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Have you ever felt like you are hitting your head against a brick wall? It could be because you are trying to control the outcome.
I am new to motherhood and learning the art of parenthood. Like all new parents I am sleep deprived and trying to learn my baby’s way of communicating with me. Recently I noticed that when I try to control (through desiring things to be a certain way) my baby’s sleep or feeding patterns (e.g., hoping that she won’t feed as long at night so I can get some more sleep), she takes much longer to settle into sleep or is more difficult to feed and I become frustrated. Yet when I surrender my control and let her do her thing when she needs to, these things progress much more quickly and I maintain an inner sense of calm and acceptance.
My little girls’ resistance to control is obviously inherent as she is too young to know anything else. This made me realise that perhaps every individual has their own primal instinct to resist control. So next time you feel like you are hitting your head against a brick wall or you feel like you are pushing s**t uphill, sit back and ask yourself these questions:
What outcome do I desire?
How will I benefit from the desired outcome?
What fear do I have in not reaching the desired outcome?
Address the fear and then release control of the outcome/situation. Sit back and notice the difference in both yourself and in the other person/situation.
Our thoughts are powerful beyond measure. They can be our greatest ally or our greatest enemy. The choice is yours.
As Andrew Carnegie once said: “You cannot push anyone up the ladder unless he is willing to climb”.