Where do you need to loosen your grip?
It’s easy to get obsessed, to become addicted to a certain goal or outcome.
Relentlessly pursuing something can cause a whole heap of problems:
Burnout
Overwhelm
Alienating friends or family
Ignoring other things that are going well. Etc
And an almighty crash when we realise that the thing we were chasing wasn’t ‘it’. Achieving it didn’t fill the hole. We’re left thinking ‘is this IT’? And then conjuring up another goal to fixate on.
As well as being unhealthy in all the obvious ways, I want to zone in on this idea of clinging on to something too tightly. It could be we’re holding on to something or someone that no longer serves us and we’re reluctant to let go. Or we’re fixating on something we want that we don’t have, for example by obsessing about an interview or promotion. When we’re clinging on so tightly, we aren’t allowing space for new ideas, different solutions, other outcomes - we end up thinking along the lines of ''it must be THIS particular job, nothing else works.’
It reminds me of a Buddha quote: ‘you can only lose what you cling to,’ which prompts me to wonder - where do you need to give up control? Where can you say you’ve done your bit, and surrender to the outcome?
So it’s more of a philosophical reflection from me today, but don’t underestimate it - I share this because it’s a perpetual struggle of mine that I actively work on. There has to be a balance of pushing and allowing. Consider where you can redress the balance.
P.S. This doesn’t mean we can all sit on our yoga mats and take no action. It means taking action and then knowing when to switch into receiving mode. Allowing flexibility to our outcome, knowing that we’ll get what we aimed for, or something even better.
