A realization came to me last night, as my son, who is usually a very good sleeper, had a particularly rough night. As I rocked him back to sleep for the fourth time of the evening, thoughts such as "If only the gym childcare center would stop putting him down for a nap to make their job easier, he may sleep through the night" and "If he doesn't fall asleep soon, there is no way I'm going to be able to get through tomorrow" crept through my head.


As these thoughts crossed my mind, chronic tension, which I have tried so hard to alleviate began to creep into my upper back and neck. I believe that our bodies send us signals when we are trapping energy, acting in fear rather than love, and not being true to our real nature. And this was a five alarm fire a burning in my back, letting me know that something just wasn't serving me. And I realized, the cause of my own tension was my way of perceiving the world around me.


In my hoping to make a better world, I had been looking to everything external to my being to change, thinking that these things were obstacles in my path and expecting change within if only the outside world become more perfect and stop fighting me and making my life difficult. And I realized - the only real control I really do have is control over my perceptions of the external world.


No one had been "making" anything occur in my life to combat me or my path... my perceptions and programming were allowing these things to stand in my way. So, in the darkness of that frustrating 4:00 a.m. wake up call, I realized that these irritants are actually opportunities to grow and confront my own fears, beliefs and actions, forming pearls of wisdom instead of standing as obstacles in my way.


I may not be able to change whether or not my son sleeps through the night, whether the sun shines or the rain pours, and I cannot make anyone love me. I can, however, open myself to being vulnerable to the uncontrollable aspects of life. By loving myself and having the courage to look within, free from judgement, and by reacting to external triggers with the most authentic expression of myself, I can begin to change the world as I see it.