Don't Squeeze the Bunny!

I know we've discussed my recovering perfectionism, but I'm not sure if we've hit on my overwhelming desire for control (at all times) yet. Perfectionism and control go together like peanut butter and chocolate (and can be just as dangerous, though arguably less fattening). So, I would say I spend a fair amount of my time trying to control my need for perfectionism and control (see what just happened there??).

I would like to argue (with myself, apparently), that a little bit of control can be a good thing. It helps me stay focused, decide what I want in life, and set goals to achieve all of these things I want.

Now, I don't know if you've known many therapists, but we are crazy about goals. There's purpose in this; if we don't know where clients want to end up, we can't really help get them there. Goals help fulfill a sense of control over therapy.

Thus, when you're a therapist and a recovering perfectionist/controlaholic, goals are the coolest.

Goals: Cooler than a frozen waterfall. 

About two weeks ago, I had a (fairly important) presentation* that determined quite a bit about the next 9 months of my life. Needless to say, I was a bit stressed that week. The morning of the presentation, I picked up two of my Deepak Chopra books I have lying around, and opened one up to him explaining the Law of Detachment. He says,

"In order to acquire anything in the physical universe, you have to relinquish your attachment to it. This doesn't mean you give up the intention to create your desire. You don't give up the intention, and you don't give up the desire. You give up your attachment to the result." 

Oddly enough, (well, not that odd after what we discussed in this post) I picked up the second book and happened to open it on the very same idea. Simply stated in Christine-ese**, you:

 1) Create your goal,
 2) Give up your attachment to the outcome, and
 3) Let God/the Universe handle the details.

Now, please refer to the beginning of this post when I explained my intense desire for control. Unfortunately, Point two above does not say, "Freak out and focus so much on the goal and outcome and don't think about anything else." Oh no. Point two is saying "Relax, and know that you'll be okay regardless of how things turn out." Point three goes beyond and says, "Oh, and while you're relaxing, the Powers that Be will figure out the details. You don't have to."

Have you ever met a control freak who lets somebody else figure out the details of something very important?!?

I didn't think so.

Take a note from the ceramic cat on the fire escape. Just chill.

I was chatting with a lovely lady the other day and she mentioned that in all areas of her life but one, she was doing really well. It turns out that in this one area, she had a very clear, outlined goal, and spent most of her waking hours thinking about how she was going to achieve it.

(Have you ever met someone who really really really wanted to find a significant other, and spent hours thinking about being in a relationship, planning out their perfect spouse, going on endless dates, etc...only they don't have any success in finding someone? Eventually, this person decides that they will never find a partner, accepts their fate as a singleton, and changes their focus to their own needs. Before you know it, after this paradigm shift takes place [aka the person decided they would be fine even if they never find a partner], they happen to randomly meet someone, fall in love, and live happily ever after.)

It was the same kind of thing for this lady. In the other areas of her life that were going well, she relinquished control and decided that whatever happened would happen, and she was going to be great no matter what. After a few months of this attitude, things fell right into place and were great!  This last thing, however, she couldn't let go.

For some reason, the three points that we talked about earlier jumped in my head during this conversation, and I imagined a small child with a little bunny rabbit. Now, children aren't always the most gentle with little animals...often when you're around a child with a  bunny (dog, cat, bird, lizard, whatever), you'll hear their parents saying, "Gentle...gentle....gentle!!!" Inevitably, the child will hold on to the bunny SO tightly it will want to leave. The tighter the child squeezes, the more the bunny wants to go.

Oddly enough, I don't have any pictures of bunnies in my files. In lieu of a bunny picture, here is me trying to make friends with a peacock. Same principle - the more I tried to be friends, the less he was interested. 

Now, picture that one big goal you have as a sweet, soft little bunny rabbit (Clear explanations of the metaphor I'm going for will be in parentheses and italics) You're holding Bunny, giving Bunny soft, gentle caresses, (Point One: you have established your goal) but you sense that Bunny doesn't want to be held anymore (You are not getting what you want related to said goal). Your immediate reaction is to hold Bunny tighter (Goal is not happening soon enough!). Eventually Bunny's eyes start bulging (You're getting stressed, more and more of your energy is being focused on not getting the goal) and if you don't stop soon, worse things are going to happen than Bunny hopping out of your hands (Your focus on the goal is making things worse in your life, not better! Plus, you're not any closer to achieving your goal than when you started!) 

So, after that weird and visual metaphor, the aforementioned lady and I discussed that the more she focused on her goal, the more it became like her squeezing the life out of poor Bunny.

Does this sound familiar to anyone else? It certainly hit home for me. I have no problem letting go of the little things in life, but the big things, the Goals (with a capital G) I have in place that are part of how I identify myself and that are big pieces of my "Life Plan" - those are harder to let go. And I tend to squeeze the crap out of Bunny with those.

Thus, in order to avoid being hypocritical and give advice that I don't take, I have been working on my own Big Goals, and have been practicing letting them go. So, I will remind myself on a daily basis, "Don't squeeze the bunny!" and just allow things to fall into place as they always do (when I stop trying to control things).

As always, I'd love to hear your own experiences with letting go, and would appreciate any hints/tips/tricks you feel like sharing for (me!!) others in the same boat.

I am so grateful that you took the time to read this, and I hope you have an incredible day :)



*The presentation went very well, thank you! 
**This is a very unique language that can be difficult to translate at times. It is rarely consistent but often spoken in a very  high pitched voice.