Getting off the Control Wagon

Have you ever noticed there are good things about control AND bad things about control?

We often have a confusing relationship with control.

When someone is too controlling, we want to get away from them as fast as possible (or fight them). When someone is too out of control, we also want to get away from them (or pressure them to find some control).

We have the same kind of attitude towards ourselves as we have towards other people.

When “out” of control we humans do really self-defeating things like overeat, binge, give up in self-pity, drink, smoke, internet, overspend, push, break things, and get led by our emotions, depression or panic.

When “in” control in the extreme, humans act like dictators, completely self-centered, wanting to manage ourselves, the world or our families, partners, and friends… bossing everyone around, demanding our environment be different than it is, making rules, diets, regulations and laws.

The trouble is, we move back and forth between the two and have enormous difficulty finding a middle way, a balance between the two arenas.

Neither side is freedom, that’s for sure.

But what’s going on in this whole in or out of control thing?

What if we stopped reaching for something…whether more control, or less control in ourselves OR in other people?

“Eeeeeek!” you might cry.

I have to keep trying to gain control! I’ve got to figure out a plan! I’ve got to stick with the plan! I must get to this Other Better Place where at least I’m not so uncertain! I need to follow the rules! Why can’t I just control myself?!!?

But….once again you may notice when you act like this to yourself (a dictator) or with other people for that matter, it’s incredibly stressful, you can’t keep holding it together. You can’t keep running everything, and you actually start longing for a moment of being out of control. Just a little moment of not having to control your impulses.

In comes the idea to use a substance or activity to help you relax, let your guard down, do what you please for once. Eat. Drink. Etcetera.

Sigh. Still swinging between the two extremes. Rats.

“Alcohol, drugs, smoke–this is not the way we want to go….There is another way of becoming free of the conditioned mind that you inherited, that you came into this world with. The ego knows something is missing, but it looks in the wrong place. It never goes deep into life, into what is. It never looks in the present moment. It looks into the next moment for what we can add in order to make ourselves feel better. It believes there must be something missing here now. But whatever you achieve, you will find yourself back in the Now!” ~ Eckhart Tolle

OK. We know either side of Control isn’t satisfying, or liberating.

So how do I get to the present moment Eckhart so brilliantly talks about?

Begin by questioning your thoughts about control. Start where you are. Start here in this moment, with the thinking you notice you’re aware of.

“I should be in control (or I AM in control). I should be able to get in control, or able to control others. I am better off if I try to control myself. Having control in life is good. I must keep trying.”

Let’s do The Work. Let’s look closely.

Is it true that you should be in control of yourself, or that you actually are?

Of course it’s true! Just look at all the suffering I’ve experienced by being out of control! It would be horrible to stop trying. Which is what would happen if I let go.

Are you sure?

Are you absolutely positive you need to keep trying to gain some control, do it different, strive to “get” there? Are you positive control is somewhere, and you can find it? Are you sure you’re actually able to control something, even if it’s just yourself?

Well, I do see that the very act of trying to get somewhere, even to remain in the present moment, has a “trying” energy. Trying to understand, trying to find peace, trying to relax, trying to do it right. It seems like I can control things like yelling at someone–I can keep my emotions hidden, I can suppress my big reactions. Right?

Hmmm.

I’m not sure about this idea that having control is “good”. I don’t know if it is. This is confusing. I can’t answer “yes”.

How do you react when you think you need to control yourself better, or more, or differently? And that you CAN?

I’ve worked with many clients over the years on their eating issues.

Once, a woman said to me she was in control in every single area of life except eating. She was a go-getter. She ran her own company. She was a marathon runner. She had enormous success and made tons of money. But she couldn’t control herself from eating sugar. She continuously had applied more pressure, and spent many days “in control” only to fall off. She had to fix this.

It’s a tough project.

There’s always another method, another diet, another plan, another approach, another book. Reaching, straining.

“This is going to be the Big Kahuna. I’m going to have a windfall, make a zillion dollars, find the perfect partner….be the perfect weight or have the perfect relationship with food and eating.”

Question four in The Work is the powerful, crazy, mind-blowing question that helps you get off this train-track of deciding what’s right or wrong all the time:

Who are you without these thoughts about the need to find control somewhere? Without the thought that you’re actually IN control, or could be?

Weird, right?

What? No control……anywhere?

This question is not about entering despair and resignation, it’s worse than that. (Ha ha).

For me, this question moves into contemplating the curious place of complete and absolute lack of control, total surrender. “Bone crushing surrender” as the wonderful teacher Adyashanti calls it.

It’s like falling through the air, and instead of flailing about trying to get upright, you just….fall. You go limp. Nothing left to try, or do. No different way. No way out. No solution.

But you don’t even have to totally “get” this. You can just open up to using the imagination to wonder what it would be like to stop trying to control yourself or your eating or your life circumstances right in this moment, and yet notice….you’re still right here. Alive.

Let’s turn these crazy thoughts around:

“I should not be in control (and actually, I’m not). I should not be able to get in control, and not able to control others. I am better off if I stop trying to control myself. Having no control in life is good. I must stop trying.”

How could this be just as true, or truer?

“On the surface, the illusion of control makes us feel safe and able to create a life for ourselves of comfort and security, manipulating our lives based on what we think we need. Yet, in actuality, we have no such control. Still, the illusion of it is amazing in its design and its complexity, because after all, almost every human being falls for it. Almost every human being thinks, ‘I’m in control of my life’ except when times get really difficult….We can spend a whole lifetime trying to exercise this sense of control that we don’t really have.” ~ Falling Into Grace by Adyashanti