no easy journey, especially if you’re a highly sensitive person, to set limits and detach.
Or when abroad and dealing with a volatile roommate in an unknown environment and basic survival anxieties kick in. The dilemma: how to keep yourself safe while also not compromising your integrity by pretending all is good.
The pretending, the problem solving, the people pleasing, the obsessing…all ways we might try to control.
But control is a delusion.
One of the most exhausting ones because life is constantly changing. People will disappoint, life will throw curveballs, feelings can be super challenging to sit with, and death is inevitable.
Also, we’re all on different journeys. We don’t get to decide the path of another nor should we.
The one beautiful thing I’m realizing back in Berlin, having had some time to process my time in Mexico, is that aside from doing the work (whatever that means) something else eventually happens.
The exhaustion itself becomes the white flag. It causes you to do what all the gurus tell you to do: bear (non-judgmental) witness rather than get overly involved or invested in outcomes.
I’m hearing a voice inside myself often these days that says: “I don’t care.” But it’s not one that comes without compassion for others. It feels more like I couldn’t be bothered by my fears of anything anymore.
That nothing is so serious in life, even death. That peace is more important than vanity. That my happiness is more important than sacrificing it for the unworthy cause of trying to fix others.
And this too: excitement about losing my damn grip and letting it all crumble if it may.
Maybe that’s a midlife development.
Maybe that’s finding faith in chaos.
It feels kind of like freedom.
Now for the art sale
I’m offering 40% off most of my paintings with the exception of prints which are normal price and Touched By paintings which are 30% off. Visit my website to see my little darlings waiting for their new home.
*Sale runs until August 14th.
Astrology readings
While away in Mexico, I began to study the sky prompted by constant run-ins with astrologers who fascinated and shocked me with their readings of my own birth chart. You can read more about the readings I do here. I offer one donation based astrology reading per month.
