How to Stop Being Controlling
Photo by James Yarema
Hello again my love.
Do you suffer from believing you should be able to control everything and everyone around you?
You’re not alone.
It makes our brain feel extremely safe to believe that if only everything was under our control—and our control alone—then all would be right in the world.
Like if we could control what our significant other says, does, and thinks at all times, we’d feel better.
Or if we could control our children’s behavior, oh and all of their friend’s behavior too, ah sweet relief.
Or if we could control the flow of traffic in the morning, the line at the coffee shop, our local politics, what strangers are doing, what our bosses are saying to us, what billionaire’s spend their money on, who our exes are dating, ahhhhhh!
It never stops.
Our brain is CONSTANTLY focusing precious energy and time on everything it cannot control.
Because it is under the false pretense, the deep illusion, the smoke screen of LIES, that if things would just go our way, we’d finally be allowed to feel how we want to feel.
And that somehow, since everything isn’t happening our way, we’re stuck in this victimized emotional state. Forever trapped by reality’s unfair objection to our expectations.
This is the scam of the century.
This is a crock of shit.
This is a habit… you should want to quit.
We plan out excruciatingly detailed expectations in our heads about how our days, weeks, and lives should go. But the expectations do not simply end with us, they extend out to the entire planet and everyone on it.
As a matter of fact, our expectations are almost exclusively for everyone and everything BUT ourselves.
Why do we torture ourselves so?
I’ll tell you why.
Because as long as we are hyper focused on the minutiae of reality that we have absolutely no say in, we are relieved from ever having to face ourselves.
The truth is, this kind of behavior is the exact opposite of what we truly want.
We don’t want the weight of the world and everyone else’s decisions put onto us everyday.
We don’t want to continue feeling emotionally unfulfilled, leaving our thought habits all messy.
We don’t want to remain victims in our own story, trapped by this habituated pattern of control that is no longer serving us.
GOD NO!
We WANT to step into our full power, we WANT to face and overcome ourselves, we WANT to take complete responsibility for our lives and release the responsibility of all that is not ours to take.
We truly want these things more than almost anything else.
So how do we do it?
How do we finally face ourselves?
The first step is to begin to recognize what is your business, and more importantly, what isn’t. Here’s a hint: if it involves another person’s thoughts, words, or behavior, it’s not yours.
The next step is to notice how your own thoughts cause your feelings, not the circumstances around you. Reality is not responsible for how you feel—you are. And reality includes what everyone else on the planet is doing. Give reality a break and begin taking notice of some of the thoughts you think each day. How do they make you feel?
And finally, allow yourself to feel. Most of our desire for control comes from wanting to avoid feeling uncomfortable emotions. If you’re no longer spending all your time avoiding them, you can finally move through them. You can finally let them teach you whatever they are there to teach you. You can finally move on and begin deciding how you want to feel at all times.
If you want help releasing control, book a free 30 minute consultation with me and we can take this work even deeper.
Your friendly coach,
Ellicia
