Thunderstorms, Control, and starting therapy?

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve hated thunderstorms. Dreaded them, actually.

I would always anxiously await their ending. I remember on more than one occasion trying to hurry to bed when I knew one was rolling in at night, hoping that maybe, just maybe, I’d sleep through it.

And if that didn’t work, well I knew sleep wasn’t gonna happen at all until it was over. So instead, I’d rush to the basement, turn on a movie and try to drown out the cracks of thunder that would scare me every time.

I’d like to say that I’ve grown out of this childhood fear. However, the recent storm in Winnipeg, just last Wednesday, reminded me again,  just why I am not such a fan of storms.

You see, this time I heard a crack of thunder like I’ve never heard before. My husband and I both commented on it – he with amazement and me with terror. -We then thought nothing of it, until I braved a look out my patio door to see this….

Lightning had struck a tree in our yard, leaving us with a massive tree on the ground.

Let’s just say that this was more confirmation for me that I don’t like thunderstorms. 🙂

But it got me ponderin’ about why I dislike them so.

For starters, they’re mighty and powerful and completely unpredictable. That terrifies me because I don’t feel safe in them.

But even more so, in the midst of them, I hate that I have no control over what they’ll do, how strong they’ll be or how long they’ll last.

Whatever they’re gonna do, they’re gonna do.

So it’s really that control thing that gets to me….

Ah yes, there’s that word I’m so familiar with. Control. I like to be in control, to know what’s happening, how it will go, and how it will turn out. And, wouldn’t it be nice if life happened that way all the time?!

Instead, it seems life comes to us like thunderstorms sometimes. We can be going along just fine when suddenly we’re in the midst of a storm.

Turmoil, drama, devastation, fear.

And, even if we knew that it was coming, we never quite know how it’s gonna play out. Sometimes the storm changes direction and never comes. Other times, the storm rages and leaves its mark on our life.

This storm got me thinking about how much I hate giving up control and letting change happen.

And maybe that’s kinda what coming to therapy can feel like.

We may know a storm is coming, or we might be in the midst of one already and can’t seem to find our way out of it. Coming to therapy can feel like we’re facing the storm in front of us and we don’t know what’s gonna happen. We might be surprised and the storm isn’t as bad as we thought it might be. But it’s often terrifying to figure this out because we don’t know how the ending is going to look or how our movement toward change is going to happen. But maybe, giving up control is precisely what is needed for us to experience the change we need.

The irony of the tree coming down was that just a few days earlier my husband and I had been commenting that perhaps someday we’ll need to cut down a tree in our yard to allow for more sunlight on our patio.

As we spoke about this, neither of us had any idea this would become a reality so soon. And while this wasn’t quite what we had in mind for how we’d make this happen, in some small way, maybe this is how change happens sometimes.

We know it needs to happen, but the process of getting there can be hard and scary, and the result unknown. But maybe, if we allow ourselves to let go of control, we’ll experience the calm after the storm.

I can say with certainty we’re definitely getting that extra sunlight on our patio now… And wouldn’t we all like a little more light in our lives?