Focusing on What I Can Control — What That Actually Looks Like

I’ve been sharing pieces of my health journey over the last few weeks — the uncertainty, the waiting, what it feels like to navigate something unknown. Today I want to go a little deeper into something that’s been quietly running underneath all of it: what focusing on what I can control actually looks like in practice. Not the theory. The real, daily, sometimes messy experience of it.

I’ve heard it said many times — in my professional life, in wellness spaces, in difficult conversations: focus on what you can control. It’s good advice. And like most good advice, it’s much easier to say than to actually do — especially for those of us who feel things deeply and were never really taught how to handle the emotional side of hard situations. I’m practicing that now. More intentionally than ever before. And it looks different than I expected.

Giving Myself Grace

One of the first things I did when I received some difficult health news was give myself grace. My manager introduced me to this concept a few years ago and it has become something our team returns to regularly when things get hard. I’ve carried it into my personal life — and right now it has become a mantra.

In the past I would have gone straight to researching every possible outcome, spiraling through worst cases. This time, when I was given some of the harder possibilities upfront, I made a different choice. I allowed my logical brain some space to look at the details — okay, if this is the worst it can be, what does that actually look like? — while at the same time giving my emotional side room to process. Both things at once. Both true. Both holding the same space without one crushing the other. I think of it like a scale — one side may tip slightly heavier than the other on any given day, but they’re still close enough to balance that neither takes over completely. I’m not entirely sure how I got to this place. But I’m grateful I have.

Don’t get me wrong, there are days that feel really heavy. On those days I come back to two things: give yourself grace, and this too shall pass. That second phrase came to me years ago during prenatal yoga. My teacher — also a BodyTalk practitioner — shared two things to hold onto during labor: “This too shall pass” and “one less push required.” I held onto both then and I find it interesting in what resurfaces when you need it most.

Those phrases didn’t just help me cope. They gave me permission to actually feel what was coming up rather than push it aside. And that opened something I hadn’t expected.

Letting the Emotions Actually Be Felt

As an empath I have felt things deeply my whole life — often emotions that weren’t even mine to carry. Growing up I was told I was too emotional, too sensitive, to stop. Not because what I felt wasn’t real, but because nobody quite knew what to do with the depth of it. Without anyone to teach me how to navigate what was mine and what wasn’t, I learned to push certain things down. Anger especially — an emotion I never fully understood or knew how to locate in my body until recently. This season has brought all of it to the surface. The anger. The helplessness. The sadness. The fear. And this time I’m not pushing any of it down.

Research suggests that the physiological lifespan of an emotion in the body is actually only about 90 seconds — it arises, peaks and naturally dissipates on its own. What keeps emotions lingering longer is the stories we attach to them, or the act of pushing them away rather than letting them move through. I’ve been honoring mine a little longer right now anyway. Because what I’ve found is this: when I give them the time and space they’re asking for, they’re less likely to come back at full force. They return as a whisper rather than a chariot rushing in.

And I’m okay with that. Feelings are part of us for a reason. They deserve to be felt, not managed away.

When the Physical Speaks Too

While all of this has been unfolding emotionally, my body has been speaking too. My chiropractor didn’t know at the time what I was going through or where in my body things were happening. He just did what he always does — assessed, found what needed adjusting, and adjusted it. What I felt after genuinely shocked me. That area had been holding so much tension that I didn’t even realize was there until it released. I teared up. I mentioned it to my husband afterward — who is a bit of a skeptic about some of this — because it was that significant to me.

At the next appointment I let him know what had happened and what I was going through. His support was immediate and genuine. Now he makes sure to address that area every time. The release isn’t as dramatic as that first time — it doesn’t need to be. It still provides relief each time. And my body thanks me for it.

My chiropractor wasn’t the only one showing up in ways I didn’t anticipate. Across my whole team, something similar has been happening — support arriving from angles I wouldn’t have thought to ask for.

My Team Showing Up in Ways I Didn’t Expect

As the panic attacks I mentioned previously have continued, I’ve found myself reaching out to different members of my team in ways I hadn’t planned. My Reiki practitioner has been helping move the energy that builds when anxiety takes hold — and some friends who also do energy work have leaned in to help as well, which has meant more than I can fully express. My counsellor has been working with me on breathing techniques and other tools — including something surprisingly effective involving sour candy that I shared in a recent post. And my homeopath had a remedy that came up naturally in our last session without me even asking. Her questions led us there and she simply said — “I have something that could help, want to try it?” Of course I did.

This is what a team does. It finds things you didn’t know to look for — sometimes before you even knew you needed them.

A Living Record, Not Just a Journal

Someone close to me showed me years ago how powerful it can be to keep a dedicated journal through a health journey — not just as a place for thoughts and feelings, but as a living record. Questions as they come up. Answers received. Information gathered from different practitioners, sometimes contradicting each other, sometimes complementing. Patterns that only become visible when you write them down. I’ve carried that idea with me and I’m using it now in a way that has genuinely surprised me with how helpful it is.

Most people think of a diary as a place for thoughts and feelings. And it can be that. But it can also be a tool for holding information that would otherwise get lost — the things said in appointments, the questions that arise at 2am, the connections between what one practitioner said and what another confirmed weeks later. Writing it all down means I’m not carrying it all in my head at once. And that alone has been a relief.

Day to day it’s about dealing with what’s in front of me and not dwelling too far ahead. When a new question or fear surfaces, I ask myself who on my team might be able to help with this one. Sometimes it’s emotional. Sometimes it’s physical. Sometimes it’s a research question. The answer is rarely the same twice — and that’s the point.

I don’t have this all figured out. I’m learning as I go, one day at a time, with a team beside me that keeps showing up in ways I couldn’t have planned for. And that — more than anything — is what focusing on what I can control actually looks like right now.

If you’re navigating something uncertain right now — whatever it looks like for you — I hope something in here lands. And if you’d like support figuring out what your team could look like, that’s exactly what my Intuitive Wellness Sessions are for.

What does “focusing on what you can control” actually look like for you? I’d love to hear.

With warmth,

Holistic Mystic | Saskatoon, Saskatchewan