In this episode of the Art of Life podcast, Kanika, a meditation teacher, explores the concept of control and how individuals can find freedom from it. She discusses the dual nature of control, both as an exerted force and as a force exerted upon oneself.  

She shares her personal journey and offers tools, tips, and a guided meditation to help listeners let go of control and claim their freedom. Further, she moves towards discussions about trauma, providing advice on surviving traumatic experiences. 

Kanika also introduces her Life Makeover Program, an art therapy and meditation-based program designed to give individuals more control and freedom in their lives, and discusses the free grounding eBook she offers.  

This episode is a potent combination of warmth, healing, and spirituality that invites us all to reshape our perspectives and gain control of our lives. 

 🌈 Bullet points + chapter markers 

00:00 Introduction and Purpose of Art of Life Podcast 

01:14 Understanding the Concept of Control 

04:02 Personal Experiences and Stories 

05:20 Overcoming Trauma and Taking Back Control 

09:38 Guided Meditation for Reclaiming Control 

19:34 Conclusion and Additional Resources 

🌈  Links From This Episode  

🌟 Zen in a Ziffy: Your Ultimate Guide to Grounding and Kicking Stress 

https://artoflifecenter.com/grounding/ 

🌟️ Register today for a full-on Life Makeover – a super easy, gentle, and fun way to heal every aspect of your life with Art Therapy Meditations 

https://artoflifecenter.com/art 

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Welcome to another episode of the Art of Life podcast.

I'm Kanika.

I'm a meditation teacher and the host of this podcast.

I routinely get asked about meditation, about the benefit of meditation.

Personally for me, meditation absolutely changed my life.

I went from a life where I did not even want to live, and this is no

exaggeration, to a life where I really love my life, where I want to

do more and more things every day.

As I try and find these ways of...

making the benefits of meditation really visible, I thought it would also

be good to do a podcast that brings this more into your everyday life.

Sharing tools and tips that you can use every day to improve your lives,

to heal your lives, hopefully in your meditation practice, or even if not

the meditation practice, generally as you're going out and about.

Perhaps there'll be some thoughts and some questions that you can

think about and they give you a different perspective on your life.

With that, let's dive into today's topic.

My topic is goodbye control.

I choose to be free.

This is a rather juicy topic, isn't it?

Control is when I don't have free will.

Control is when I have to do something that I don't really want to.

Now when looking at it, control is two types.

One where I control and the other bit, that is the control on me.

Let me look at the first bit first.

This is control where I control something.

Let's say I control something with my child because I think that's better

for them or I control something in a relationship because I feel that way

it will be better for us as a team.

Now, how I look at this when I want to control someone, when I'm desperately

trying to control a situation, I wonder first, do I really know any better?

You know, that's a bit of taking my own ego away and going, well,

do I really know it better?

Do I really know, for example, if green vegetables are good for someone?

And that might be an extreme example.

But there would be some people for whom the vegetables are not suiting as

much, or maybe there's another way of nutrition that probably suits them better.

Do I really know it better to interfere with their life?

If the opinion can come from a completely selfless space or a place without ego,

without attachment to that opinion, then that person can take it or leave it.

Then that's not exercising control.

But if there's any part of it where I'm really trying to control it.

Well then, I'm actually trying to do something that I don't really

like happening in my own life.

I like living with my own free will.

And I'm perhaps not giving somebody else their right to free will with that.

Something to ponder about.

The other thing I do ponder when I'm looking at controlling a situation

particularly is, do I really have control?

Well, life can be really unpredictable, who knows?

Here I am, as me, trying to think that I know it all, that I know the best for me.

Maybe what the universe has is something a whole lot better in store.

I remember the story of one of my music teachers a long time ago.

He wanted to be a pilot.

He was training for it.

He really wanted to go for it, but they found a fault in his physique.

One of his legs was a little bit shorter and he felt really frustrated

that he couldn't do his chosen dream.

He couldn't pursue his career with that.

He eventually found his own creativity and enjoyed the life more as a teacher

because he got to express himself in a different and a much more unique manner

than he probably would have as a pilot.

There can be times where we try and have control over something but maybe

what we are trying and striving for isn't really in our highest interest.

Those times can definitely be frustrating, but whenever life's not

really working out, whenever life's getting really, really hard, perhaps

you could ask if it's okay to let go of control and accept life the way it is.

Now, the other part of control I want to talk about is the control on me

as opposed to me controlling someone.

This is the control that I can perhaps feel sometimes where I have to act

or where maybe I was in situations that was against my free will.

