Has it ever happened to you to realise that:
-You shop for the things that you don’t need
-You tidy up the house/cupboards when you are stressed out
-You rearrange furniture multiple times
-You scroll on social media, even though you’ve already seen that feed
This is a coping mechanism that you deploy when your brain calls for sense of control. This is fake sense of control, but we do it as it is so much easier to control things/stuff than to get real sense of control.
We can control:
-out actions
-our thoughts
-our stuff
From the above 3, the easiest is controlling stuff, so this is what we do when we are on auto pilot.
After all, you cannot control:
-What people will think about you
-Whether your family will be healthily
-What the economy will be like
-Stock market, weather, etc.
How to get in control, the real control?
- Identify what physical thing do you do when you are stressed/ feel out of control? (social media scrolling, glass of wide, cleaning up).
- Think what are you afraid of? What are you trying to avoid?
Then set timer, set it to 5 or 10 minutes and for that time - face what you are trying you avoid.
If you’ve hoarded for years and you don’t know how to de-clutter the house- tidy up one drawer for 10 minutes – that is all. Then do the same next day, another 10 minutes only.
If you are afraid of your financial situation, set timer for 10 minutes and write down all your monthly expenses. This is all that you need to do that today. Tomorrow set timer for 10 minutes and look for better deals online for your house insurance or electricity provider. The next day- another activity... for 10 minutes only.
If you are overwhelmed with all commitments you have, spend 5 minutes identifying your top priority for the next day- only one.
This is what real control looks like!
Action will give you sense of real control, not thinking about doing things, not moving the sofa to the other side of the living room!