Dear Universe
Last week I hurt my back. People asked if I’d been dancing on tables or getting up to no good but the reality was that I simply bent over one morning to grab something off the floor and was then plunged in to a world of searing pain. A pinched nerve in my lower back meant that the rest of the weekend I had to lie on the floor or sit gently propped up in a chair. There’s a rumour going around that at one point I may have been found by a friend unable to move, trying to crawl to the bathroom, and sobbing in to the carpet…
I tell you this story not for sympathy but to begin a dialogue about control. You see, despite being in absolutely agony for a few days, it wasn’t the physical injury that caused me the most anxiety but the loss of of control I felt not being able to see through the plans that I had made for the following days.
People who know me well understand that I am a supreme organiser. If you want a travel itinerary or a run sheet for an event – I’m your girl. I see time and activities as Tetris pieces that need to be slotted in to a puzzle. If the puzzle isn’t complete, or not arranged in an efficient way then I feel anxious. In my old world, the one where I wore suits to work every day and managed projects, this was an amazing asset. In my personal life it’s something that causes both appeal and friction. Friends love it that I organise the outings and get everyone together others freak out when I ask what they’re doing in three weeks time.
Three years ago I was involved in a motorbike accident in Indonesia which resulted in me having two operations on my collarbone and various visits to a wound specialist for a major gash on my right ankle. Whilst not a life and death situation, I was still in pretty bad shape and it should have been enough to make me stop and rest. Of course I didn’t do this and ploughed on with my holiday trying to make sure everything went to plan. I took people out for lunches, had afternoon strolls and tried to pretend everything was normal, all the while my clothing covering up the bruises across my body. The sense of control that having a plan and following it through created was more essential than my physical well being.
Eventually my body won and I was forced to stop and be at the mercy of the unknown. I ended up in a sling for 12 weeks and it was an extreme lesson in letting go. It acted as a reset to some of my self perpetuating bad behaviours around planning.
Since leaving the rat race 18 months ago, I’ve naturally relied less on diaries and schedules and this has been a good way to curb my dependency on this planned way of living. Having more “free” time means that I’m not always trying to cram multiple activities in to one day and I’ve slowly become more open to the idea of “winging” plans dependent on how I feel at a particular moment. Ross Hill calls this natural adventure and it is an approach that feels very fluid and rational to me but one that I am still only able to apply to small parts of my life.
Injuring my back last week forced me to surrender to the natural unfolding of events. Feeling highly anxious about it was an indication that I need to revisit the self belief that planning equals control.
My challenge : To utilise my planning abilities in positive way. To not become unstuck when things don’t go to plan. To tackle my belief that plans equal control. To challenge my ideas about what control really means. To embrace more natural adventure.
Thoughts? Tips? Personal experience you wish to share around this topic?
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Tresna, such a sad panda in that photo!
Isn’t this just another one of those annoying time-management things? I mean, I’ve always been told good organisation of tasks that _need doing, leaves the rest of the week for living ‘free and easy’.
Unfortunately my personal experiences in wonderful time management are based in New York, where I had zero responsibility. I was there for a month, with *nothing* I needed to do. Visit a cafe, invited “do you want to hang out?”, and then we hang out. Soup parties, parks, rooftops, galleries, bad musicians, good Mexican food. That there was some really slick use of quality time.
p.s. plan(n)ed, paragraph six.
In the Four Hour Body, Tim Ferriss says that once he considered how easy it is to die, that lead him to take action.
Your ‘Being at the mercy of the unknown’ is an amazing way of phrasing this.
Hope you’re feeling better – get some coffee into you!
Very interesting points you raise, my dear. I find identify far too much with the analogy of fitting appointments together like a tetris puzzle, constantly trying to get the most our of every waking hour of every day. I would dearly love to be able to “let things go” a little more and enjoy going with the flow a lot more. You and I are very much the same in this regard. Maybe we can try and teach each other.
Either way, I hope you’re feeling a little better and you are enjoying a guilt free excuse to do nothing but read, eat and watch hours and hours of Glee, Madmen and Big Love – I have supplementary seasons if needed… x
I am also appalled at my own inability to proofread comments posted on other people’s blogs which I will not have the power to amend after the fact. Out of control. Scarily so!
Trez… You are such an old soul and have such keen insight into yourself and life
Btw.. I just wanted to give you a huge hug when I saw your photo! Xo
Hope you’re on the mend
Ronnie xo
oh lady, you’re such a wise one, but don’t beat yourself up. Let us know if you need anything – I’m around days (ok… they might be scheduled, but they’re flexible, honest!). xxx
Could it be that you are trying to release yourself from “needing to know exactly what will happen” rather than “being in control” – I may be splitting hairs but there maybe a subtle difference. It also occurs to me that we are not really in that much control of much our lives in anycase – we can certainly steer the ship in a certain direction and there is a sense of satisfaction when we see the results we were expecting, but our life experience is more a product of the environment and things that happen to us than as a direct result of the choices we make. If you make a conscious decision to study for 6 years and get a master degree, your intention in doing so is not to find your wife (or husband) – or is it?. I think that the desire to need to know exactly what will happen is probably borne out of an inability to “control” external events and influences so I agree they are intricately linked, but one you must just accept and the other you can wrestle and potentially make some headway with. Then again, I probably don’t know you that well and am just rambling before my first coffee at 6:30 in the morning.. };>
Wonderful piece Tresna
I can identify with being in control. I’ve been heard to utter from time to time of my day job that getting my schedule under control feels like being an air traffic controller, slipping people in and out of slots, keeping others in a holding pattern.
Perhaps the current back problem is related to the accident three years ago, both physically and metaphysically?