If It’s Meant To Be.

“Nobody fights destiny or fate. Do what you can do when you can, and if it’s meant to be, whatever you’re searching for will come your way.” – anonymous

“If it’s meant to be it will be…” this is one of my least favorite sayings. Not because it isn’t true, but rather because it’s somehow always annoyingly accurate. This cliché seems wicked to anyone who suffers from anxiety. It’s like telling someone, “you’ll win the lottery…someday.” But when? With anxiety, we need certainty. We need to KNOW that without a doubt something is meant to be. And patience is definitely not our forte.

This brings me to my whole point in writing this post…the importance of certainty. I think one of the hardest things to cope with is that life is an ever-changing, ever-evolving situation. For some people, this thought would bring excitement and adventure. For us anxious minds, all it brings is stress. And unfortunately, certainty is never guaranteed.

After years (and I mean years) of therapy and self discovery, I found that one of my biggest fears is not being prepared for a situation. I want to be ready if a person is going to betray or hurt me, I want to be prepared for that relationship to not work out. I want to know that I’m ready for every single scenario that may hurt me in my life. Not because I can’t handle it but because I (like most people) don’t want to feel pain.

Unfortunately, this is not realistic.

We can’t be ready for every possible situation because there are millions and millions of them, and let’s face it, life is unpredictable. I think this is most apparent in relationships/friendships (definitely where I struggle the most). I feel the need to be on guard all the time, to protect myself from possible disloyalty. I feel like I’m subconsciously always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like, if I let my guard down fully I’m going to get hurt.

This is obviously unhealthy thinking, but it goes hand in hand with anxiety. I have a fear that the ones I love the most will betray me, and that deep hurt like that could destroy me. Yet, I’m not really sure why my brain goes to that extreme. I’ve definitely been hurt plenty of times before. Some were tougher to heal from than others, but I have always survived. That’s the thing about us anxious minds, we’re tougher than your average person because we battle this anxiety every single day.

So then I think, “well if it’s meant to be it will be” and revert back to the very saying that I despise so much…because it’s true. If someone is going to hurt or betray us, they’re going to do it whether we’re prepared or not because people will always do what they want to do. We can’t control the actions of others, but we can control how we react to them and the amount of power we let their actions have over us.

And remember, people’s actions are a reflection of themselves not us. They have to live with the consequences of what they do when no one is looking. If they lose you in the process then that’s their loss. With anxiety, you have to set boundaries of what you will and will not tolerate, and you have to stand firm in those boundaries. The enemy (anxiety) will always try to trick you into thinking you did something wrong, that it’s your fault, when in fact you were the victim.

But to be honest, I have to remind myself of this every day: “I do not need to be prepared for everything all the time because it’s going to happen regardless. All I can do is be myself and live my life.”

Unfortunately, people are always going to hurt us, even the ones who love us the most, because no one is perfect. The world we live in is a very dark place full of hurting people that tend to hurt others. And while this seems unfair, it’s life. So instead of living in fear of pain, why don’t we just learn to embrace it? Instead of obsessing on how to be one step ahead, why don’t we just let things fall into place?

Trust me, this scares the shit out of me too, but if I can do it so can you.

It’s time to take back control of our lives and stop letting anxiety control our every thought. It’s time to realize that certainty is an illusion, a myth, a dream. It’s time to let go of the suffocating weight of preparation and perfection and just live the life we’re given. In the end, people are going to do what they want to do and if things are meant to be, they will be…one way or another.

XOXO,

Myka Shantell