Lessons....

Yesterday was not a good day around here. While I try to avoid bringing that kind of stuff to this site, it holds a larger message.

Charles Eisenstein writes about "The Age of Control", the inherent belief that we have the right to control everything, that nothing should ever inconvenience us or irritate us. It's an extension of the belief that we are separate from nature and that means we have a right to control it for our convenience and benefit. That's the larger picture.

In the small frame, yesterday provided me with a lesson about control. Here's just an overview of what occurred around here.

1) My email was broken all day. Couldn't get my mail to work so I had to spend all my time tracking and trying to make sure things got where they were supposed to go. For the most part, nothing went where it was supposed to go which means I had to keep trying and trying again, only to find out wires were still crossed.

2) Some strange guy came in off the street and for a fleeting moment, I believed we were experiencing a home invasion. The guy finally left and we're okay.

3) Thieves came by during the night and stole two huge potted plants from the front of the house. My housemate was bereft and complaining all day

4) My housemate called her son and discovered he is drinking again. He was drunk by 9.00 a.m.

5) For some unfathomable reason, my housemate believes that I want to hear all about it ~ and not only that, I am supposed to come up with answers to her questions,

6) I could not do one thing without her interrupting me which occurs a lot. One day I counted how many times she interrupts me in a day and it was nearly 20. It doesn't matter if I am reading, on the Internet, gardening or anything else. If I'm present, I am interruptible.

7) One of my housemate's son's friends decided that I needed to be his counselor. I was sitting in the back yard with a book and he interrupted me to tell me all of his issues with women. Every other word started with an 'eff' or "em eff". He told me that when he takes out women, he expects them to "give it up" right away before he takes them out so that he'll know it's "worth my time". Needless to say, he got a severe talking-to from me. I'm at least 20 years older than him and I talked to him as though I am 20 years older than him.

All of these things combined caused me to have something I haven't had in a long time - and that is a panic attack. My head began to pound and the shaking started. The chest pains started. I was short of breath. I really thought my head was going to explode. I couldn't take one. more. thing. No more chaos. No more negativity. No more whining from my housemate. No more frustration from the email. Seriously. I was at the end of my personal rope and there was nothing left to tie a knot.

But... all boiled down.. it was me trying to control my environment. I so needed to control it that I went into my room and shut the door for the remainder of the day. I didn't check my email or talk to anyone in the house.

I needed.. that control.

Somehow I need to learn to roll with these things a bit more - to not get so upset that I am having physical reactions to it.

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts about control... and how much you deal with frustration. It seems to be the weakest link in my personal chain. Frustration.. and my life is, if nothing else, rather consistently frustrating.

So... that's what I'd like to discuss for the weekend. (I will not be posting again until next week.) What are your thoughts on coping with frustration?

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