All These Places

So there’s this guy I follow on Instagram named Brian Andreas (@brianandreas).  Hes’ an artist and a poet and his posts either make me tear up a little, smile to myself and feel all fuzzy inside or break my heart into a million little pieces.  One of the three.  The other day he had a post that said “Mainly, the only time I get afraid is when I’m convinced  life has made a serious mistake & life keeps ignoring me because it has better plans.”

And that kind of reminds me of one of my most favorite, yet least productive pastimes, which is to try to control the universe.  Now, I’m not advising against going for what you want and taking the necessary steps to get there.  This whole trusting the universe thing isn’t about just resting on your laurels and waiting for things to fall in your lap.  That sounds pretty unproductive as well.  What I’m talking about is this need to try to force things to happen that are really just out of your control.

Here’s how you know if you’re trying to do that:

It feels like you are holding this heavy chain link leash to a large dog and you’re in a park surrounded by squirrels and the road is a little bit icy so you dig in your heels and scream at the dog but the dog is deaf and he’s just going to do what he wants to do.

Get it?

Here’s another way to know that you’re trying to do that:

You feel completely icky and twisted up inside because you know without a doubt that you are trying your best but even your best won’t change the situation at hand.

That’s where trusting the universe comes in; that’s where it’s necessary to let go of the leash.  It’s this space where you trust time to do its’ work and give other people the permission to act however they wish, knowing that you can’t change anyone but yourself.

A couple years ago I was in a bit of a spot where I was trying to hold the leash way too tight.  I was miserable and I sought the guidance of a therapist.  One day we were talking and she called me out on this whole trying to control the universe thing.  She held up a pen in her right hand and said “Now what’s going to happen if I drop this pen?”

I think I might have rolled my eyes a little as I realized she actually wanted me to answer.

“It’s going to fall and hit the floor,” I said.

Then she opened her right hand but before the pen could fall to the floor she swooped in with her left hand and grabbed it.

“That’s you,” she said.  “Things are going to happen here one way or the other.  But they will never get a chance to play out if you keep getting in the way.”

Oh.

I was recounting that story to a friend the other day and she remarked, “Sometimes the pen just has to hit the floor.”

Trusting the universe scares the shit out of me.  I’m the type of person who will read a really bad book in its’ entirety purely because I need to know what happens in the end.  Also I’m an only child (nothing I can do about that) and a bit of a perfectionist (currently in recovery for that) so I’m a little wired to try to control the situation around me.  Trusting the universe sometimes feels like and sounds like ‘not enough’ sometimes.  But the truth is that it’s everything.

When I’m able to drop the leash I can glide around in peace on that icy path and when I stop trying to hold the universe together, my arms are open for things that will better serve me.

And when I let the pen hit the floor, I can pick it up again and start writing a new story.