Focus on what you can control

My therapist tells me

Your feelings are valid, Focus on what you can control

My ancestors tell me

Everything is temporary

My parents tell me

Everyone has stress, that’s just life.

My work tells me

Just deal with it, it’s part of the job.

So I focus on what I can control

My reactions

My reactions?

My feelings are valid when

There’s a broken system that causes me to live in distress

My feelings are valid

When I’m frustrated at a starting pay that has not increased in the last 15 years to align with todays economy and inflation

My feelings are valid when I’m scared coming home to a community of gang violence, drug addicts, and homelessness.

My feelings are valid when I feel angry that someone at work ignored me, invalidated me, belittles me, and constantly interrupts me due to their selfish egocentric ways, harassment, and a crossing of boundaries and their behavior causes a severe distress to my mental health and safety at work.

My reactions are

Yelling

Cursing

Silence

Speaking up even if someone won’t like what I have to say because it means more effort on their part

Tight jaw

Shortness of breath

Depression leading to a foggy mind that inhibits being my best self.

A feeling of needing to work harder

Catch up on everyones slack

My feelings are valid but my reactions are not

Just wake up and put on a smile and get through the day like everyone else.

We can’t control the system

We can’t control others

We can’t fix the world

We can’t control a lot

But my feelings are valid

But my reactions are not

My feelings are valid

But I can’t express them

My feelings are valid

And I still have to be feminine and kind and patient

My feelings are valid and I focus on what I can control like what I watch on TV and who I spend time with.

I can’t afford cable because of the broken system I can’t control

I can’t go out with my friends because I can’t control how much I should get paid after taxes and paying my bills and student debt.

I feel stuck and hopeless but,

My feelings are valid.

Focus on what you can control.

I think we can control a lot

A lot more effort is needed

A lot of unity is needed

A lot more collaboration is needed

A lot more care to make a change is needed

A lot more advocating for our rights and demanding better from our leaders.

A lot of humanity and effort from humanity for humanity is required on any level one can control at their given point or circumstances

Focus on what you can control

What about our leaders

What do they control

Do they have the same mentality of what we the underdogs are told

To focus on what we can control?

I can’t control pay because I am not in that position

But what about the people in those high positions

What can they control?

It’s not a matter of what we can control

It’s a matter of caring enough and using our rights, power, network, resources and position to speak up.

It’s a matter of making time to do something that matters of which we can control.

We can control a whole lot

We just don’t talk about it or acknowledge it.

We don’t even want to do it because it’s “not my problem” or “not my job”

Because we’re too busy trying to focus on survival

Like which brand of pasta we can purchase at the grocery store.

Or when we get paid how much we have to spend on a night out getting drunk and escaping from our reality.

Because losing our control is what we can control

But we don’t actually make an effort to expand what we can control.

Don’t worry

Our feelings are valid though.

Everything is temporary

Just deal with it because everyone is stressed out.

Thats what we’re taught to control.

Our emotions.

Not like we’re creatures and animals that are based off of emotions.

Just control your emotions like a AI robot.

Seriously

Remember

Your feelings are valid…