I have moved from a place of trying to control everything, in a world in which I myself was being thrown about in a sea of huge rolling waves over which I had no control.

In those days, it felt like the world was happening to me, and I in my weakness must do all I could to protect myself and those whom I love from it.

My attempts to protect were herculean, but they were damaging to my own well being and to the important relationships in my life, most particularly my adolescent children who needed to break free and did so causing me huge pain.

In my life of living in the present, I now exercise a sense of control in my interactions with self and with the world.

This is a constructive change, because this new control sense helps me to keep a perspective and balance in difficult situations which I encounter as I journey though my life.

This control sense prevents me from reacting to emotions which I am feeling in the moment, or to events and people with whom I interact, particularly my family, so that I take my time and I am more reflective and precise when giving my response or choosing not to give a response as the case may be.

I have learned to live with the discomfort, to notice it, but be passive in the moment.

I no longer give an opinion on everything, in fact I will only do so after much reflection and soul-searching if I think my intervention will help in a given situation and even then, I have to allow for the fact that my opinion may not be accepted.

It almost sounds cold and calculated, but this new sense of control, enables me to journey through my life less reactively, less critically, less helplessly that was hitherto the case.

In my quiet moments, I can feel the control within me, it’s rhythm beats to the music of my heart, because it is balanced.

If I am agitated, I love being able to feel into the wonderful imbalance – I’m not scared by it, I’m thrilled to be on to it, because it has not announced itself in anger earlier in the day as it used to do in the past.

By listening to my inner voice, I can calm the uncertainty, by learning to accept it, to change it if that is a possibility, to take it forward with me courageously by acknowledging that this is how it is at this time.

My next blog will be “Whatever They Do Is Wrong”

William Defoe