Tuesday, 9 July 2013

Control versus FLOW!



By Aine Belton

Control arises out of fear, negative expectations and a resistance to ‘what is’, and instantly creates constriction.
It can also stem from a sense of scarcity in that you don’t expect to get what you desire hence your attempt to control to attain it. This underlying belief in scarcity, however, repels the outcome you seek in itself, since your inner beliefs are determinants of your experience.
Control never works. Even if it does temporarily achieve what it attempts to, this never creates any genuine sense of reward, success, security, peace, joy, or fulfillment, or anything satiating or lasting.
This is because control is founded on the false premise that what you seek not only lies outside of you, but that you need to manipulate outer circumstances in some way to get it.
Furthermore, what you feel the need to control for may not even be for your highest or what you really want. It may be what your ego rather than soul wants, for example, or what the limited perspectives of your conditioned mind are seeking.
When you attempt to control your reality, people or circumstances you are acting from a disempowered position that sabotages the very thing you may be attempting to gain, and reflects an innate distrust in things going your way, which will never be resolved through control.
If you believed you could manifest your heart’s desires effortlessly because you had belief in the outcomes and felt you deserved them, you would not try to control. You would instead trust in the unfoldment of happy positive outcomes, open to receive, and hold positive thoughts and feelings about those outcomes that help them to manifest.
Control can be an attempt to either protect yourself from something perceived as negative – hurt, failure, loss (of success/freedom/happiness/a person), humiliation, pain, rejection, etc., or to attain something you desire yet on some level do not expect to receive, perhaps because deep down you feel you don’t deserve it, or because you have negative beliefs and expectations about attaining it, for example.
Even if you do temporarily ‘get’ what you think you want because you have manipulated to attain it, you have not received it in any true sense, and hence will feel both unfulfilled and distrusting in its longevity. You won’t feel it came your way by virtue of who you are, but by your means of ‘forcing’ reality into how you would like it to be which in itself is symptomatic of a lack of trust and inability to receive, and the ego’s ploy at having things be its way, which could be against the grain of what would most serve you and the bigger picture of your soul’s path.
Whatever you get through control will always be accompanied with an after-taste of doubt. The fear and negative undercurrents beneath any need to control will still be there. As such you won’t positively believe in or expect the success of your outcome to last.
Controlling, whilst an attempt to secure a result, is a sure-fire way to repel it. Life doesn’t like to be controlled any more than people.
If control doesn’t work, what does?
FLOW.
Ever had those days when everything flows effortlessly in your favour? Good things appear around every bend, synchronicity and serendipity abound, you feel happy, alive, love-full, and trusting, and share your heart freely and generously? You meet that person, get that call, make that deal, receive that inspiration/opportunity/success/win. You feel ‘on a roll’, loved and supported by Life, giving and receiving openly and joyously.
Flow is akin to ‘surfing the crest of a wave’. It strikes that magical balance between positive intentions, thoughts, feelings, and actions, and an openness to possibilities beyond those you may currently hold.
Plans can be good but keep them lose, the universe may have something way better in store.”
What helps to generate flow?
  • Love for self and others
  • Trust
  • Positive belief and expectation
  • Knowing you deserve (which you always do)
  • Being open to ask for and receive help and Grace
  • Positive thoughts, feelings, goals and intentions
  • Being open to life’s synchronicities, serendipities and opportunities
  • Being present and ‘in the moment’
  • Listening to your intuition
  • Letting go of the past
  • Spontaneity
  • Being willing to step outside of your comfort zone
  • Happiness and joy
Have humility and be sensitive to the flow of your life.
Are you banging on doors that aren’t opening whilst ignoring ones that are? Listen to your intuition about possible paths and outcomes. Does what you are consciously striving for feel in alignment with your heart’s deepest wishes and desires? Is it leading to brightest outcomes for yourself and others?
Control is a very off-putting energy. Trying to ‘get’ someone to do anything, be that love you, approve of you, agree with you, give you attention, do things your way, or anything else, will typically create the opposite effect. No one wants to be controlled. People will innately resist and pull away from what they sense as controlling or manipulative behaviour.
The same goes with life. A needy, demanding, entitled or forceful attitude won’t generate positive results.
To help relinquish control take a look at not only what but why you are attempting to control.
What is the fear or need that lies beneath any attempts to control, for example? What is it you are trying to get, avoid, or protect yourself from? What are your beliefs around that? Work on those, and your imagination, sense of deserving, and trust to attain your heart’s desires.
Trust yourself, the universe and others. If you don’t deem someone trustworthy, you may wish to question your own trust levels or your involvement with them, be it in business, friendship or love, rather than use a lack of trust as any excuse to control.
Control is not necessarily the pushy ‘in your face’ behaviour it is often believed to be. It can be more subtle than that and disguised in different ways. Withholding and withdrawal, for example, can be forms of control, as can avoiding certain choices, striving for attention, guilt trips, playing victim, etc.
When you are being controlling you are are not being loving. Control and love don’t co-exist in that sense. Because of that love is a great way to shift out of the grip of any need to control towards states of dominion, trust, compassion, loving choice, peace, harmony, happiness, giving, and receiving.
There is a guiding light that illuminates a path of flow, the most serving way for you to go, so as you chart any terrain you find, or forests in your mind, open to Love, for that is where the light shines, leading you home dear immortal star, to your highest path and the love that you are, and the love at the heart of All, its door ever ajar”.
Surrendering control for loving flow, and releasing any faulty beliefs and fears that lurk beneath your desire to control, allows more pathways to your heart’s desires and brightest outcomes to unfold.
Life really CAN be effortless, fun and magical when you step into flow. That flow may be a focused flow – it is not about having no plans! Goals, desires, plans and intentions can create a framework for flow to weave through (though being flexible and fluid can help at times) and spark the co-creative dance that will take you to bright futures in elegant enjoyable ways.
Anything you wish to share about control or flow? Any experiences of either that come to mind or other thoughts and feelings?
 
Love,
Aine Belton

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