Step 1: We recognized we can't manage the whole world
Step 1: We recognized we can't manage the whole world — trying to control the uncontrollable made our lives unmanageable.
Seems like a strange foundational problem at first glance. Certainly not as powerful or forceful as admitting we are powerless over alcohol. But also much wider reaching. We aren't here talking about a relationship to a substance — no matter how complex and frought it might be. Instead we're talking about our foundational relationship with the universe.
Try to stay with us! This isn't about religion! We're not talking about the stories, institutions, and problems that come with what you may have accepted or rejected prior to now!
Instead we're simply acknowledging that there IS something greater than yourself in size, scope, and scale. And that a relationship with this thing that is the essense of everything as you understand it is vitally important to living a good life. Why? Because if you are the biggest and most important thing in your own life to the exclusion of everyone and everything else, it's not healthy.
Let's face it, you are the only you we've got! The only you that will ever be! The thoughts you think and the feelings you feel in the exact way that you do is fully unique! Your existence is VITAL to a healthy functioning universe, right now! You are SO important! But you're not the only one.
This verdant planet is filled with life of all sorts. Each one going about with its own reasons, thoughts, feelings, and connection to everything else, just as you do! And, while there are certain realities about life that forces it to survive on other forms of life, humans are capable of understanding the devastating effect we are wrecking on the only planet we have.
Why does this matter?
Because humans are clever creatures! We've been engineering and designing our way out of the messes we create on this planet since we started making messes. We simply forgot that the planet has its own spirit, too!
Many people already believe that part of their purpose on this earth is to safeguard their corner of our beautiful world. Otherwise why so many gardens? Why so many lawns and green spaces? We think it's because these are the places where we connect with earth on a regular basis. How many of us could name a preserve, a hill, a park, a tree, where we feel at peace? That is the peace of earths spirit connecting with yours.
Why are we attempting to control the uncontrollable?
Because our own negative emotions like guilt, fear, shame, and remorse drive us to do so. These emotions have a purpose, but in so many of us they have become so large and painful they now occupy most of the driver's seat in our minds. We do insane things to avoid them, or to bring them on. We attempt to re-order the stars to ease our own pain. So often to no avail — but worse when our mad plans come to fruition, and still do not lessen the feelings that cause the need to plan and control in the first place.
We try to number and list, order and make sense. We try to control our little corner. To make everything turn out according to each individuals design.
We try to be the deities of our personal world.
But what comes of that belief in ourselves when a hurricane or a stroke takes everything? What happens when we find out the puppets in our drama are humans with their own thoughts and feelings? What happens when we encounter a substance we can't control and it starts to control us? What happens when our mind becomes overwhelmed with emotion and we can't think through it?
It seems self-evident the world is a flawed place with flawed people in it. And because we are flawed people living in the world, none of us is a "perfect" human. If you asked 10 people for a definition of perfect humanity you'd get 10 different definitions. And likely a few clarifying questions. Perfect in what role? For whom? Under what circumstances?
If a perfect human or a perfect world under all circumstances and definitions is impossible, then we as a species are advised to take a deep breath and adjust our expectations accordingly when we encounter flaws, because we inevitably will.
Why do we feel these negative emotions?
They are usually a toxic combination of regret, guilt, and shame for what we did do, and remorse, guilt and shame for what we didn't do. Not to mention a great deal of anger and resentment over real and perceived slights. Many of us also carry trauma which is not the product of anything we did or didn't do to ourselves. We'll talk in some depth about all of these soon and how you can get these thoughts and feelings out of the drivers seat.
For now we need only accept that we have been trying to steer and rally our own minds past this pain and trauma, guilt and shame, loneliness and isolation, this disconnection. That we have been doing so, many of us for years, to no good result.
A radical solution
For this problem, we of TS recommend a radical solution: recognize that no one of us in control of everything. Though MOST of us have some power over one matter or another, not one of us dwelling the earth has ALL power. And while we humans may find this fact frustrating when applied to ourselves, we need only spend a few minutes considering the nightmare of any OTHER human being in charge of our life.
In medicine, the process of determining if a person is capable of making their own medical decisions is one of the more complex decisions Doctors make. The system knows that no human can truly and completely represent the wants and needs of another. It is done only when circumstances are dire and for good reason. A human's ability to make their own decisions is enshrined in most fair legal systems — in other words, autonomy is sacred.
We can then be grateful that both we, and all our fellow humans share that blessing equally. And relax into the reality we need only make plans for ourselves and those who depend on us. We need not manage that which is outside our direct influence — and we cannot anyway. We need not plan any life but our own.
Our own life is the only one we need to live.
Digesting this shift in reality is powerful. It allows us to stop investing our energy — time, thoughts, emotions — in attempting to do the impossible of managing the unmanageable. It allows us to stop giving stage notes to a seemingly deaf play director and instead focus on making our own part the best we can — hopefully inspiring others to do the same.