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Back in my 20s-early 30s I struggled with body image issues. I had a mixture of disorders ranging from eating to exercise. My desire to be thin and run trumped everything else in my life. I couldn’t focus on anything but food, the number on the scale and exercise. Family tried to help and I told them I would change. I was in control. I could handle this.

The Delusion

Everything took a back seat in my life, including my marriage, my job, my friends, even my running all felt the strain. It’s funny how our minds can delude us into thinking we are in control when in reality we are spiraling. How do we give up control when it feels like a necessity? The thought of loosening the grip seems terrifying.

Your story might not be food or exercise related, but many of us have a hard time giving up control in some area of our life. Maybe it’s our daily routine, our time, or our job, or the cleanliness of our house, or maybe it’s our social media habits…whatever it is, the underlying desire for control entices us all. It’s hard to change when we think what we’re doing is satisfying or even “good for us”. Sometimes our minds will tell us anything we want to hear just so we can keep doing our thing.

The Cost

All of this desire to control comes at a cost. Doctors told me I wasn’t able to have children, my excessive exercise led to injuries that forced me to stop running, relationships were lost, and of course the unpacked emotional trauma I carried.

A New Way

Shortly after having my son (so grateful for miracles and modern technology!), I told myself I needed to change. It didn’t happen right away. But ever so slowly I started to ease up on the rigidity I put on myself. I started thinking to myself that I might be okay without my 6-pack abs or without running two times a day. My relentless need for control started to crack and allowed the idea of new possibilities in. When we start to open up to other possibilities, we plant a seed of change.

There are no short cuts through difficulties. When you’re facing a challenge, you have to dive head in. The dive might take weeks or years…part of that depends on how willing you are to face the deepest parts of you. There have been days I wished I didn’t care about food or exercise. And there are days I find myself tempted to slip back into old habits. Our path is never straight. As Rob Bell says, life is like a river that bends and turns and can feel like you’re going forwards then backwards. Stay the course and enjoy the ride.

It Gets Better

What I picked up on my winding journey towards healing is gratitude and reframing. Where I once might have look at myself in the mirror and said “Ugh…things aren’t as tight/firm/flat as I’d like them”, now I say “I am so grateful this body allows me the freedom to walk and move and play.” Or instead of telling myself I need to do a high intensity workout every day, I ask myself what my body feels like and then I choose my form of movement for the day.

If you find yourself struggling to release control of something, try to look at it from a different angle. Maybe you’re taking something for granted that you could shine a light on. If you’re task-oriented and live life from your to-do list, maybe you can stop and ask yourself if there is anything on the list that you can let go of. What’s the worst thing that will happen if something doesn’t get done?

Control is an illusion. And what I have learned is that the only thing I need to focus on controlling is my response when things happen. If I can put my energies into finding gratitude and seeing life from many viewpoints, then my world opens up to love, peace and contentment.