I can only control myself'

So I've been on my own for more than a week. I couldn't find a spare moment to blog in all that time. More accurately, I couldn't muster the motivation. I've spent all my free time playing guitar and watching re-runs of "Are you being served?"

I find it odd that I am supposed to have much more free time then I did in grad school, and yet, in grad school it seemed as if I had endless opportunities to blog. I believe the reality of it lies in the fact that there were many more things I COULD avoid doing by blogging. In fact, the only reason I finally found time to blog was because I am avoiding my clinical notes RIGHT now!

The past week has been unusually stressful and the hopes that this week would be less so have already been shattered.  Added to that stress is my husband being in New York for ten days.  Without his comforting presence, I have taken to sleeping to cope with the stress. While that may seem like a one way ride to depression town, I have found that short naps are healthy coping mechanism. The alternatives being eating, drugs, alcohol or mental breakdowns, sleeping appears to the lesser of all evils. Granted, there is always exercise. There are certainly times when I go that route. But exercise in itself is stressful. There's the putting on of special clothing I would never wear at any other time. The actual GOING to the YMCA. If I decide to walk around my neighborhood there's the clothes changing and the showering when I return. Added to that is the guilt I always feel for not taking my dog with me. He's not good on long walks because he's so slow and has to pee on and smell everything. Then there is the inevitable verbal altercation with the other neighborhood dogs. That is not peaceful. So I leave him behind but experience significant guilt because we both know where I'm going and what I am doing. He never mentions it when I get back, but it's there. To appease my guilt I feed him treats. He already has a weight problem. So at that point treating my stress is leading my dog to senior obesity. So naps seem like the best alternatives. Short moments in bed, or on the couch, or on the porch swing that revive me and grant me a fresh perspective when I awake.

Of course prayer and reflection are also essential for resisting the swelling tide of life's circumstances. This past week there has been one thing that has brought me an overwhelming amount of peace. A friend and college suggested an activity for assisting children in identifying areas of their life they may feel are out of control. The activity involves requesting the child to draw a picture of the ocean and a picture of a boat in that ocean. The therapist then asks the child to write everything they have control of on the boat and everything they don't have control of in the ocean.

So this past week I asked one of my child clients to participate in this activity, She surprised me by drawing a picture of herself in the boat. On boat, she wrote, "I only have control of myself" and in the ocean she wrote   " I can not control other people." Pretty impressive! For some reason this stuck with me all week. Whatever happened, whatever went wrong or whatever seemed insurmountable, I thought about that picture. It was a great reminder that I have no control whatsoever of the circumstances surrounding me. If clients cancel appointments at the last minute, if life's circumstances seem to be getting out of control, I can only control my own attitude and behavior. I can only accomplish the tasks in front of me. Even if I'm great, if I'm 100%, the actions of others can steer my little boat the wrong way.  But at the end of the day, I am left with the peace that I have done all that is in my power to do, and not deceived myself into thinking I can do anymore.

And the greater peace of that is that whatever is mine to control I can turn over to God. In that is the greatest peace! I can only control myself (which trust me is A Lot to control!!!) but God can control me and everything else.

"I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship."- Louisa May Alcott