Letting Go of Control

“Unfasten your seat belt! Prepare to be flung from your seat!” The Tibetan teasingly offers this remedy for my obsession with control. Yes, I’m a control freak and proud of it! It’s how I manage this insanely chaotic life on a planet that seems to be spinning out of control. There are many steps down the enlightenment path that I am willing to work at, but letting go of control is just pushing things too far. After all, if I’m not in control, who is? When I’m in charge, I know it will get done right.

I’m in awe of people on roller coasters who throw their arms up in the air when the ride takes a sharp turn or steep descent at breathtaking speed. My gut reaction is to white-knuckle the iron bar supposedly holding me in while frantically looking around to catch the operator’s eye so I can get him to stop the ride.

Ironically, the more I attempt to hang onto control, the more it seems to slip through my fingers. My best efforts at precision management of my journey crumble in the face of an increasing wave of chaos pummeling all my ironclad expectations into fragmented dust, revealing the distinct smile of the great cosmic joke. The more I tell myself to ease off and surrender to life’s unfoldment, the more tightly I grip the steering wheel, revealing a level of distrust so far-reaching that I can’t imagine any force-field strong enough to pry my fingers loose from their clenched command

Is this a stubborn refusal to align my personal will with the Divine Will? Or am I smart enough to know that somebody has got to get a grip on this earthly life, and it might as well be me!

As the heightened frequencies impacting our collective consciousness up their voltage, chaos increases. Always ready for a good fight, I struggle with the chaos, determined to be in control of its whimsical attempts to undo my best-laid plans. When the mystery pulls the rug out from under my rigid daily life strategies, I get angry and redouble my efforts to be top-dog in this battle for supremacy.

The more I lament that I should be the conductor in charge of my own symphony, the more the Divine Jester laughs at my obstinacy. My gritty persistence to hang on for dear life lodges itself in my neck and shoulders, tightening those muscles and my upper back into a shield of ego-will determined to have the last stand on the control battlefront. Of course, I always lose. Sooner or later, my body implores me to just let go, relax, and drop my shoulders down several inches, where they belong, instead of having them pretzeled around my neck, poorly armored for ultimate supremacy in my latest showdown with the Divine Plan.

Do we have any control over our lives, or is the concept of free will an illusion? Are we humans innately designed to be impotent control freaks? Is this related to a feeling of being cut off from Source by our very earthly incarnation? Do we grab on so tightly because our fear—of change, chaos, helplessness, overwhelm, disintegration—fuels our efforts to control our environment, relationships, work, vacations…everything?

We attach to a fixed idea in our minds of what is supposed to happen, leaving no room for the mystery. Fiercely clutching these notions, determined to have things work out the way we “know” they should, we unwittingly block the divine surprises waiting in the wings.

Excessive efforts to control our external life often stem from a need to keep ourselves in a box. Vigilantly monitoring the parameters of this self-imposed container, we are afraid of being surprised by whatever destructive, unloving monsters might emerge if we relaxed our surveillance. Assuming that control is the glue that holds us together, we expect to fall apart if we let go. But when we ward off chaos through excessive control, we inadvertently block the Higher Order trying to evolve us to an elevated consciousness.

All control issues spring from expecting the worst. If I let go of control I believe people will be mean to me, I will be abandoned, I will be irresponsible, I won’t be able to function, the chaos will overwhelm my mind and emotions, others will block my process, I won’t like myself, I might lose my marriage, home, work—all evidence of the glue that appears to hold my world together.

Refusing to accept vulnerability with grace, my need for control escalates as I open psychically and feel the innate fragility of life. My false beliefs state that to lose control is to lose dignity, integrity, strength, resulting in defeat, overwhelm, insignificance, weakness. Ironically, control only fosters rigidity, fear, domination, bullying, arrogance, anxiety, tension, contraction, blockage, and the deep inner sorrow that springs from the isolation of not believing we are part of a larger sphere designed to make sure all our needs are met.

How do we surrender control so that we can make the leap of faith into pure trust, permitting ourselves to experience the real stuff that holds/ orchestrates/ unfolds our lives precisely to fulfill our souls’ needs? Like holding our nose, closing our eyes and wildly dashing into a stormy ocean, maybe we need to block out our rational mind (just for a moment) and believe in the best! It is letting go of control that allows the greatest impact on the energetic flow/unfoldment of our lives.

Going beyond control doesn't imply abdicating self-responsibility, however. Those who simply take a back seat, passively witnessing life while they blame God/ Goddess for their difficulties aren’t in collaboration with the Divine Will. We all have the opportunity to exert healthy control—defined as focused intention and creative initiative in spearheading our Higher Self’s mandate for this lifetime. We just need to know when to release the attachment that obsessively energizes our intentions/ desires/ wishes/ dreams. Like blowing in the wind, our intentions are then carried by the stupendous cosmic genius who ultimately fulfills all wishes within the labyrinthine mystery encoded in the torch of our destiny.

What's the difference between making something happen vs. letting it happen? How can we align our personal will with the Divine Will and actively implement our Calling without attempting to control its expression or outcome? When we grip too tightly we contract the cosmic flow and block the creativity underlying our purpose. This feeds the fear that we won’t be able to fully align with our soul’s desires. So we redouble our efforts at control, trying to achieve whatever goal we envision. Does this desperate exertion spring from an illusion of unworthiness that insists we’re not up to the task?

