A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 11 – Inner Choice

In Fiona Ferris’s book, 30 Chic Days, Day 11 is “Adopt A Low-Drama Way of Being.” Fiona gives a lovely discussion of how letting go of being a “control freak” allows her to nurture an internal sense of  beautiful calm and peace – to a large degree independent of the events and people around her.

I can claim the role of poster child for Fiona’s description of a type-A, control freak – with all the near constant frustrations and irritations that accompany that role. It was (initally) quite a disheartening surprise when I truly recognized that the uiverse goes on merrily without any thought of adjusting itself to my particular set of preferences or to-do list.  The barrista really doesn’t care that I’m late (because I overslept) and deserve special treatment to jump in front of all the other people (who surely all had long, delicious full night’s sleep) in the Starbuck’s line? The fact that the checkout person at the grocery store was barely functioning had absolutely nothing to do with me but maybe was distracted because she was up late with teething baby? Imagine! To quote a song from the movie, My Fair Lady, “…without [me] twirling it, the world still spins…”  Just how was I supposed to live with such a callous reality?

As it turns out, I began to live with a much greater sense of joy and fun! Who knew that it feels so much nicer to go about one’s day without such a sense of entitlement? Setting aside the expectation that all things should conform to our every wish paradoxically gives us the freedom to have fun every day.  So, the line moved slowly. We can choose to fume about it (carving ever deeper frown lines!) or we can choose to see it as an unexpected opportunity for people watching! The clerk was barely able to ring up our purchase?  We can choose to see her as an evil-minded hag who is specifically targeting us for mistreatment or we could choose to notice the dark  circles under her eyes and silently send her wishes for peace and rest.

Since, I still remain the type-A, control freak that I have always been, I describe what I experienced as:  I found a much greater sense of control of my internal state when I let go expecting that I could control the external world. As I relaxed, I found that my internal energy felt more positive. Other people’s energy directed toward me also began to feel more positive. Oh, no, had I been setting up an unconscious self-fulfilling prophecy of impatience and negativity? (Answer: Yes.)

Fiona expresses this positive habit of choosing to adapt and positively respond to events and people around her as a “low drama” way of living. (She also give some good pointers on how to adopt this approach.) We all like being around people who are relaxed and low-drama. (To put it in the opposite way, do any of us like to be around people who are uptight and looking for every sign that the universe is treating them badly?) How much better it is to actually live our daily experience as one of these generally happy and relaxed people!