What You Can Control
The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
Ascension
4.9 • 7.1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 October 2019
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you’re in any kind of situation in your life where you feel you are limited in what you can control, you may not be as chained to your circumstances as you think. Fr. Mike offers encouragement, saying you can still make interior decisions and have an effect on your circumstances to some extent. You still have agency.
Even though you may not be able to change everything you want, you can change your heart. Resentment and bitterness can prevent a great deal of needed change, so if they’re in your heart start by surrendering them to the Lord. This will give you internal freedom similar to what Jesus had when he was suffering on the Cross.
Give your circumstances to the Lord and put them under his dominion. This may lead to more pain, but it’s better than staying bitter because if we remain in that bitterness our hearts will become numb and incapable of love.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is Essentially Presents. |
| 0:11.3 | So here's one of the realities of life is that it can get really tough. |
| 0:15.8 | You might be watching this or listening to this in a place where life is pretty overwhelming |
| 0:20.8 | or life is your circumstances, it might even be beyond your control. |
| 0:26.3 | You might be in a place right now where you can't affect or can't transform or change |
| 0:33.6 | your circumstances. |
| 0:34.6 | They might be someone's fault. |
| 0:37.7 | Like it could be that someone has done something to you. |
| 0:40.2 | It could be your own fault. |
| 0:43.0 | Maybe you've done something and your life made some decisions that just like, wow, and |
| 0:46.8 | here I am now. |
| 0:47.8 | Now I'm stuck. |
| 0:49.2 | This person did this thing to me and now I have to carry this the rest of my life. |
| 0:53.5 | Two things to keep in mind. |
| 0:54.9 | That's what this video is about. |
| 0:55.7 | Two things to keep in mind. |
| 0:56.7 | One is you always have agency. |
| 1:00.6 | There was a professor, Dr. Seligman, I believe his name is, who did this experiment on learned |
| 1:09.0 | helplessness. |
| 1:10.0 | But he put these animals in a place where no matter what they did, they couldn't affect |
| 1:15.8 | their circumstances. |
| 1:19.1 | And so then he took them into a, brought them into a situation where they could. |
... |
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