Some of the most overwhelming times of life are not necessarily the ones where everything is going wrong.

Sometimes, a lot is going right. 

Lately, I’ve had several wonderful things happening at once. My children have been coming and going, one of my daughters is getting settled into an apartment in New York, work is happening on the house, I’m preparing for a trip overseas.

And there have been all of the plans, decisions and moving pieces that naturally come with each of those things. At one point, I could feel myself slipping into decision fatigue.

There was so much to keep track of, so much to coordinate, and I caught myself thinking about how I was going to manage all of it. As if it was a burden.

Then I had a very different thought: Wait a minute. These are all dreams happening at once.

My family is here. My children are building lives they love. The house is evolving. Travel. People coming together.  All good stuff!

These weren’t problems I’d been hoping to avoid. They’re experiences I’d actively wanted and helped create.

I was at risk of becoming so busy managing the way everything unfolded that I wasn’t actually enjoying living it.

That realization changed something for me.

Of course there are still decisions to make. A renovation requires choices. Travel requires planning. People need to know when dinner is happening and what car they can use, and when.

Decision making can feel rigorous, but it’s distinct from worrying about outcomes and being attached to how everything comes together.

These are two very different ways of being.

I can loosen my grip on the reins and direct the flow of events without deciding that I’m responsible for controlling how every moving part comes together. 

When I tell myself, “There is so much going on and I have to manage all of it.”, the same life that felt expansive five minutes earlier can suddenly feel heavy.

But when I step back and think, “Look at how many wonderful things are happening.”, my relationship to the exact same circumstances changes.

I can participate without trying to orchestrate all the things.

I can make the decisions that are mine to make without taking responsibility for every outcome that follows. And I can allow myself to enjoy it.

You and I have creative authority in our lives. We have a tremendous capacity to imagine something, make decisions toward it, build it, nurture it and participate in bringing it to life.

But creative authority is not the same thing as control. Control has a way of pinching off creativity.

A dream begins to have a life of its own once other people, circumstances and possibilities become part of it. If I believe my job is to manage all of those variables perfectly, I can turn something I deeply wanted into another source of strain.

And perhaps the next stage of creating the dream is learning how to receive it. 

To look around often and realize: wow, this is actually happening!

The people are here.

The plans are unfolding.

The life I once imagined is now asking to be lived.

So the next time life feels unusually full, especially when the fullness is coming from things you actually wanted, it may be worth pausing and taking a breath before deciding that you need to get everything under control.

Ask yourself:

Is something actually going wrong, or are a lot of things I wanted happening at the same time?

What genuinely needs my attention, and what am I trying to manage that I might simply allow myself to experience?

Remember, the whole point is that you get to be inside the life you worked so diligently to create.