2,500 years ago, Heraclitus said “The only constant is change”.
And he wasn’t wrong!
Things change all round us. The seasons change. Things that were growing die. Things that appeared dead, grow. People age. Babies are born. Our dogs grow older. New puppies appear.
Scientific and technical advances mean that daily life is always changing - our grandparents had no smartphones!
And as we’ve discovered this year, our whole way of life can change - very quickly. What we took as normal is now exceptional. What was outlandish is now standard.
So how do you stop your head spinning in all this? How do you hold on to your place in the world?
Let go of control!
The first thing to know is that the more you try and control the world around you, the less control you will have. It will lead only to frustration, anger, resentment.
It’s an impossible task! Like trying to hold on to water!
And this isn’t confined to the world around us . . .
You may know by this stage of your life that trying to control the people around you is doomed to failure. And you should also know by now that trying to control your dog is equally doomed. The only way you can possibly exert this level of control - of bending another to your will - is by extreme force, captivity, limitation, abuse.
And we don’t want to go that way.
So in this world of shifting shapes and shifting times, how are we to hold on to reality?
Start with yourself
The fact is that the only thing you can control is . . . what you think.
Yep. That’s it. That’s the extent of what you can control.
Death camp survivor Viktor Frankl knew a thing or two about control and being controlled. Amidst all the horror he held on to his mind by holding on to this thought:
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
But it’s often the last thing people resort to! They think it’s easier to control everyone and everything else, that they themselves are right, so everyone else must be wrong
Once you can shake this daft way of thinking out of your head, the path is open to you to truly control by influencing, by showing the way, by shining the light.
It is empowering when we recognise that we’re part of a changing universe, that the only thing that stays the same is the fluctuation.
King Canute is famous for attempting to turn the tide and failing. He is often misrepresented as stupid. In fact he was on the side of sense - he was demonstrating to his fawning courtiers that even a king could not affect the fundamental nature of our universe - that of change.
Canute worked this out a thousand years ago. It seems we have to work it out for ourselves anew!
Our dog’s behaviour
I see this frequently in new students, and in emails from readers. Their dog’s previously predictable behaviour changes. So their knee-jerk reaction is to control the dog, to stop the behaviour, to enforce change. (I say “new students” advisedly! Students who’ve been around me for a while know that this is not the way forward.)
If instead of seeing this as open rebellion - the start of a slippery slope, the dog getting out of hand, taking over, “dominating” - if instead the dog’s owner sees it as a simple change, then it becomes so much easier to guide the dog into choices that align with how you’d like him to be.
Control not necessary!
Think of how much energy you’ll save by moving into an accepting state of mind, instead of one of continual resistance and confrontation!
It’s not what happens in life: it’s how you deal with it
But I know this can be hard - especially in the heat of the moment. We’ve been conditioned all our life to defend our territory, to regard any encroachment as a dangerous act. Just knowing that this river of life is flowing around you, and the way to enjoy the experience is to flow with it, can be an ideal you may struggle to reach!
If this is you, I think I may be able to help you. I would love the opportunity to see how this thinking is affecting you, and what the best way forward would be for you. Drop me a line and maybe we can get on a call together and see where this leads you.