Episode 173 - Breaking Free from the Need to Control Everything

You’re not supposed to carry every outcome on your back.
That’s the part nobody tells you.

The more I try to control everything, the more anxious I get.

Drop a 🔥 if you’ve felt that weight too.

The real work is basic effort - then prayer.
Do what’s in your hands, and let go of what isn’t.

Parenting gets lighter when you trust more and micromanage less.
Driving gets calmer when you stop pretending you control the road.
Peace starts when you hand the rest back to Hashem.
Maybe the goal isn’t control.
Maybe the goal is trust.

#emunah #FaithOverFear #JewishWisdom #mindsetshift #trusthashem

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You want to talk about a weight lifted off of your chest? The most effective way to get a massive weight off of your chest, you may not even know it's there, but most of the time we don't because it gets piled on slowly. Every stressor, every challenge that you have, every new responsibility that you take on, every year of growth, all of that attacks on additional weight to your shoulders. Now, some of us are more resilient, but it doesn't mean that the weight's not there. It's there. You only recognize that it's there when it's gone. How do you get rid of that weight? You take your package that is too heavy and you give it to your creator. The trust factor is to take it to a bad eye. The trust factor shows you how to get through the night. Good morning. It's a new week, my friends. I hope you had a powerful Shabbat, meaningful. We're getting closer to Elul. We're getting closer to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the highest of holidays, my friends. This coming Thursday and Friday is going to be the new month. And so this is the time to really plug in. Remember, I've told you throughout all the holidays in the past year and a half, and I'll repeat it. The idea, the theme that is associated with the holiday brings rise to an atmosphere that is conducive to growth in that environment. What do I mean by that? During Passover, when we left Egypt, we went from slavery to freedom. That's your time to pray for additional assistance, to be able to get away from your vices and your technology and the things that hold you down that you're enslaved to during the time around Passover, the weeks leading up to, during the holiday and thereafter, God puts in the world an extra ability to be able to grow and to get divine assistance in that area of life. Now we're coming up to a new year. We're coming up to the day of judgment. So if you want to be able to have, God willing, a good new year, you want to have an amazing upcoming year, then now is the time to start praying for it. Start asking for it. And then start putting mechanisms in place to be able to impact the positive change that you want to see in this new year. Do it now. That's why, by the rest of the nations, around New Year's Eve, they have this thing called a New Year's resolution. New Year, new outlook. They try and make all of these plans to be able to structure their life the way that they'd like to see it. It's the same thing by us, only we know that around our times, these holidays, it's not just a nice idea. God actually gives us additional abilities during these times. So it's coming up. I would suggest after Rosh Khodesh, after the beginning of the new month is coming Friday, you should put in that extra energy to be able to ask for the things that you want, seek forgiveness, repent, feel bad for the things that you've been doing wrong, and look for a fresh new start. Now's the time to do it. That's why we have what's called slikot, where we come in extra early in the morning and we start praying additional prayers, asking for forgiveness because of what I just told you. It is now the prime opportunity to seek out these things and you'll get them. So let's move into what we talked about last week, namely the idea that if you choose that God should be your doctor, that he should be your lawyer, that he should be your matchmaker and your provider, then he will step into that role on your behalf. He will be the ultimate doctor for you. He will be the ultimate lawyer. He will be the lawyer that gets you off before you get into court. He'll be the lawyer that gets you off before you even get the notice that you've been summoned to court. That's who you're dealing with. You're not dealing with flesh and blood that's limited by time and space, but all of those things depend on us. We need to decide. Once we've decided and we've made that commitment and we start to act accordingly, in other words, we don't put our faith in flesh and blood. We don't run around flying around the world looking for the best doctors in the world and these new experimental treatments. We say, God, we understand that you are the best doctor in the world. And we will find a human doctor because we have to make basic efforts. We'll talk about that in a minute. You'll make your basic efforts, but beyond your basic efforts, you recognize every other human being in the world is limited by what the creator decides. So the idea is that I find myself a human doctor, one of flesh and blood, but for what purpose? To be able to