Day 24 (a day early) of Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 Blog Challenge:“Learning experience. What was a lesson you learned this year that changed you?”
There wasn’t one pivotal Oprah-like moment, but the big overarching lesson I learned this year was about the power of letting go. What can I say…I’ve lived a lot of years as a Type A, perfectionist, control freak. But I have learned — in large part due to many conversations with my excellent therapist and my excellent (um, also a therapist) husband — to let go of a lot of things this year; everything from the emotional (e.g., anger and resentment towards people I feel have wronged me in the past) to the tangible (e.g., perfect housekeeping) to the self-constructed and self-destructive (e.g., desire for a zeroed out inbox at the end of each day). It’s rather paradoxical actually; we have the power (i.e., control) to be less controlling…it’s all a matter of shifting perspective and expectations.
At the end of the day, the important stuff rises to the top and gets taken care of. And the best thing? When I let go of the frantic, dissatisfied energy, it makes room for the creative energy to come in and all sorts of cool stuff results.
December 23rd, 2009 at 9:45 pm
What a great learning experience! As a fellow “Type A” personality, I’m constantly (re-learning) the importance of letting go.
BTW, I thought of you when I read about this upcoming book called “Seven: The Number for Happiness, Love, and Success”. The author claims that 7 is the maximum number of tasks that should be on a daily “to-do” list. (You had written a post about the number 7 in relation to blog trips and such.)
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December 23rd, 2009 at 10:12 pm
So how do we shift our perspectives and hopefully impart that healthier attitude to our kids? That’s what I want to learn this year.
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December 27th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
[...] a goal and achieving it, but this year has tested me. The lesson has been two-fold; part of it is letting go and the other part is putting faith in the universe - to either help you along to where you want to [...]