When Life is Out of Control
By: Nikki Duthie
It feels like the year had only just begun, but here we are in July and I feel busier than ever.
Whenever I cross something off my list, my sense of accomplishment is brutally ripped away by the sudden appearance of two more things that need to be done.
Life feels like I fell through a layer of thin ice into the freezing lake below, and I can’t quite find where I fell in to put my head up to catch a breath. The more I try, the more lost I become.
Do you know what I’ve learnt from living like this so far this year? The tighter we grip, the less we hold.
The more I try to regain control over my life, the more the important things slip away from me. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Sleep. In fact, I write this article out of a place of overwhelm. The past few weeks have been a vicious cycle of me tightening my grip on everything around me, trying to keep it all from falling apart. All this has done has completely worn me out, reducing my capacity actually deal with my overwhelm. It wears out my husband, as I am completely wound up and not acting like myself. It shows up at work. For you, it might show up in your parenting. The more tightly we try to hold to the various, unpredictable elements of life, the more likely we are to cause more damage than what would have happened if we had taken a breath.
Mindset is Everything
However, another thought has occurred to me. My level of feeling out of control does not seem to correlate to how many elements of my life are actually going wrong. Whether it is feeling stressed out by university, a messy house, things breaking, relationship strain, or tasks at work, this feeling of overwhelm is relatively constant despite the huge variance in the actual importance of the things I just listed. Unfortunately, the common denominator of all of those things is me.
My mindset. My outlook. My attitude.
The way we look at our lives deeply affects the way we feel and act daily. Part of managing this is controlling our thought life (which is far easier said than done). The other part is being able to step away and understand how we personally need to rest in that moment. I’m not saying our circumstances are always good. Nor am I saying that stress is our fault. Certainly, life often is overwhelming. But the more we submit to that feeling of overwhelm, the more it controls us. The harder it is to break free. This is such a difficult concept to understand, and a balance needs to be achieved here. Our circumstances will affect us emotionally – that is a fact of being alive and being human. However, it is so important to let go and not let it completely take over.
Our mindset is the key to a peaceful life. It is the key to breaking the cycle of holding too tightly yet feeling like more and more things are slipping from our grasp.
Renew Your Mind
Do you need to renew your mindset? I have a few suggestions.
- The first is to ensure you are resting. None of us can do anything helpful or productive from a place of exhaustion. Figure out where you feel depleted, and attend to that need.
- The second is to find a trusted older person of faith who can guide and help you. We can be so blind to the way our emotions and thoughts are actually affecting ourselves and others around us. I have found the mentorship of an older, much wiser woman to be invaluable to me.
- This is the most important thing you can do in any situation. Go to God. Read His Word. Reflect and rest in the below passage, where our good, perfect, and personal Saviour asks us to share our burdens with Him.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30
Jesus intimately knows how we feel. The Son of God, who once cried out to God for release from the overwhelm, stress, and sorrow piled upon Him, understands. He wants you to come to Him. Go to Him with confidence, and He will help you in your time of need.
Article supplied with thanks to Life FM in Adelaide.
Feature image: Photo by Austin Kehmeier on Unsplash
