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Are you the backbone of your family? Does everyone come to you when they need answers, solutions and assistance? Does it ever get to a place when its too much to handle? When you come to this crossroad, take time to re-evaluate to see how you can run life more effective and efficient. Oprah Winfrey’s, O Magazine writer Suzan Colon sat down with actress, mother, wife, producer and musician, Jada Pinkett Smith as she told about her Aha moment in her life. She shared her epiphany when letting go gave back more in her life.
Read about her Aha moment here…
About a year and a half ago, I realized I was about to hit a wall. My husband, Will Smith, and I were going through a major transition—besides acting, directing, writing, and producing, we’d started the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation to support urban families through education, health, and arts programs. At the same time, I was trying to keep my family life healthy and strong and take care of our kids, Trey, 16; Jaden, 10; and Willow, 8. I’ve always been a caretaker; I think a lot of women are. We take care of everybody else first, and very rarely do we think about ourselves.
I grew up in a neighborhood in Baltimore that was like a war zone, so I never learned to trust that there were people who could help me. I was also stuck in the idea that taking care of others was the way to create good relationships. As a result, I tried to micromanage my world.
One day I was so overwhelmed I thought I might be crushed under the weight of all the responsibilities I’d taken on. I pray and meditate every day, and when I started meditating that morning, I felt that God was telling me, Surrender or explode. All of a sudden, I was released. The stress was gone, and in that stillness came the solution: The less I do, the better things will go.
But it’s one thing to have an idea and another to grasp it. Okay, so I realized that by doing less, I can be more. But what did that mean? And how could I apply that to my life? I started with my family. It’s not just about being with them; it’s about being present while I’m with them. That area had been slipping a bit, but on this day I focused on my kids. I turned off my BlackBerry and didn’t take a single call or check my e-mail. You know how you feel as though if you stop, the whole world will fall apart? Well, it didn’t. For a while, everybody was like, “Where’s Jada? We’ve got to get this answer! This needs to happen now!” But it all went fine without me.
So the next thing I did was trust that the people we’d hired could do their jobs. When I was trying to control them, they felt suffocated and invalidated. When I let go, they felt empowered, which created an atmosphere of harmony, and there was peace within the everyday chaos. I learned that surrounding myself with people who are able to help me is like being surrounded by tangible godliness.
Since then, it’s been a year of bliss. I don’t have to go around trying to save everybody anymore; that’s not my job. I took off the Control Freak crown, and now my headaches are over. That tiara may have been pretty, but it was just too damn tight.
