I never said this was easy.

I never said pick your dream and Wa La. It’s done, you’ve got it.

Loving your life versus working your life on autopilot doesn’t mean you get things the easy way. In fact more often than not I’ve shared that the ups and downs are the beauty of the experience itself. There’s no joy if you’ve never experienced pain, there’s no light if you’ve never seen the dark, there’s no laughter if you don’t know the full extent of sobbing tears.

As human beings we are blessed with just that – a sense of being. And being comes in many forms. My commitment to myself is that I’m here to experience all of the forms, to learn how to be more flexible to the swaying of the wind, to be ok with those moments of darkness because I know that there is light on the other side.

What I do know is that each time we are hit with an emotion we all have a choice. We can choose how we respond. We can choose what we do next. We can choose love or we can choose fear. And every single one of those choices will lead to different outcomes.

While we do not have any control over those things external to us (the bus running late, the concert tickets being sold out, our boss being in a bad mood) we DO have control over our response. And that really is the magic ingredient.

EVENT + RESPONSE = OUTCOME

In essence when the world around us is feeling so overwhelming and that we couldn’t possibly pick up all the pieces to bring more light into our life – that’s the exact moment to reach in and dig deep. That’s the exact moment that is calling you to attention, when it’s your choice on RESPONSE that will shape the OUTCOME more than ever. When you’re feeling like you have zero control, know that you have one thing you can control: YOU.

And I’m not saying it’s easy. Controlling ourselves may even feel at times harder than the illusion of controlling that which is outside of us. However, learning our own triggers, learning when we react instead of respond can bring about more awareness. So that each time we feel that ping in our heart, that fire in our brain, that pit in the belly, we get to the conclusion faster and faster. I can control this. I can choose. I canchoose how to respond to this.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”   -Victor Frankl

Try it on for size. Let go of the weight holding you down and instead ask, how much energy will I save by focusing on what is within my control?If I choose light right now what does that look like? What does it feel like? How does my world change colour by looking within and choosing my response?

For me, I know it feels more connected. More lit up than weighed down, even when it feels hard. It definitely feels in my control. That’s more power for me. More sense of certainty that I am creating a life I truly love. So I’m going to keep building my response muscle. I’m going to keep fine-tuning my strength on choosing what I can control. And I’m going to focus more and more on letting go. So for this week’s Mondaymantra I choose: I can let go.