implement the decrees upstairs. God decides this treatment is going to work. And so that doctor becomes the tool in God's hand to be able to make it work. We talked about all that last week and it resonated with so many people. Let's continue. We're going to get into nitty-gritty details, daily things that make you crazy. You don't even realize it. These are our natural behaviors. And through these behaviors, you will see that they clearly demonstrate a lack of immuna, a lack of trust and faith in your creator. We're all guilty of this, some to lesser degrees and some to much greater degrees, but we are all guilty of it. The idea is that we're aware of it so that when we find ourselves in this situation, next time you're going to expect it and you're going to be ready for it, and you're going to be able to put mechanisms in place to change it. Let's read. When a person trusts in his own prowess and his own powers and efforts, the creator removes his divine providence. That's what we said last week. This is the cause of his failures. In every matter of life and in every worry and concern, a person must know that beyond his basic efforts, that means I get up in the morning, I set my alarm clock, I go to work, I find a doctor, I commit to that doctor, I do the basic things that I need to do. I respond to a letter. I can't just ignore these things. I can't put my head in the sand and think God's going to take care of it. This is a world of action, which means you have to make an effort. But that effort is minimal. It just gets the ball rolling. After that, it's prayer. It's having a conversation with your creator on a daily basis. That's your real effort. So he says he has no control over anything, for it is all in the hands of the creator. A person is sorely limited. We're limited by time and space. We're limited by the physicality. We can only do so much. We only have so many resources. Not the case when it comes to your creator. Therefore, he must not try and fulfill the function of the creator. You're not God. As much as your mother told you that you were the next best thing, you are not God. He runs the world and you're not capable of the things that he is. So put it in his hand. You want to talk about a weight lifted off of your chest? The most effective way to get a massive weight off of your chest. You may not even know it's there. Most of the time we don't, because it gets piled on slowly. Every stressor, every challenge that you have, every new responsibility that you take on, every year of growth, all of that tacks on additional weight to your shoulders. Now, some of us are more resilient, but it doesn't mean that the weight's not there. It's there. You only recognize that it's there when it's gone. How do you get rid of that weight? You take your package that is too heavy and you give it to your creator and you allow him to do with it what needs to be done. And he will take care of it. And when you have the eyes to see that he's actually taking care of it, the weight comes off of your chest. It's huge. It's a massive, massive relief. And suddenly you're so much lighter on your toes and you're so much more positive. Your outlook is so much greater, and you're positively impacting all of the people around you. One who thinks that a situation is in his hands, the opposite, is highly susceptible to anxiety and stress. He takes upon himself God's job. You can't possibly shoulder that weight, my friends. So give it off to him. He wants to remember what I said: make your will my will, so that I will make my will your will, meaning you occupy your time, your day with my will, you do the things I tell you to do, which, just as an aside, are all designed for your benefit. And at the same time, as a double dip, I'll take care of all of your earthly matters. If I know that you're taking care of making this world a better place through utilizing my Torah and the mitzvahs, the commandments, then I will make sure that nobody gets in your way from all of these worldly distractions. What a deal. Are you kidding? So now he's going to give us an example of where this anxiety comes up, and you'll see multiple examples. This is a common one. Guard my children. For example, he says, there are parents who constantly worry about the safety and well-being of their children. They fear for them on a regular basis. They're troubled with fantasies of what might occur to them. You know where this comes from, right? Social media, television, the last 20, 30 years, all we've been hearing about are all the crazies. We're sitting and listening to people telling us about how dangerous and how scary the world is. And you should just hunker down and crawl into a little fetal position and don't come out of your bed because the world is a scary, scary place. And then you bring children into the world and you're terrified every day that one of these things that you've been hearing about is going to happen to your children. It's just a matter of time. So now you lock your claws into them and you make sure that you're helicopter parenting and that you know exactly where they are every given second of every single day. And that's what gives you peace of mind. It doesn't. It actually just creates