Tag: circle of control

Monday – Funday

credit, @woofknight, X

Only one April’s Fools day did I play a joke on the blog, and then I felt bad for at least five days after that (and maybe even more because I am still writing about it). So this year, no jokes. Happy April! Happy full swing of spring! Happy start to the 2nd quarter of the year!!

“About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won’t like you at all.” – Rita Mae Brown

I’ve been mulling around the concept of radical acceptance for a while now. Before you can make any meaningful changes in your life, you must come to a radical acceptance as to how things exactly are, right in this moment. You accept the reality of where you are, in this moment, and everything that comes with this moment – the emotions, the implications, the situations and the people whom you cannot change, and you come to a peace with these elements. You can also come to a radical acceptance of your past – events that have happened, good relationships and bad relationships throughout the years, the fairness and unfairness of life, etc. In short, with radical acceptance, you don’t mull over the unfairness of what could have happened, or the unfairness of what is. When you just utilize “regular acceptance”, this implies resignation and almost agreeing with “giving up” and this is why we often resist acceptance. Regular acceptance feels hopeless and dejected. Radical acceptance faces truth head on, with the idea of looking at your options going forward, with a practical lens. Radical acceptance allows you to clearly feel and to process your feelings about a situation, but then to move forward and to make decisions for your best interests, based on reality. Radical acceptance gives you power.

Unfortunately, we have a tendency to avoid radical acceptance of people and of situations because we don’t want to face things as they are . . . .we wish that things were different. We hang on to hopes that we can change a person, or change a situation, or change what has happened in the past, but these things are impossible. When we avoid radical acceptance, we live in a constant limbo and we dance with the same cycles of disappointment, again and again. When we avoid radical acceptance, we play a part in our own suffering. As hurtful as it can be, to face the pain of “what is” head on, is what will ultimately gives us relief and direction. Radical acceptance stops the ongoing suffering. It allows us to make boundaries and to change our mindset, instead of staying stuck in the mire of frustration and despair.

I’ve put the circle of control on this blog several times, but it bears repeating. When we allow ourselves to experience radical acceptance, we fully understand and accept what is in our control and what is not in our control.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1011. Name the biggest risk you have ever taken.

A Little Dab of Stoicism

” . . . serenity and stability are results of your choices and judgment, not your environment. If you seek to avoid all disruptions to tranquility – other people, external events, stress – you will never be successful. Your problems will follow you wherever you run and hide. But if you seek to avoid the harmful and disruptive judgments that cause those problems, then you will be stable and steady wherever you happen to be.” – (idea attributed to the philosopher Epictetus, from the book, The Daily Stoic)

The dictionary defines a stoic as this: “a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining.” Pictures of the Star Trek character Spock pop up when you look up the word “stoic.”

No one would ever accuse me of being a stoic. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. That’s what attracted me to learn more about the philosophy of stoicism. Opposites attract.

The Daily Stoic is a book of 366 short daily meditations that so far seems to me, to be repeating and ingraining the idea of “the circle of control”. See below (credit: Clair Newton):

We’ve all seen the circle of control. I’ve shared it before on the blog. Basically the circle of control shows that only what is in the center of the circle, is what you have full control over in this present moment. In the blue ring, you may have some influence, but you do have full control and in the outside circle, you have virtually almost no control, even though these things are a part of your everyday life. A true stoic stays in the center of the circle of control, and accepts all that is outside of the center, unemotionally and detachedly.

I’m early into my studies of stoicism, but what I am learning so far, is that stoics aren’t necessarily emotionless, it’s just that their tranquility does not depend on what is happening outside of them. They make it a habit to be tranquil, for tranquility’s sake, and they find this inner peacefulness through a daily focus on a “code of honor” (credit Donald J. Robertson):

The Stoic Virtues and Code of Honor

  • Love the truth and seek wisdom.
  • Act with justice, fairness, and kindness toward others.
  • Master your fears and be courageous.
  • Master your desires and live with self-discipline.

Interestingly, while I have a hard time relating to Spock, Andy Dufresne from the classic film, The Shawshank Redemption is also listed as a stoic. Even though Andy was wrongfully charged for murder and sentenced to a lifetime of prison, he heroically makes the most of his situation and in the end of the film, we witness his redemption. Andy wasn’t emotionless, but Andy didn’t let his emotions rule him. The level of emotional self-control which he had, meant that others couldn’t take him down, by using the weapon of his own emotions against him.

As a writer and a creative, I’m in love with emotion. I’m in love with passion and heart and energetic, emotional movement of the inner soul. However, I am learning that stoicism may be confused with the idea of lack of emotion, where instead, stoicism is the harnessing of emotion to make it work for you. Stoicism understands emotion, and therefore keeps it in its rightful perspective. The three most celebrated founders of Stoicism are Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca. Here are some thoughts attributed to these philosophers:

Marcus Aurelius:

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” 

 “Don’t go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.”

Epictetus:

“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.”

“He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.”

Seneca:

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

“It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.” 

