Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

And sometimes it's one step forward, and two steps back.

I got thrown for a loop this morning.  

Something I had been counting on, something someone else was going to do and which I was fully supportive of, even to the point of looking forward to more things I could do to help this person, fell through because the person involved backed out.


Whoomp.

I was hit like a ton of bricks - broadsided.  And guess what.  I was ANGRY.  I was totally ticked, royally bummed out, and thoroughly disappointed.  I felt betrayed, dismissed, and totally disrespected.  And yet - it was that person's choice to do (or not do) what he or she did.  


It takes something like that to really show me how insidious, how cunning and powerful and totally mystifying my addiction to control is.  I was close to tears most of the day (okay, I did have about a 5-minute cry at my desk) because of this ... this thing over which - truth be told - I have no control, have never had control and will never have control.  Period.

I summed it up during a rather ill-advised conversation with someone while I was still smarting from this perceived slap-in-the-face - "I'm finding it really hard to let go of this."

And a bell - faint and distant it seemed because it was drowned out by self-pity and frustration - started to ring in the far recesses of my spirit.  Where had I come across this before I wonder .... oh yes.  The Serenity Prayer.  "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change ..."  Hm.  Well, if anything needed accepting it was this.  My stomach was in knots.  My mind was inventing all kinds of things that would happen because this person wasn't behaving right.

Right....did you catch that?  "Right" being "the way I wanted him or her to behave."  

I knew what I needed to do.  I needed to let go.  I was having a hard time doing that and it was because it was ME trying to let go.  I hadn't prayed about it.  I was reacting - just like the old me.  Ping-ping-ping Ricochet Rabbit!!

So coming back from the washroom at one point, I prayed.  Since I couldn't think of better words, it was "God, grant me the serenity to accept the thing I cannot change..."  and I reached into my spiritual kit of tools and pulled out the first one I had ever used.  "I am powerless over others; my life is unmanageable because I keep trying to control them."  "Let go and let God."  With that, I could put the situation on hold and concentrate on something else, give time for God to work in me, on me.  

Is the situation resolved?  I don't know.  And I wish I could say that my unrest has disappeared like fog when the sun comes up.  But what I can say is that I'm learning to let go and let people be who they are, do what they'll do and bear the consequences of their own choices.  I don't have to like it.  But I do have to take my hands off and leave it alone.  

And thank God I don't have to do it alone.