Yielding Control

I had a different plan for yesterday’s post. With the events happening in the United States, I felt like it was a good time to pause. Instead, here’s a story about what I learned by yielding control yesterday afternoon as the events unfolded.

The ingredients were right to have a great day yesterday — January 6th, 2021. I got a good night’s sleep. As I suggested in a previous post, I had formulated my plan to focus on being present. I even got off to a great start — good focus and a good attitude. I was feeling very much in control of my day, and I was feeling good. I was getting some important things done.

After lunch, all hell broke loose in Washington DC. About the same time, my home internet went out, which made it almost impossible to get to video updates. This coincidence elevated my stress about what was going on. Very quickly, my sense of control was long gone.

When things knock us off our game, we can lean on our best self toolkit – mindfulness, confidence, optimism, control, and so on to help bring us back on our best self journey. Days like yesterday are a whole different matter.

I gave myself permission to set my day’s agenda aside. I felt all the feelings as I stared at a choppy video feed on my smartphone.

My insight — there are times where it’s OK to set aside the pursuit of best self, and just be with the moment that’s right in front of us.

I know there is more to come from what happened yesterday, but today the sun came up and I started again.

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