an entirely different level of anxiety. Heaven forbid it says that they'll be run over by cars or kidnapped and the like. They feel compelled to be overprotective. Children suffer from these types of parents in a big, big way. These children learn heresy. What do they learn? That all of their protections come from their parents. If they're away from their parents for a minute, they lose their minds. These children are constantly running behind their mother or their father. They're scared to do anything on their own. Why? Because they've been told by their parents, be careful, watch where you're going. Don't do it alone. Take this person with you. Don't go there. You're not old enough yet. You're not big enough yet. It's not for you. It's dangerous. It's scary. Be careful, be careful, be careful. That's all they're hearing. They also lose their self-confidence as a result. Parental worry adds nothing to the children's safety. It only hurts them. I remember reading a book a long time ago that had to do with anxiety. And the girl who had written the book was so in touch with her reality that she drew a direct line back to the way that she was raised, to the times that her mother would constantly remind her to be careful. Be careful, be careful, be careful. Don't do that. Don't do this. Don't do that. You're going to get hurt. You're going to get kidnapped. Somebody's going to take you. Don't do this. Don't do that. The parent thinks that they're protecting the child. All they're doing is instilling in them a level of anxiety that was never there before. That child is going to internalize these ideas and they're going to live a life of constant fear. Why? Because of your efforts to protect them. The advice, what should we tell an over-protective parent is to strengthen themselves in their emonats, not rocket science, and particularly in the belief of divine providence, meaning to say that God watches over every single one of us. It doesn't matter how old you are, every single one of us, this is a bit of a kabbalistic idea, has an angel associated with us. Every item on planet Earth has an angel that represents it. Full time. That's its job. So each one of us has a representative angel. That's the angel that you know when a child is really, really young, two, three, four years old, they got new legs, they're starting to walk, they're starting to figure things out. They no longer can you put them down and come back in there in the same spot. They now have the opportunity to get themselves in trouble. And every time they fall, they just miss, right? Oh, it just would have been one more centimeter, God forbid it would have hit the eye. Right? If it would have just the biff, they would have fallen this way, then God forbid I would have had to have been in the hospital. All these different situations that were just an inch or a millimeter away from actually causing so much difficulty. You think that's coincidence? You think that's random? It's not. They have an angel that watches over them and takes care of them the same way that we do. But at that age, he's taking care of different things. And at our age, when we're married and children and we've got responsibilities, that angel's taking care of different things. Now, that child also doesn't have the ability to choose. That child doesn't have the ability to say, I want God to run my world. That comes automatically. So they have an added layer of protection that's there all the time. We get to a stage in our life where we could say, no, no, no, no, I got this, God. I don't need you. There's no such thing as a God. I got this. And because of that, like we said the other day, if we negate him, then he withdraws his divine providence from us. That's it. That choice is ours. But a child doesn't have that choice. That's why you're constantly seeing this child just barely getting out of trouble. They've got it fall because it's part of the challenge of growing up and learning how to walk and learning to get bumps and bruises. But it's always mitigated. Why? Because they have a bodyguard, a personal bodyguard that watches over those children as they grow. And so if you understand that, you now can pull back your constant desire to be that bodyguard, to helicopter parent, to micromanage that child's every single move, thereby instilling a tremendous amount of anxiety in that child that's going to compound as they grow older. Parents need to be aware that the creator is watching over their children at every single moment, beyond their basic responsibilities. That doesn't mean, be clear on this, that you walk away from the responsibility, that you bring a child into the world and you let them go out into the street at two or three years old. Obviously, that's neglect. Obviously, that doesn't make any sense. You have to make basic efforts. You have to know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, how to parent. Sometimes today we see people don't even know that. That's why it's very dangerous and it comes with a great responsibility. But at least know the difference between good and bad and right and wrong enough to be able to allow your child to grow in a healthy environment, to build their own self-confidence, to get