Every moment billions of things are happening inside your body to keep you alive.
Your heart is beating, your blood is pumping.
Electrical impulses are zapping through your nervous system.
Billions of neurons are firing in your brain, instantaneously communicating with the rest of your body.
Any (or all) of these things could stop at any moment, yet you trust they continue.
We are constantly planning days, weeks, years, decades ahead, thinking about all the things we need to control, yet every moment your life is outside of your control.
You probably never wake up and worry, “What if my bladder stops working today?”
It is completely outside of your control, so why would you worry about it?
Yet every day many of us create endless fear, stress, anxiety, and worry thinking about the many things that are outside of our control.
We worry about the past.
We think about things like: “Did I perform as well as I could in that meeting?” And then beat ourselves up for not doing better.
When, of course, the only constructive thought process is one that directs us to doing better in the future.
We also look into the future and create stress, fear, and anxiety.
“What if this or that does or doesn’t happen?” We ruminate on all the things that might go wrong that too are outside of our control.
Many of us also worry endlessly about the present moment.
Like every moment sitting around worrying if your heart will beat again, we think about useless stuff like:
“I called Jerry and I didn’t hear from him, so maybe he hates me.”
Then every minute that ticks by, our “story” becoming more real, and we drive ourselves into more of a tizzy.
One of my teachers tells a story about his friend Jon who suffered a debilitating brain injury in a terrible car accident, and today only has a 20 minute memory.
Every 20 minutes is a new day, a fresh start.
Every person he meets is someone new, someone interesting.
The world handed him lemons and every twenty minutes he makes freshly squeezed lemonade.
You don’t have to lose your mind to let go.