If you know me, you know that one of my least favourite things is to not be in control.

Letting go is by far the hardest thing for me to do. I’d rather wrestle a 10 foot croc than attempt to relinquish control.

Oddly enough though, that’s what I did all last week. I was too tired and too upset about a certain incident to even attempt to control my life. I gave up in a way – at least for that week. I needed time to rest and heal. I needed time to process.

And as I pointed out on Friday, the week where I got the least done ended up being the week where I’ve sold the most since September.

Crazy.

The thing is though, I’d like this whole selling thing to continue. But for it to continue, I have to make sure my control freak doesn’t get in the way. Because normally when she sees success, she rushes over to it and lies right on top of it.

She thinks she’s hatching an egg – she’s actually just squashing a plant.

So this morning, I decided that perhaps I would have a conversation with this crazy control freak of mine, and see if we couldn’t come to some sort of agreement.

Turns out, she really didn’t wanna talk

As I began writing and talking to her, I could feel this big wall coming up. This huge, “Oh hell no, we are not having this conversation.” I mean, I’d only asked her how she was, but she knew what was coming and she was not pleased.

Two seconds later, I ended up spilling an entire cup of tea all over my desk, which took me 15 minutes to clean up. (It was a really big mug, and got under and over everything.) It even got all over the piece of paper I was writing on.

She’s a devilish one, my control freak.

She really didn’t want to have this conversation.

I bullied her into it. I know you’re supposed to be gentle with yourself, but this part of me felt like it was only going to respond to someone stronger than her. So I ordered her to talk. It was like some bad detective movie – fluorescent bulbs and trench coats.

Me: Okay talk, kid. Why exactly do you have to control everything?

Control Freak: Because if I’m in control, then everything is safe.

Me: Safe? Hey, wait a second...are you just my fear wearing a different hat?

Control Freak: Uhh…(looks the other way)…Maybe. Yeah. Um. Probably. Definitely.

Me: (Sigh.) I thought we’d already talked about this…I get that you’re scared. I get that. And I’ve told you that you can stay, and that I love you. But don’t you see that we want success? That we want to sell things and share them with people? That this is everything we’ve always dreamed of?

Control Freak: Yes, but we don’t want to do it this way. We don’t want any of this organic, natural growth. Nothing unexpected. We need to control it, so we know what it’s doing and it doesn’t go too fast.

Me: You do realize that by trying to control the growth that you kill it completely? And then we end up with no success at all?

Control Freak: Well, at least that’s predictable. At least that’s expected. I mean, let’s face it, nobody thinks you can do this anyway.

Me: That is so not true anymore. Lots of people believe that we can do it. We have like, several billion people on our side now. There’s only a few who don’t think we can do it.

Control Freak: Okay, whatever you sayy.

Me: Grumble, grumble, grumble, stupid control freak. Grr.

Let’s try this again

Me: So, I’m guessing that you’re not going to just voluntarily relinquish control of our success?

Control Freak: Bingo.

Me: Can we do a trade or something? Like if I give you something else to control, would you be willing to give up control in return for that?

Control Freak: Maybe. Depends.

Me: If I give you control of exercising, nap time, meditating, the Artist’s Way and play time, will you give up success? I mean, come on, that’s 5 things for one. Five.

Control Freak: And I get to control them completely? Like, if I say “Go yoga right this second!” you’ll hop to it and go yoga? Or if I tell you to go nap? Or to slow down and enjoy yourself? You’ll listen? Because you never listen to me on this success stuff. You’re always ignoring me. It means I have to yell louder.

Me: I promise that whatever you ask me to do in those areas, I will listen and do it straight away. I promise you that.

Control Freak: Alright then, you have yourself a deal.

So we’ll see how this goes

Hopefully by giving my inner control freak something more helpful and productive to play with, she’ll start to leave all the success stuff alone, and allow my life to just get on with itself.

Last week, despite getting so little done, I felt in flow. I finally felt like I wasn’t standing in my own way. I was just standing, accepting where I was and not forcing anything. And things worked out anyways.

Now I just have to see if I can consciously stay in that place, without internally seizing up again.

I’ll let you guys know how it goes!