themselves in a little bit of trouble, and then figure out how to get out of that trouble. That's real growth. If you're constantly solving their problems for them or not even allowing them to get into those problems because you keep them in a bubble, then you're going to be doing them much more harm than good. Let's talk about one more example. We'll shut it down for today. Many people have the fear of traveling, driving on the road. It's very common, more common than you care to know. Every trip fills them with worry and trepidation. What's going to happen? They often hound their driver. Be careful. You know the backseat drivers, right? Holding on with a death grip to the door handle for dear life. Be careful. Be careful. They're pushing on the brake pedal in the passenger seat. There's no brake pedal over there. But they got their foot against the wall of the floor because they're trying to stop the car because they think you don't know that you need to stop. You see the car right in front of you. I see the car, you can relax. Doesn't matter. They're already pushing on an invisible brake pedal. Or they themselves are driving, but they lack confidence. Terrified drivers, people, I know people, well into their 50s, 60s, and 70s, they will not drive on the highway. No, it's not for me. I'll drive in a small neighborhood, in a small community. I won't go downtown and I won't go on the highway. Why? Because they're terrified. They're living in constant fear. They have no self-confidence. They must know that safety depends on many factors in addition to the drivers, such as who? The other drivers on the road. You think it's all about you? It's also the other guys on the road. Who's going to control them? Who's going to determine if they're driving well today or not? Who's going to determine if you cross roads with somebody who's going to be distracted at the very moment that you're crossing that road? You think it's a coincidence? There's no such thing. The extent to which the roads are maintained and the weather conditions, how do you know what's going to happen? How do you know you're not going to run into a massive pothole that's going to blow out your tire and send you into oncoming traffic? How do you know that you're going to be driving on a beautiful crystal blue day and suddenly you got hail falling from the skies that's going to cause all kinds of problems? You've got no idea. Who are you going to put your face into? Your own, the other drivers, or your creator? If you're flying on the wings of Amuna, if you understand that Hem runs the world, including you and your car, and including the other drivers, and including the situations with the potholes and the weather, it's all him. We don't control those things. We have to give a basic effort, like we've said multiple times. Drive carefully. Be aware. Have your eyes on the road. Don't be distracted. Once you've done that, it's done. There's nothing more than you can do to ensure that the travels to the destination end well. No, you've done your part. The rest is in his hand. Even if they're driving perfectly, they have no control over other vehicles that are liable to collide with them. There are also so many wonderful drivers who commit tragic split-second mistakes that cause accidents. They're human beings. You think they're wonderful, they could be wonderful drivers, but it just takes one second, one miscalculation, one distraction, and you're into an accident. On the other hand, there are mediocre drivers who have never been involved in the slightest accident. How does that happen? The conclusion is that only the creator can guard a person on the road. One's entire worry and fear should consequently be channeled into heartfelt prayer. Ask the creator to protect them on the road. That's for you, and that's for your children who you are micromanaging. Give them the keys for the car. Know that they've been trained well, know that they're responsible, and then pray to your creator. Give them a safe day. Please make sure that their travels end well. That's it. That's the only thing you can do. Aside from curling into the fetal position and not wanting to leave your bed, what kind of a way is that to live? That's not living, my friends. That's dying. Let's free ourselves from the constant desire to control everything because it is enslaving. You may not realize it because you've been doing it for so long, but trust me, the constant desire to have your finger on the pulse to control situations and outcomes which you have no control over is enslaving. Who wants to be a slave when you don't have to be? We'll chat again on Tuesday. Thank you for spending time with us on the Trust Factor Podcast. If you've heard something today that moved you, save this episode and share it with someone who might need to hear it. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss upcoming conversations that challenge, empower, and uplift. And if you're on social media, connect with us. Leave your thoughts, drop a quote that resonated with you. Hashtag the TrustFactor Podcast. Until next time, keep growing in your trust and keep living with purpose. I'm Jesse Revivo, and this has been the Trust Factor Podcast. Thanks for listening.