“You are afraid of surrender because you don’t want to lose control. but you never had control; all you had was anxiety.” -Elizabeth Gilbert

I read this truth cannon again this morning and like it did the first time I read it, it smacked me across the face. She is speaking directly to me. I’ve had anxiety all of my life. I am convinced I came out of my mother’s womb anxious with all sorts of “What-if?” scenarios floating around in my hours old head.

I am so good at the What-if? scenarios that if there were a What-if champion award I would win it in a landslide. I can remember as a child on Christmas Eve telling myself to not get excited for Christmas morning because their might be fire overnight and my presents would be turned to ash or there might be a band of Home-alone esque robbers roaming my neighborhood who could break into my house and steal the presents. I have spent countless hours of my life analyzing any and every scenario that could possibly happen in a situation all so I could be ready. If I expect disappointment, disaster, rejection, etc it won’t hurt as bad when it happens.

Those hours of overanalyzing and allowing myself to never fully feel joy didn’t prepare me for the inevitable heartbreaks and disappointments in life. It certainly didn’t help me when life as I knew it collapsed in on me 21 months ago. All it did was steal joy and keep me from being fully present in my life. We don’t get to experience the breathtakingly beautiful moments of life without also signing up to experience the soul crushing moments.

I had a meditation teacher once tell me the good news is nothing is permanent and the bad news is nothing is permanent. This is good news for those of us in a valley looking up towards the mountaintop and dreaming of the day we will make it back up to the top. It’s not so good news if you’re on a mountaintop knowing that, thanks to nothing being permanent, your descent down into the valley is inevitable. I didn’t enjoy this particular dose of wisdom when she first shared it. I believe I responded with “Who is this helpful for?” She’s right though. Life ebbs and flows. Some seasons of life you’re at the tallest peak of the mountain and other seasons you are in the deepest part of the valley.

Overanalyzing, being the What-if champion, and denying yourself joy doesn’t keep one on the mountaintop or out of the valley. There is beauty to be found in both places if we allow ourselves to surrender and let go of the “control” we never really had.