What is Within MY Control?

Pin It A friend of mine gave me a section of a book they recently read called The Portable Therapist by Susanna McMahon. I loved it so much that I thought I'd share it with you. I believe we all have struggles in life on what we can and can't control...I know I certainly do. But the older I get, the wiser I become on understanding that there are simply some things I cannot control. Here's what Susanna McMahon has to say on this subject matter...

"There are only two things in the entire world that are within your control:

1. The way you choose to feel about yourself.
2. Your behaviors, which are based on your own feelings.

Nothing else is within your control. If we do not have control over something, then we cannot have total responsibility for it. How often do we take responsibility for others or for consequences that were never within our control to begin with? This concept of control is a critical one for developing self-esteem. As long as we foster an illusion of control and feel responsible for things which are out of our control, we cannot live the reality of our lives and we cannot gain a mastery of ourselves.

You can control your choice of how you feel about yourself; you choose whether you love yourself or you choose not to love yourself. Once you have chosen, then your behaviors will follow your feeling. If you choose to love yourself, you will choose to behave lovingly toward yourself. You accept and forgive and act more gently. If you choose not to love yourself, or not to make a choice (which is a choice in itself), then your behaviors will follow your training and you will ignore yourself, criticize and blame, externalize and expect perfection. It is within your control how you treat yourself. Because the world is treating you badly is not an excuse to treat yourself badly. You cannot control how the world treats you. You can control how you treat the world. Not only can you control your behaviors toward yourself but also you can control your behaviors toward others. Remember, behaviors are not feelings. They are the conscious expression of feelings and they are in your control."

This resonates so true for me. I cannot control the world or the people in it...I can only control the way I choose to feel about myself and my own behavior. I have slowly began to love myself and validate my self worth through lots of hard work by attacking my own inner demons.

There will always be obstacles to overcome, horrible people you encounter, and lessons to be learned. That is out of your control. But no one...and I mean no one can take away your self-worth. Only you can allow that to happen. Don't allow someone else to define who you are, because how someone treats you, talks to you, or about you is on them...not you. Take control of what you can in life...how you look at yourself and your own behavior...because there's very few things that are certain in this life.