The Illusion of Control and why we need to let it go!
By: Süneyye Zeyrek
Tags: Letting Go, Psychology, Trauma, Growth, Awakening

Photo by Patryk Gradys on UNSPLASH

“The more something threatens to change how you view yourself, how successful/unsuccessful you believe yourself to be, how well you see yourself living up to your values, the more you will avoid ever getting around to doing it. There’s a certain comfort that comes with knowing how you fit in the World. Anything that shakes up that comfort — even if it could potentially make your life better — is inherently scary ”

— Mark Manson — The Subtle Art of Not Giving F#ck

Courtesy of the lockdowns bestowed upon the country by the government, lately I’ve been spending a lot of time with myself. I’ve been treating myself to home movie nights and candlelit dinners, reminiscing with old family photo albums and thinking about the future but mostly about the past — my past. My below ramblings will entail a set of thoughts and lessons from my accumulated pain and trauma, which may at first seem to be suggesting a state of hopelessness and weakness, encouraging you to take a nihilistic approach toward life and give up — but on the contrary, this post is about how to thrive and find genuine happiness regardless of the loss of control, while avoiding self sabotaging tendencies which arrive consequentially.

To explain as briefly as possible; about ten years ago when I was studying for my first University Degree, I was a completely different person to who I am today. Honestly, I am also a completely different person to who I was a month ago but that’s just the perks of being a passenger on the journey to spiritual awakening. Endless growth and painful change comes with the territory.

A decade ago I was a law student with hopes and dreams and a huge appetite to change the world. Although, I had a lot of life experience back then and measured on the higher side of the maturity scale due to having to grow up much earlier than my peers, I still had a naivety to me that blinded me to what this world was really made of. Back then I genuinely believed that anything was possible and hard work would pay off even if it took a little longer than expected. I studied hard, set my goals, kept my promises and graduated with great success. Shortly after my final exams were complete and I received my results, my father was diagnosed with stage IV liver cancer and was given just days to live.

“Tumour”, “metastasis”, “there is nothing we can do” and finally, “he doesn’t have much time left”. These were the words that caused an energy shift in my energy field that changed me as a person and my life forever. My whole world turned completely upside down. My dad, my best friend, the only man who ever loved me unconditionally was dying and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. That was the first time in my entire 22 year life that I felt so out of control — like I was trapped underwater and tied down with cement blocks — my dad was dying and my hands were tied. My best friend was leaving me and I couldn’t do anything to save him. I had no control whatsoever. He’d be gone soon — forever. In July of 2011, my best friend passed away. My father’s death was my first time surrendering complete control. Up until then I had done a fairly good job at keeping myself together, planning for the future and chasing after my goals. My life had involved many blows but I still managed to recover from them relatively easily. I never felt like I had lost control of my life until the untimely death of my father. However, it didn’t take long before I got back up on my feet and desperately tried to take charge of my life again.

Not much changed in terms of my goals and desires after my father passed away. Though, there was now a huge hole in my heart and an even bigger, irrecoverable void in my life, I still had goals I wanted to pursue and accomplishments I desperately wanted to achieve. So after a reasonable amount of grieving (months of endless crying sessions, so much so that I would faint towards the end of the day and completely black out for hours), I got back up, applied for further education, moved countries and started my new life. John Lennon once said “Life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans” and boy was he right. Shortly after I had begun my new life, I received a call that my mother was taken ill and needed my care. I put my life on hold once again and returned to London to take care of my mother who would also be diagnosed with cancer shortly. Once again, I had lost all control. I was no longer in charge of my life. While I was making plans and setting goals for my future, my real life kept rolling before my eyes completely outside my direction — like I was no longer the director of my own life — and that’s when the dissociating phase of my depression kicked in. I felt my conscious and body as two separate entities. I felt like I was watching my life from the outside, like a spectator or by-passer, as if I had absolutely nothing to do with it. I felt like a stranger in my own body. Honestly, if you can comeback from that feeling, you can pretty much accomplish anything. In May of 2015, my beautiful mother passed away. After dedicating 4 of which should’ve been my prime career years taking care of my mother and desperately trying to save her from succumbing to my father’s fate, I lost her too. At the age of 26, I was an adult orphan and completely alone.

Photo by Jonathan Riley on UNSPLASH

It was after my mothers death that I finally understood — control is an illusion. Trying to gain control over your life and planning out every aspect like an errand is absolutely delusional. If you haven’t realised this yet, it is only a matter of time before you will. Unfortunately, a time will come in your life when you will have to involuntarily relinquish control because you have no other choice but to surrender. Surrender to fate, the divine or luck, which ever explanation makes sense for you. It will be at that very moment that you realise the true essence of freedom — letting go of control.

Due to my perfectionism and expectations I imposed upon my very self, following the loss of control I experienced with the death of my parents, I started to display acts of self sabotage. I started procrastinating relentlessly. I avoided school, job opportunities, any relationship prospects and even my friendships. My life wasn’t perfect anymore. It was not the way I had planned it and therefore it was no longer worth living. I know right, talk about a buzz kill! One of the reasons why we self sabotage is because we fear failure. We fear losing control and failing despite our efforts and hard work. We would rather postpone our goals rather than face possible but repairable failure because we have an idea of what success is in our minds and fear we may not match up to it in the 3D realm. However, as Mark Manson put it in ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F#ck’ — “…greatness is merely an illusion in our minds, a made-up destination that we obligate ourselves to pursue, our own psychological Atlantis”. Wow, just wow! Is there a better way to phrase this godforsaken trap?

To further clarify the point made earlier in the post, this is not an attempt to promote giving up or adopting an indifferent, depressed approach for life just because we have no control over it anyway — au contraire! It’s my story of how I went from a perfectionist, control freak who constantly sabotaged herself because real life wouldn’t match up to the ridiculously high standards she made up in her mind and measured herself against, to a laid back, yet happily content soul, comfortable in her own skin and ready to take on anything life throws her way. It took two traumatic deaths to teach me that control is an illusion and letting it go will set you free.

The more you hold on to a sense of control and the more perfectionism you chase, the more you will intentionally or subconsciously sabotage yourself. So let it go, let the control go. Embrace the messiness, embrace the chaos, embrace the loss and failure and all the heartbreak — don’t postpone, don’t give up, do not lose the greatest and most productive years of your life chasing the unachievable. Let go of all expectations but hold on to your dreams. They may or may not become your reality, you may or may not achieve your goals but life will put you on the right path, everything will fall into place nicely, as long as you keep heading forward.