START BEING HAPPY!
To be human is to have the tendency to worry. However, the more you worry, the more tangled everything becomes. The more tangled things become, the more exhausted you are and the less capable you are of dealing with your life. Finally you want to simply run away and hide in a hole somewhere and pull it in after you. You want to get away from everything and everyone and you do not have to do that. You just need to get away from your own passion to control.
It's essential to be willing to let loose of your passion to control, because your inner being is saying to you, "This is what is holding you back. This is what prevents you from progressing. It is time now to give it up." And so you have a choice. You do not HAVE to give up your passion to control. No one will force you to do that. But if you do not do it, there is no way of getting around the fact that you will continue to feel frustrated and unhappy.
Often it seems necessary to reach the low point of despair before the ego part of you is willing to let loose of its illusion of control. And it IS an illusion. Your ego part is able to control only about 15% of your life. The remaining 85%, the real control, has to come through your inner being. Often your ego part has to batter itself into the ground, trying to control 100% of life with a 15% capacity, to the point where it can barely hold up its head any longer. Then it may finally be willing to say, "All right, I'll let loose because there is nothing else to do." But you don't have to do that, you don't have to go all the way to the bottom of the pit. If you are willing, you can simply let loose, right now, of your insistence on control.
Once your ego part stops trying to control things, you will be absolutely amazed at the difference it will make. Incredible things will begin to happen. But to let go of the control, you must be willing to let go of your worries. And this will probably not be easy, because you have spent a lifetime determinedly holding on. And now you must learn to let loose.
Understand that you are not throwing your control to the winds. You are, instead, giving it up to your inner being, that part of your self which knows what to do with it and will use it in the best possible way for you. You will not become irresponsible. In fact, you will become more responsible than you have ever been in your life, because your inner being, that part of you which knows best how to run your life, will now be in charge.
It will almost certainly be difficult at first, because of habit. After you have released your worries, you will undoubtedly find yourself worrying again and thinking, "Oh, what if..." or "Why did...." or "Should I....." When you notice yourself doing this, you know it is time to let go of that particular fear again--immediately, on the spot, at that very moment! If you keep the worry and "get into" it, it will only grow and become that much more difficult to get rid of.
The good thing is that once you have begun to work regularly at turning over your worries, you will soon find that you can just take a breath and, as you exhale, mentally say, "I release this, I willingly let it go," and you will feel it leaving. And when you let go of the worry, you receive in return a flow of energy from your inner being. Instead of feeling exhausted, you will feel more energized.
If you are able to understand and accept all this with your head, but find that knowing it with your heart is another matter, let me tell you this--faith is the bridge over the chasm between the heart and the head. You must be willing to allow faith to bridge what you understand in your mind and what you will eventually know in your heart. It does take effort, particularly at first, to do this . If you have problems feeling genuine faith and need to pretend faith to begin with, that is quite acceptable. Even pretended faith allows you to keep letting go of your worries, over and over, giving your inner being the opportunity to transform them into good things for you.
In the beginning, it actually takes more effort to apply faith and release your worry than it does to run about and exhaust yourself physically and emotionally. And that is why many will not do it. They are not willing to make the change. It seems easier for them to keep on doing what they have been doing and to keep on suffering as a consequence. They feel they are in good company. because most of those around them are suffering as well, and they can all cry on each other's shoulders and feel appropriately miserable and condole one another and then go about doing the same thing over again. It gives the false comfort of familiarity.
If you want to be happy, however, you must be willing to step out of that illusion of comfort and apply the faith that will allow you to turn the control of your life over to your inner being and let it take care of things. You have absolutely nothing to lose except your fear and the pain it causes. Try it for just thirty days and you will be amazed at the results!
Barbara Goosen Shelby has been a spiritual counselor for the past twenty-five years. She began her career with a Master's degree in Latin, Greek and Archaeology from the University of Cincinnati. She has been a Latin teacher, a piano teacher, co-owner of an advertising and printing business and a stained glass business, and a massage therapist. Well-known for channeling Jared, Barbara is also a Rapid Eye Therapist.