Freaking Out

Have you ever had one of those moments when you feel completely out of control and you ‘get your freak on’ even when you don’t want or mean to?

No one likes those moments but it can happen to the best of us. It could be a phone call about a loved one that sends us into a freak mode. Sometimes it could be news of an upcoming restructure in the workplace that you know will come with job losses.

At the start of the pandemic, I saw friends freak out because they had symptoms they would normally have explained away. Against the backdrop of COVID-19, they read more into the symptoms causing more harm to their health by allowing stress, panic and fear to take hold. None of them had COVID but their minds suffered the trauma as if they had it.

Sometimes we freak out because of something happening to us but some of us create and live in a state of ‘freak’ because we want to be in control of everything and find that we really aren’t.

As a parent, as my children grew up, there were times when I could wrap them in cotton wool, as much as I liked, to keep them safe. But over time this changed and I had to loosen the strings or risk being in a permanent state of ‘freak out’.

When we freak out, it is usually because we feel out of control and allow panic and fear to become our constant state of mind.

So what can we do?

Accept the truth

The truth is that we are not in control of the ‘big and most important stuffs’ like the breathe in our lungs, whether we wake up after sleeping or napping.

We are not in control of when the sun rises or sets and we are not in control of the entire world or how plants grow.

Sure we can play our small parts in helping things along but we can’t control the responses to our actions.

I once got two identical plants and treated them the same; one blossomed and grew to four times the size of the other. I swapped their positions in the house because I figured that was the main differential but there was no change to their growth pattern. I had to accept that their responses to my actions were outside of my control.

Be in ‘the right’ control

There are some things that we are and should be in control of. Some of the things you’re in control of include the amount of effort you invest, your words, your actions and your choices.

You are also in control of how you treat others, take care of yourself, how you handle your feelings and whether or not you break any rules. We just need to figure out the many things within our control and start to control them.

Let go of the ‘wrong’ control

No matter how much you want to control certain things; you can’t so for the sake of your sanity, stop trying.

You will never be in control of what other people do or the choices they make. You can’t control what other people say or feel, things that are past or yet to happen and the weather.

We can pray and hope for the best in all situations but we must choose to be in a place of trust no matter the outcomes.

People will see, hear and respond through the lens of their experiences and other factors and we are not in control of their lens.

‘Prepare’ to back off

Sometimes we freak out because we haven’t done our due diligence and prepared in the right way. As a parent, I had to trust that I had done everything I could do to raise my children right and I could release them into the ‘big scary world’ and they would be just fine.

Prepare well at the right time and you can relinquish control of the outcomes. It allows you to trust the process knowing that good inputs have gone in. So the key to feeling in control in certain situations is to do your best with the elements that were within your control.

Thanks for reading my post. If you enjoy them or find them useful, please share it with others and have a great week.