…so I’m gonna let it do all the talking.” ~KT Tunstall – Black Horse & The Cherry Tree
I’ve heard this song for years on the radio and multiple times on the CD, which I finally bought a couple weeks ago, and I know all the words. But for some reason, today as I was driving home from lunch, I really heard the first line of the song, quoted above. It struck a nerve in my soul.
Lately I’ve been thinking a whole heck of a lot about how I always have to know what my plans are. Details! Give me the details! In a sense, I’m a huge control freak. I don’t like being caught off guard. It doesn’t feel safe at all. I have myself convinced that if only I know what to expect, then I’ll be okay. As much as it pains me to admit, I don’t think this is actually true and it probably makes me more anxious than I need to be because I seriously cannot control everything in my life. But that lovely part of me that likes to control keeps trying to win the argument and just knows that control = safety. And there’s probably no convincing it otherwise.
Lucky for me, I still have my heart. It’s the opposite. There’s no need to control anything. Just trust. Trust that all will be well no matter what happens, no matter how much control I don’t have. In fact, the less control, the better. I’ve been making a very concious effort to soothe and calm the controlling side while listening to my heart and it’s quiet murmurings. And I have to say, it is taking me on a wild ride! Things are unfolding in my life in a way I would not have imagined even a month ago. And I guess that’s why these lyrics jumped out at me so profoundly today. I realized that my heart does know me better than I know myself and that I should listen more often to what it is telling me. Because when I do, life flows. It just happens. And I don’t have to do anything to make it happen.
When on the path of self-discovery, it behooves oneself to listen, not control. Control is the part that doesn’t trust anything, that is scared that all will crumble around me if I don’t hold it all together. It’s what some would call the ego I suppose. Although I personally don’t like that distinction. Makes it sound like the ego is a bad thing. But let’s face it, we ALL have one, so deal with it. I think to deny the ego is to deny part of oneself. And to deny part is to deny the whole. But that’s going off on a tangent….
In my experience, control is stressful. It causes me great anxiety and I always feel I’m walking on thin ice. At any moment, the ice is going to crack and I’m going to sink below the surface never to be seen again. And there’s no chance the ice won’t crack. There is no escaping it. It is inevitable. Not such a comforting place to be.
But when I am able to quiet that part of me and listen to my heart, I feel much more at ease, calm, trusting. And doors begin to open, ideas flow, possibilities seem like a reality, not just some pie in the sky dream I’ll never be able to achieve. And I’m much happier when I’m in this state of mind, when I’m listening to that Voice. So I’m going to let my heart do all the talking. Woo Hoo!
Girl In The Mirrored Bottle 