Releasing control, we could relax, laugh, trust and enjoy the cosmic ride of our shared unfoldment. We would realize the illusion of our fears, gratefully accepting the inevitable chaos that invokes necessary change, fertile creativity and divine improvisation.

Chaos informs us of the edge of mystery that surrounds our little island of the known, with its barbed wire boundary of control. Fully accepting our chaotic interface with the Unknowable, we accept the inevitable buffeting-about that propels our evolution, the cosmic disorganization required to leave outgrown attitudes behind. How else would we wrench ourselves out of the karmic straightjackets suffocating our souls for lifetimes? Releasing control clears us to attune to messages, intuition, guidance, signs, timing—all designed to enlist us in a collaborative relationship with the Divine Plan.

We begin to trust our spiritual instincts like the wolf who sniffs the wind, following nature’s vibrations to discover his next meal, mate, cave, or soulful alignment with the moon. Ironically, we humans are the only living beings who block our destiny. When we participate cooperatively, holding the steering wheel lightly through the tumult of life’s challenges, we access extensive spiritual opportunity. Then we bathe in the full power of our Beingness as it magnetizes to us just the right events, people, places required for evolution.

To my inner eye, the Tibetan appears in a chariot driven by eight wild, unrestrained stallions. He sits there calmly, no reins to grasp, with a twinkle in his eye daring me to LET GO AND ENJOY THE RIDE!

“The heightened energies accelerating humankind’s collective learning curve bring amplified chaos. As deeper levels of karmic debris are kicked up for transmutation, students momentarily spin “out of control” while their core is being reorganized at a higher level. This promotes fluidity in self’s essence, facilitating full surrender to the next dimension in consciousness. To accept the chaos within the Higher Order allows students to discern the illusion that they alone control their reality. It is impossible to control a reality based in a predestined matrix established eons ago.

Paradoxically, students can exercise a profound effect on their experience through attitude. Self can control his/her attitude, work to release negativity, but cannot guarantee through control the outcome of any shift in attitude or any other inner work. The more responsibility taken for awakening, the more self realizes how little ego control is possible over one’s process. Yet, through the willingness to take full self-responsibility, the student experiences the transformative impact of right attitude. This yields a potent creative flow that manifests all the desired outcomes self believed required ego-control in order to fulfill. Yes, letting go of control is mandatory for full mastery of the human condition, true collaboration with the Divine Will and deep understanding of the workings of the Divine Plan.

“When students hang on too tightly, determined to control reality, they experience needless suffering. The current mountain of karmic debris dislodged and flowing through students’ energy bodies is challenging enough to assimilate and heal without contracting the process by attempting to orchestrate the timing or type of material surfacing, the quantity of debris, or the outcome. As self relaxes into trust, this soul material can resolve fairly smoothly as it deepens wisdom and lightens self’s karmic load. However, when students try to control this accelerated soul cleansing, their higher channel contracts. Then the material being released chafes against the ego walls of control, creating a “soul rash” prickly with the heat of fear, dread, worry that elongates the process and makes the student miserable.

“The powerful torrent of cosmic forces at this time in human history demands true surrender to the alchemical process of transmuting erupting karmic material. These forces pummel the personal will like a meat tenderizer, making it impossible to hold on to notions of control. This softens the soul body, inducing fluidity, elasticity and expansion.

“Ego control equals contraction. Ironically, it is when the students most need to relax, let go and open in order to ease them through this transitionary initiation that they resort to every control mechanism they’ve ever known—frantically searching for the brakes and steering wheel in a vehicle stripped of such elementary devices.

‘This last-ditch attempt to outwit one’s destiny distracts and exhausts the mind/body, creating lacerations from where the lower mind scrapes up against the genius of the Greater Mind of Source. It’s best to appreciate the inevitable softness/ vulnerability/ lubrication that these pummeling energies produce with true humility. Self is then liberated from the claustrophobia of soul armor, no longer able to maintain the tight grip of control. Students can at long last be unshackled from the illusion that the ego/ personality alone is sitting in the soul’s driver’s seat.

“Humankind need only remember that they are ultimately safe in a universe based in love. When releasing control, reference this innate platform of sanctuary in order to quiet the mind/ego and unwind the solar plexus. Like sitting back to watch a technicolor movie, allow self to relax into the unfoldment of the story—not attempting to control the story but completely present in self’s multileveled response to it.

“From this place of deep acceptance of soul transformation through the human process, students are profoundly impacted by life’s journey. Control defenses melt away, allowing the cosmic forces full penetration to one’s core. Joy mushrooms forth as the student relinquishes the controls, turning them over to a Higher Knowing. The higher mind is emancipated from the steel chains of iron-handed, cramped ego control to creatively respond to the Divine Plan with jubilant input—deeply at peace with the knowledge that a monumentally merciful, compassionate and benign Force exists to shoulder the summons of evolution. Beyond control lies humankind’s birthright and unavoidable destiny—a true JOYRIDE into awakening!”

copyright©2006 EARTH SCHOOL, A Fresh Perspective on the Human Condition