If there\u2019s anything that\u2019s certain in life, it\u2019s that things will happen that are outside of our control. Sure, we can change our environments to reduce the chances of certain things happening and do our best to prepare for worst-case scenarios, but we can\u2019t predict if (or when) they will happen.<\/p>\n
As a result, mindfulness experts and psychologists often tout the benefit of letting go of control and accepting uncertainty. An excessive need to control can lead to unproductive stress, because it often puts people in an extended \u201cfight or flight\u201d mode. Here are 5 mindfulness techniques for letting go of control.<\/p>\n
1. IDENTIFY YOUR TRIGGERS<\/p>\n
The first step of letting go of control is to identify what triggers your need to control things. Do you find yourself anticipating the reaction of your coworkers who have said hurtful things to you in the past? Does your friend\u2019s success lead you to question your own life and make you stressed out about whether or not you\u2019ll experience something similar in the future? Once you realize what they are, you can start to experiment with methods that prevent you from going down into a worry spiral. One simple method is to take a breath and remind yourself that the need to control doesn\u2019t arise from a true \u201cfight or flight\u201d situation.<\/p>\n
2. DO A \u201cMENTAL DUMP\u201d OF YOUR FEELINGS<\/p>\n
Sometimes, the need to control is a reaction to unpleasant feelings. Emotions are difficult to regulate, and you might be craving a sense of certainty because you don\u2019t want bad feelings to take over.<\/p>\n
But unprocessed and suppressed emotions don\u2019t help you feel a sense of contentment. In fact, they do the opposite by making you more prone to stress, anxiety, and irrational outbursts. One way to process your feelings is to write it all down and do a \u201cmental dump\u201d of what you\u2019re thinking. This can help \u201cget the negativity out of your system\u201d.<\/p>\n
3. EMPLOY SOME DISTANCE<\/p>\n
Sometimes, your need for control is related to other people\u2019s thoughts and actions. You need to let go of the anger that makes you want to control other people\u2019s actions in the first place. Often, when you\u2019re angry with somebody, you tend to think repeatedly about the thing they did to you, which keeps you emotionally engaged with the way you were wronged. Psychologists call this repetitious thought pattern \u2018rumination,\u2019 after the term for how cows chew their cud.\u201d<\/p>\n
The best way to deal with rumination is to create some psychological distance. By pushing yourself to see it from the outside, you\u2019ll be coaxing your mind to think of the situation more abstractly. As a result, the specific details of what that person did will be less available to you, and so they\u2019ll have less influence on your emotional state.<\/p>\n
4. CHOOSE TO DEAL WITH IT IN THE FUTURE<\/p>\n
If your need to control what you know to be irrational worrying, perhaps one of the best ways to deal with it is to dedicate a time in the future to worry about it.<\/p>\n
Choosing to dedicate time to \u201cworrying\u201d actually makes you less likely to worry. In turn, it become easier for you to be more at peace with uncertainty and unpredictability.<\/p>\n
5. LEARN TO SEE UNCERTAINTY AS A PART OF LIFE<\/p>\n
We tend to ask questions and generate \u201cwhat-ifs\u201d as an attempt to introduce some certainty when we\u2019re uncomfortable with the unknown. But a more mindful way to approach this is to build tolerance for uncertainty. Then, you can slowly identify which of your worries are \u201cuseful\u201d and which are making you \u201cunnecessarily miserable.\u201d You can choose to let go of the latter and prepare \u201cstrategic solutions\u201d for the former.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If there\u2019s anything that\u2019s certain in life, it\u2019s that t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11115,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[52],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18706"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18706"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18707,"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18706\/revisions\/18707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}