Ummmm, so I'm off to Switzerland tomorrow...and a couple of other countries...for 3 and a half weeks.

Now living in Australia, one might think that this has been planned for a while and thoughtfully organised with the rest of the year sort of planned around it.

Nope. In fact I booked it a mere 6 weeks ago after I got back from Japan.

One might also think that I was going with my family as I have 2 young teens at home and wouldn't be going off to Europe without them and hubby surely?

Also Nope. It's just me going. I will be meeting friends but yep, just me.

I still don't know how it happened and since my business is currently in the middle of one of our biggest sales of the year...this wasn't exactly booked for the right time...but then the more I thought about it, the more I realised there would never have been a 'right' time in this busy life of mine so I may as well just randomly pick dates and hope for the best anyway...

And so I have my impulsivity to thank for this current life lesson (I'll tell you about that in a minute) as once the idea sounded good and do-able in my head, I just booked a non-refundable flight so I couldn't talk myself out of it.

It will be a working holiday and I'm pretty excited to be visiting stockists and manufacturers of flower essences in Switzerland, Germany and Holland but it's also an experiment to see if I am still me away from the family and doing what I love most - travelling and seeing new things and having brand new experiences without wishing I was back home in control of my family (there's a little hint for what this current life lesson is all about). 

To say I'm not freaking the F out is also an understatement but I have had help with this from my family, friends and my psychologist. Yep, I need a lot of support once I've made my irreversible rash decisions and it's also helped me embrace this lesson.

Are you ready for it?

Apparently I can't be in control of everything and everyone all the time!! How rude is that realisation? And the more I try, the further I get away from myself and disempower the people I love most.

We have been through a fair bit as a family of late (who hasn't am I right?) but the harder things got, the more I white knuckled down on this control of mine.

It's an awareness I have had since becoming middle age (ewww I hate that word) but just having the awareness of needing to be in control to feel safe and keep everyone around me safe doesn't actually help me. I can't just be aware...I have to PRACTICE not being in control.

Now for control freaks like me, that feels like I'm being asked to practice not breathing. It's really hard. It's a default mechanism that was implanted in early childhood and has been keeping me feeling safe for the past 47 years. So illusion or not, trying not to control things for me is like throwing away your floaties even though you can't swim.

The main thing I have felt that I've needed to control lately was what was going to happen to my kids if I wasn't around. You get so used to being their scaffolding and everyone's director, producer and set manager that you can't imagine someone else being able to step in and take over. Even your own husband...

This has probably been worsened by the fact that I have been doing and being everything my daughter has needed me to do and be lately as we have gone through her health issues and autism diagnosis. 

It's also made me see that I have been her mouth piece and body double for the last 14 years without realising how much I was getting her to depend on me. It felt easier if I did it. It felt safe if I did it. I was the only one who understood and could do things the right way...

Well isn't that just dumb. How can I expect her and me to grow without letting go. And therein lies the problem. I feel like I need to be physically absent to even let go a little bit at the moment...

So while I'm not leaving the parenting of the two most precious things in the world to just anyone...I'm leaving it their actual father (who I live with by the way in case I'm starting to make things seem like he has no idea what he's doing!)...it still feels odd. Because no one can do things like I can!!! 😝

What if he forgets to give them their tablets?
What if my daughter goes through something while I'm gone that she can only talk to me about?
What if they have take away every night?
What if my sensitive son needs his mum?
What if my hubby can't cope for that long juggling work and solo parenting?
What if something happens to my parents or my husbands parents while I'm gone?

All valid fears but that's all they are. Just fears that could have stopped me or I can PRACTICE. And I'll be so far away that jumping on a plane to come back would need a real emergency (touching wood as I type)

And I loved some of the things that my psychologist said to me as I was having a fear spiral while talking through this decision with her so I typed them into my phone and will read over them whenever that fear comes up for me. I'll share them here too in case it helps any other control freak get to Switzerland with 6 weeks notice 😆

Your husband is as equally responsible as you
He will have his own way of doing things, different from how you would do them and that will actually be great and it will still be ok!
The kids will learn new ways of doing things and cope differently in certain situations which is actually imperative and so important.

And then the really helpful sentence came next and I will put it in bold for you in case it lands as hard for you as it did for me...

"You don't have to get rid of the feeling in order to survive it"

And you'd think I would know that by now but it's awesome to be reminded and then to remind yourself again and again.

So I'm choosing to let my husband and kids 'control' themselves and their outcomes no matter how unsafe that feels for me (bit expensive having to go to the other side of the world to do it but ho hum!) 

I'm choosing to let the most precious people in the world fare without me to help them and to help myself.

They may not want me back (just picturing Mel Gibson yell FREEDOM! here) 😆 but I hope to hell things will change with this trip for all of us. They deserve that and so do I.

Wish me luck and if you want to follow a middle aged control freak that will be bouncing between having the time of her life and wishing she could teleport herself back home with the wiggle of her nose...please join me on my socials! 

Love Alisha x

Ps. And yes I will be taking copious amounts of my Let it Go blend to help me get on that plane tomorrow! You know who I formulated that for now don't you? 😉

Ummmm, so I'm off to Switzerland tomorrow...and a couple of other countries...for 3 and a half weeks.

