Meridith Elliott Powell explains how trying to control things beyond your reach, like other people's addiction, stems from fear and shuts down creativity. She shares a two-pile exercise: list your worries, then separate what you can control from what you can't. Most concerns are actually controllable, and focusing there frees up mental energy.
I mean, for me to let go of the addicts in my life when everybody in society was telling me it was my job to save them. You know, it's— we get a lot of societal messages to try to tell us to control things that we cannot control. So one of the interesting things that I found from doing the research I did is that when you are moving from fear, whether it's as extreme as my example, your life examples, or it's just you're afraid of your boss at work, something simple like that, you're literally moving from the side of your brain that shuts down creativity, innovation, and engagement. And those are the skills you're going to need to deal with disruption and uncertainty. So, I have this exercise that I do with myself and I do with my clients. I'm kind of going through a rough patch right now, and I just did this this morning. I write down everything I'm worried about. Even I don't judge it either. Like, even if I'm worried about the fact that I won't be able to pay the mortgage, which is crazy because I don't even have a mortgage, but you just put it down, everything that you're worried about, and you divide it into 2 piles. What you're worried about And I mean, what you can control and what you can't control. And you'll find that what you can't control is only 3 to 5 things in life, you know? And you focus your time and your energy there. That's how you, that's how you, in my opinion, let go.