You know, unfortunately in this world, there have been instances

of, let's say for example, sexual rape or all those really charged

emotions, charged situations, the people did not really call for it.

And that's a really hard situation, definitely I don't think anybody

really calls for it to have such a traumatic experience.

And so that's really sad and I feel for it.

But one way to look at such traumatic situations afterwards is to perhaps look

back at the situation and try and not be in that victim mindset if possible.

Because right now perhaps you have choice.

You know, maybe not in the past, but right now you can have the choice to think

thoughts, to go to a place where all these deep traumatic instances don't become

the centerpiece of your story as much.

I remember I was getting out of an abusive relationship myself.

And this is not to make small of anybody else's story.

My story is perhaps a much smaller piece than yours.

And whatever pain you felt or feel, totally yours.

I'm sharing my own story to give you perhaps a different way of looking at it.

This is the time when I was coming out of my own abusive relationship.

And I was pretty hit by it.

I was crying, I really would spend a lot of days crying.

And then...

I heard my family member one day talking to my mom and going like, her life is so

pitiful as if she's got nothing else left.

Now that was a very hard remark.

It was true, but it was very hard that I felt hurt at the

time, but it was also truth.

There was some incident that happened in my life and I was somehow letting

it dictate that story of my life.

You know, this happened because of this person and so I feel this way.

Maybe today is your day of claiming a little bit more of that freedom back.

Not asking you to let go a whole lot right now, probably the tiniest

little bit you can go right now.

Change the story as best as you can.

Perhaps examples of thinking that story could be, you could think how

much stronger you've become today.

You could think, well, I survived.

I survived that trauma and look at me.

I'm still okay.

I'm still intact.

Just bringing the power back to yourself, bringing the whole goodness.

That nurturing, that warmth back to yourself.

Because rather than discrediting yourself for living such a traumatic

experience and going through it, bring that whole thing back.

I did not call for this.

I did not deserve this traumatic experience, but I

survived it and look at me.

I'm okay.

I'm fine.

I'm going to get over this.

Now whatever those little bits can do for you, whatever those

little bits resonate for you.

Again, I'm not taking away your pain.

I'm not saying that it was by any means small.

I'm saying that if it's possible for you.

Try and take a little bit of your power back because you are an

amazingly powerful human being.

Okay, now what I wanted to do in this podcast was take a little bit of time

and do a short meditation to take back control into our lives, both these

controls that we've talked about, the controls where I control and the

control where a situation had a control.

I wanted to share a little meditation that you can take away.

Perhaps it gives you a little bit more of your own power.

It gives you a little bit.

more of your own freedom back to you.

I would encourage you not to do the meditation while you're

driving, not to take your eyes off the road while you're driving.

That maybe would not be such a good idea.

But when you can listen to the rest of this.

When you have a little bit of time for yourself, about 10 minutes

and you can take your eyes off the road and you can be with yourself.

Cool.

Now that you are in that space,

Take a little moment and breathe.

Take a deep breath in and take a nice breath out

and do it another time.

And one more time.

And as you take this breath, put your feet on the floor.

You can put your arms anywhere where you would like.

Just let yourself relax.

Just tell your body that you are here and you are going to

bring some peace to yourself.

Great job!

Great intent, Okay.

As you notice your feet on the floor,

Say hello to Mother Earth.

Mother Earth is our all nurturing, all caring Mother Earth that provides

us everything that we have on Earth.

Say hello to Earth and allow the Earth to run some nourishing

Earth energy through you.

You can imagine that there's energy flowing through your legs and that

goes all the way to the center of the earth, then comes back up through

your legs again, goes back down.

There's a lovely loop of earth energy flowing.

And as that happens, notice how you feel.

Notice how your body feels.

You can allow the earth energy to run a whole lot wider that you can release more

anywhere where you're feeling a little confused or achy or pained in your body.

You can let that go.

Just let the earth energy wash that away.

And as you're running the earth energy, Imagine there's cosmic energy

flowing through the upper part of your body, so there's beautiful

nourishing life force energy that comes from the cosmos above you.

It comes down from your back, goes all the way to where you're

sitting and then starts going up.

Just imagine that flow running through you.

And doesn't matter if you feel you have not got these flows right, it's okay.

In all honesty, I can share that there have been so many times where I don't

feel like I've done it right and these tools are so amazing that they still work.

Because all these tools really need is your intention.

The Earth simply needs you to allow that the Earth energy

starts flowing through you.

And same for the Cosmic energy.

All it wants is your command that you're allowing the Cosmic

energy to flow through you.

