Your Internal Remote Control
~ by Kaari Allen
Why directing your OWN script can be SO much better than any episode on Netflix!
It was a Tuesday and the clock in my car read 4:15 pm. The sordid ‘To Do’ list was complete, hmmm…well, sort of. After looking around my dashboard to ensure that there weren’t hidden surveillance cameras secretly installed in the glove compartment by ‘Those Perfect People’, I took the long way home driving around a lovely lake. Listening to my audiobook mystery and enjoying the winter beauty just because I could. It filled my soul.
Those Perfect People are the fictitious, bossy, and condescending voices in our heads that cause us to feel as if we need to request permission to spend our time in a peaceful and happy way. They also attempt to regulate our emotions, priorities and thoughts. Those Perfect People didn’t make it on my Christmas card list, again, and will no longer be welcomed to any events in my life. They aren’t fun. They cause me internal doubt, worry, and quite frankly, they were never invited to begin with! Somehow along the way, I had allowed them some control over my thoughts and feelings. No more. I own the remote control, they don’t. I have choices and SO DO YOU.
Putting it in today’s context
Considering last week’s events at our nation’s capital, I have struggled with how to “respond.” Our hearts hurt. With many variables outside of our locus of control there is fear as to what’s next in 2021. I want to encourage you to grab onto the remote control of your life, your thoughts, your actions and your time. Hopefully, with a focus on positive shifts, it will be SO much better, healthier and more peace-filled than this past year.
Dreading things that haven’t happened yet, or that we don’t have control over, forces us to experience fearful and negative emotions twice. It doesn’t have to be that way!
Let’s make 2021 the year of not just surviving but thriving. Go ahead and take the long way home. Sit and do a craft project. Continue doing the little joyful things that we gravitated to during the pandemic lockdowns like cooking together, doing puzzles, or going for extra-long walks. Without feeling as if we need to request permission from ANYONE.
Our culture at times has felt like something we try to endure. Life is challenging enough, but we hold the remote control of our time, perspective, and feelings. The current life expectancy for men is 76.1 years, and for women 81.1 years. For me, that is only 26.1 more yrs. That is only 9,526.5 more days to live, allegedly. Yikes! Hopefully, there will be many more, but…how will you spend yours? I’m grabbing my remote control and I encourage you to do the same. Click on HOPE and see what comes onto the screen of your life.
I will leave you with these inspiring words and performance from the great Stevie Wonder song Higher Ground. https://youtu.be/aMw7Vwks4MI
“I'm so glad that I know more than I knew then Gonna keep on tryin' 'Til I reach my highest ground”
Sharing love, healing, and higher ground,
Kaari