Friday, October 2, 2026
I don’t know how to respond to helplessness. Your hands are open. Your eyes are dazed. Your mind is whitewashed. What are we to do in those situations which make it seem like our hands are tied?
Haven’t you been there? There is nothing that can be done, and the control freak writhes. Your loved one is in the hospital, barely breathing. That situation at work isn’t getting any better. That pain in your knee is worsening. Those bills are piling up. Nothing’s budging. Nothing’s moving. No help. Silence from the gods on Mt. Olympus.
That’s when you are in utter awe. You’re dazed at how little control you have. Makes you wonder if you ever had control. Makes you wonder what keeps things moving along, or what keeps you safe, or what gives you peace. The situation overwhelms and expenses backlog. Setbacks “pile up.” It’s like “life” plugs up.
In those overwhelming instances all you can seem to do is retreat. Life is “bigger” than you. Control is “bigger” than you. In your smallness, however, you discover great release. You discover the great power of relinquishment. Hands are tied, but life flows on. Mind is locked up, but ingenuity soars. Circumstances suffocate, but breathing is easy. How on earth?
You know what I’ve discovered in confining circumstances? Peace. When the tidal wave seems to come at me, I just let it. Why would we experience peace when the tidal wave is coming? That’s because you cannot be overcome by overwhelm. You’re just “whelmed.” Maybe you’re not scared to death, but that the shit has been scared out of you.
Once the shit of the mind-made self evacuates, it’s the best “bowel movement” you’ll ever experience. The “constipation” of the illusion of “holding it together” is flushed out and conceit scatters like cockroaches.
When life closes in, open your heart and mind and flesh it out. Ahhhh…..Sweet relief.