Imagine that Cosmic energy is flowing through you and the Earth

energy is flowing through you.

And as this beautiful flow happens, you can give it the permission that if

there's anything in your space that's causing you frustration, that's giving you

trauma or grief, that you can let it go

and breathe.

Just allow the earth energy and the cosmic energy to do.

Their job, allow them to run, and you can relax.

Great.

Keep noticing the cosmic energy running through you.

Maybe you can imagine like a loop of color going through you, and

pick up whatever color you like.

Again, the color loop doesn't have to be perfect, imagine

something and roll with it.

For all my meditations, I only expect you to be like a three year old child.

You know, three year old kids are not perfect, they're not doing

everything perfectly, so it's absolutely okay, whether you're

100 percent in a trance or...

50 percent or even less it doesn't matter play along like a three

year old kid and you're doing well.

Just imagine the cosmic energy coming from up above from the cosmos and then

forming a loop going back up in your body.

Just cleaning and healing you as it runs through you and then the

earth energy is doing the same.

Cleaning your leg channels, healing all the pain and the

trauma in your space in the legs.

Imagine those loops with different colors, imagine them running.

You can make them even stronger and give them a command to clean

out control from your space.

You know, these loops or these energies, they're like powerful waterfalls.

In front of a waterfall, if you put in, let's say some sticks,

they will be washed away.

Similarly, in front of these waterfalls, if you have some little

pain in your body that is getting washed away from your space.

Just imagine these.

Energy is running through your body and cleaning away anything that's not serving

you, any control that's not serving you.

Just imagine the waterfalls flowing through you, really nourishing

you and healing you and washing away what's not working for you.

Good.

Just notice how you feel.

And relax.

And as you feel that you have been healed, that a lot of the control has

been washed away from your space, let the colors of these energies change

to bring in freedom, to bring in your own free will into the space.

Imagine, again it doesn't have to be perfect, imagine, there's a beautiful

color of cosmic energy flowing through you and there's another different color

of earth energy flowing through you.

Nothing has to be perfect, doesn't have to be perfectly placed, it's all good.

Simply your intent does the job.

Just imagine beautiful colors of cosmic energy running through your space.

A beautiful color of earth energy running through your space.

And they're bringing in freedom, they're giving you your own free

will, your own choice in your life.

You can bring in some amusement, you can bring in some laughter, and definitely

a whole lot of gratitude for all of this freedom that's flowing into you,

great, great job, well done.

When you're ready you can slowly open your eyes.

That was a very short meditation on bringing back freedom into

your life a little bit more.

Do this meditation whenever you feel like you are being controlled or when

you don't have free will in your life as much and notice how things change.

If you are interested in more meditations or in a more powerful method for

changing your life, I am offering a program called Life Makeover Program.

It's an art therapy meditation based program, totally requiring about 10

hours, one hour every meditation class.

There's a whole lot more as well, but these are the minimal modules to be

done and what they do is that they give you a whole lot of Freedom, a

whole lot of control in your life, going much deeper than what we

did in this 10 minute meditation.

If I could probably sum up the life makeover program in one sentence,

that would be that it gives you the tools to be unstuck in your life.

It doesn't matter what situation you are in, whether you want to change

your job, your relationship, have more money, manifest more, clear yourself

from some traumas, whatever it is, it gives you those tools and strategies

to be able to get unstuck and move on and bring in a whole lot more

freedom and choice into your life.

You can check the program out at ArtofLifeCenter.com/art

There's also a free grounding ebook that I offer, which you can check

out at ArtofLifeCenter.com/grounding.

And that will teach you a technique around releasing pain and anxiety

and stress and all that icky stuff.

Even if you're not ready to get started for anything else, grounding can be a

great way of Incorporating these practices into your daily lives, to see how all

of that works before you really develop the muscles to do something bigger.

Wherever you are at in your life journey, you are more than

welcome to visit outoflifecenter.

com and get started with improving your life and healing your life.

I wanted to thank you a lot for listening to today's episode.

I really hope you enjoyed the meditation.

If you have any questions, please do reach out to me.

That would give me ideas on podcast episodes that would be more relevant to

you and make them more useful to you.

My mission is to share these tools with the world so that healing

our lives, destressing our lives.

It's not something that we are all pondering about.

I wish to make them known that we all know how to take the next step forward.

I hope you can help me do that.

Please do share this podcast or this video.

Please write some reviews.

It really helps spread the word.

And I will see you next time with another episode.

Thank you so much.

Have a lovely day..