Now living in Australia, one might think that this has been planned for a while and thoughtfully organised with the rest of the year sort of planned around it.

Nope. In fact I booked it a mere 6 weeks ago after I got back from Japan.

One might also think that I was going with my family as I have 2 young teens at home and wouldn't be going off to Europe without them and hubby surely?

Also Nope. It's just me going. I will be meeting friends but yep, just me.

I still don't know how it happened and since my business is currently in the middle of one of our biggest sales of the year...this wasn't exactly booked for the right time...but then the more I thought about it, the more I realised there would never have been a 'right' time in this busy life of mine so I may as well just randomly pick dates and hope for the best anyway...

And so I have my impulsivity to thank for this current life lesson (I'll tell you about that in a minute) as once the idea sounded good and do-able in my head, I just booked a non-refundable flight so I couldn't talk myself out of it.

It will be a working holiday and I'm pretty excited to be visiting stockists and manufacturers of flower essences in Switzerland, Germany and Holland but it's also an experiment to see if I am still me away from the family and doing what I love most - travelling and seeing new things and having brand new experiences without wishing I was back home in control of my family (there's a little hint for what this current life lesson is all about). 

To say I'm not freaking the F out is also an understatement but I have had help with this from my family, friends and my psychologist. Yep, I need a lot of support once I've made my irreversible rash decisions and it's also helped me embrace this lesson.

Are you ready for it?

Apparently I can't be in control of everything and everyone all the time!! How rude is that realisation? And the more I try, the further I get away from myself and disempower the people I love most.

We have been through a fair bit as a family of late (who hasn't am I right?) but the harder things got, the more I white knuckled down on this control of mine.

It's an awareness I have had since becoming middle age (ewww I hate that word) but just having the awareness of needing to be in control to feel safe and keep everyone around me safe doesn't actually help me. I can't just be aware...I have to PRACTICE not being in control.

Now for control freaks like me, that feels like I'm being asked to practice not breathing. It's really hard. It's a default mechanism that was implanted in early childhood and has been keeping me feeling safe for the past 47 years. So illusion or not, trying not to control things for me is like throwing away your floaties even though you can't swim.

The main thing I have felt that I've needed to control lately was what was going to happen to my kids if I wasn't around. You get so used to being their scaffolding and everyone's director, producer and set manager that you can't imagine someone else being able to step in and take over. Even your own husband...

This has probably been worsened by the fact that I have been doing and being everything my daughter has needed me to do and be lately as we have gone through her health issues and autism diagnosis. 

It's also made me see that I have been her mouth piece and body double for the last 14 years without realising how much I was getting her to depend on me. It felt easier if I did it. It felt safe if I did it. I was the only one who understood and could do things the right way...

Well isn't that just dumb. How can I expect her and me to grow without letting go. And therein lies the problem. I feel like I need to be physically absent to even let go a little bit at the moment...

So while I'm not leaving the parenting of the two most precious things in the world to just anyone...I'm leaving it their actual father (who I live with by the way in case I'm starting to make things seem like he has no idea what he's doing!)...it still feels odd. Because no one can do things like I can!!! 😝

What if he forgets to give them their tablets?
What if my daughter goes through something while I'm gone that she can only talk to me about?
What if they have take away every night?
What if my sensitive son needs his mum?
What if my hubby can't cope for that long juggling work and solo parenting?
What if something happens to my parents or my husbands parents while I'm gone?

All valid fears but that's all they are. Just fears that could have stopped me or I can PRACTICE. And I'll be so far away that jumping on a plane to come back would need a real emergency (touching wood as I type)

And I loved some of the things that my psychologist said to me as I was having a fear spiral while talking through this decision with her so I typed them into my phone and will read over them whenever that fear comes up for me. I'll share them here too in case it helps any other control freak get to Switzerland with 6 weeks notice 😆

Your husband is as equally responsible as you
He will have his own way of doing things, different from how you would do them and that will actually be great and it will still be ok!
The kids will learn new ways of doing things and cope differently in certain situations which is actually imperative and so important.

And then the really helpful sentence came next and I will put it in bold for you in case it lands as hard for you as it did for me...

"You don't have to get rid of the feeling in order to survive it"

And you'd think I would know that by now but it's awesome to be reminded and then to remind yourself again and again.

So I'm choosing to let my husband and kids 'control' themselves and their outcomes no matter how unsafe that feels for me (bit expensive having to go to the other side of the world to do it but ho hum!) 

I'm choosing to let the most precious people in the world fare without me to help them and to help myself.

They may not want me back (just picturing Mel Gibson yell FREEDOM! here) 😆 but I hope to hell things will change with this trip for all of us. They deserve that and so do I.

Wish me luck and if you want to follow a middle aged control freak that will be bouncing between having the time of her life and wishing she could teleport herself back home with the wiggle of her nose...please join me on my socials! 

Love Alisha x

Ps. And yes I will be taking copious amounts of my Let it Go blend to help me get on that plane tomorrow! You know who I formulated that for now don't you? 😉