Are you finding that you may be more stoic than you ever imagined yourself to be? I am, too.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Some People

How’s everyone doing out there? There is just so much going on right now. It’s a lot, and it’s been happening in steady succession, for a few years now. I just read this long thread on Twitter that started out with a shaming line of how disgusted the writer was with the idea that people are spending so much time on the Academy Awards fiasco, when there is so much pain happening in Ukraine and in other parts of the world. Some people gave the writer a big “Amen!” and some people reminded the writer that sometimes we need silly distractions from all the nightmares happening around us, which we cannot control. And do you know what? “Some people” were right.

Whatever you need to do right now that helps you to process your own living experience is okay. Just don’t assume that what works for you, is the right answer for someone else. If someone asks for our help and for our guidance, we can share what has helped us with our own experiences, and what has given us strength and hope during tough times. But we must also understand that we all have unique personalities and perspectives and coping mechanisms. This isn’t a “one size fits all” and when we try to make things a “one size fits all”, that’s usually when more trouble starts. This is when we get defensive with each other, and division ends up pulling us even further away from each other, with intolerance for others’ points of view and ways of going about living our own individual lives. In times of strife, we try to control everything outside of us, and that includes other people. It makes us feel better to feel like we are in control. But do you like the feeling of being controlled? No one does. A long time ago, a friend shared the Circle of Control, with our group of friends. It is a good one to go to often, as a reminder of the only things that we have total control over, and that is shown in the little green center. The rest of the chart we have a little influence over, and in the widest circle, we literally have no control. If we stick to focusing on what is in the green for ourselves, we will feel more “in control” and calm and peaceful, than when we try to control everything.

I think Groucho Marx said it best, “Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him.” (kidding)

Have a great day, friends!! Stay in the green.

Neville Medhora on Twitter: "The "Circle Of Influence" concept. Circle of Control: Things you can fully control. Focus on these most. Circle of Influence: Things you can have an impact on but

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

The Circle of Control

A few weeks back, I had a meltdown at dinner, expressing to my family how much I hated this pandemic happening. I was so sad that I was having to make strict rules about friends and outings. I expressed how much I hated the fact that my children wouldn’t be able to share in the fun ceremonies and events and milestones that their senior friends so much deserved, but would be missing out on. I shed tears about all of my daughter’s tennis events, written on the calendar, going by, getting crossed off the calendar, one by one, week after week. It killed me that my middle sons wouldn’t even get to say good-bye to their senior fraternity brothers, before these young men headed out on their own adult, professional lives. I wanted my husband to know how concerned I felt about him having the extra weight on his shoulders, by having to worry not only about our health and supporting our family, but for the ever mounting, stressful business issues happening, day in and day out, due to the coronavirus. I wanted my eldest son to feel the comfort of being with his family, instead of by himself, in his bachelor apartment, not making close physical contact with anybody, for weeks on end. I wanted to stop it all and I wanted to make it all just go away, for my family, for our friends, and quite honestly, for the whole entire world.

“Mom, we get it, the coronavirus is not your fault,” my youngest son said.

That statement stopped me in my tracks. It snapped me to attention. It gave me a lot of relief, and also, quite a bit of introspection. I guess that it made me realize how egocentric I can be, even in my caring for others. It made me realize how my control issues sometimes are disguised as “worry” and “concern.” If my own well-being is only present when the conditions outside of me are exactly what I think that they should be, then I will have to understand that my personal “well-being” will only be a sparse and fleeting feeling for me, for the rest of my life. The reality of what was really going on, during my meltdown at dinner that night, was my needing for everything to be ” just right” for everyone else whom I love and have concern for, in order for me to feel okay and alright with the world. That’s not fair to me, or to anybody else and frankly, it’s simply just not going to happen. Ever. Because when this pandemic passes, other issues will come around. That is the nature of life. Granted, the pandemic is a whammy, but sometimes it takes a big, ol’ slap in the face, to really get some introspection about your own coping skills and your own perceptions and about the overall way that you go about living your life and how you relate to others.

One of my dearest friends often refers to “the circle of control.” Here it is:

How the Circle of Control affects the Intellect's life?

The circle of control is a good tool to have in your back pocket. I think that it is a particularly helpful reminder, during especially high stress events, like now. I see a lot of “Petty Bettys” on our Nextdoor neighborhood social app. People are very, very concerned about other people’s actions and the funny thing is, that this concern spans a broad spectrum. People are calling the police about neighbors getting together, and yet the very next post on the app, is about getting a group of neighbors together to persuade our local politicians to open up more stores and beaches and venues, in our area. And both of these social media posts have dozens and dozens of responses full of righteous anger, judgment, and frustration that people aren’t thinking the exact same way about the pandemic and the issues surrounding the pandemic, as they are seeing it.

In my case, when I try to control things outside of me, it is to quell my own fears. If I can keep up my illusion of control, then I feel more secure. If the pandemic is MY fault, then I have the capacity to fix it. Silly me. Like my son said, “We get it. The coronavirus is NOT YOUR FAULT.” The coronavirus is not your fault either, friends. Only focus on what you can control (see the middle bullseye of the circle of control) and let the rest of everything, take care of itself. Feel the deep relief, knowing that only what you can control is your responsibility. Know that the laser-focused-in-on-the-bullseye responsibility for yourself and for your actions, is more than enough, for any one person to handle. And with that deeply resonating knowledge and wisdom about what is really your responsibility and what is really under your control, let out a big, slow, deep, calming, sigh of relief and just go about your day as peacefully as you can.