By: Laurel Elders
Have you ever heard someone tell you, "Stop trying to control everything." Or, "That person is a complete control freak."
Have you ever thought you were being controlled or manipulated by another? Have you ever felt out of control? Today, we are going to unpack the cost of control. The attempt to control is life draining. This article will help you connect with better strategies so that you can choose a life-enhancing strategy instead. First, what is control? Control is a noun and, according to Oxford Dictionary, is: "The power to influence or direct people behavior or the course of events." Control is not a human virtue which we will introduce later. Control is a strategy the egoic-self devises to stay safe. Control at its worst turns into manipulation which is the ego's desperate attempt to remain safe. First, it is best to understand that actual control is 1) impossible and 2) illusion based. While someone might be successful at manipulating others, there is always a cost involved. These include:
In essence, all of the beautiful virtues of life that leave us feeling safe and connected are pinched off by the machinations of the egoic-self. The good news? There is a better way. To dispel the costs of control, we must first understand the human psyche and how the ego attempts to run the show. There is you. Then there is fear-based you. Fear-based you splinters off in an attempt to remain emotionally safe. This is how the egoic-self forms. The ego is based on fear and the false premise that "I am separate." In truth, while we may be physically separate from others and feel separation, we are not separate at all. We are connected. Spiritual teachers have been teaching this fact for centuries. Quantum physicists have backed this up by discovering that everything is energy and energy is interconnected. This is the reason we say, "love hurts." When in reality, it is not love that hurts, but the absence of love that hurts. If we were not connected, the absence of love would bear no cost. What is the alternative to control? What is on the other side? Connection. Connection is the bridge from the vice of control to the virtue of connection. How do we navigate from control to connection? After all, if it were evident, we would all be choosing something with benefits and dropping the behaviors with costs, right? Let's break down the anatomy of what happens. First, a situation or phenomenon occurs. Second, the brain determines if the phenomenon is safe or unsafe If safe, then all is well, and no need for alarm. If unsafe, then there is an alert that goes out. When an alert goes out, two things happen. We are alerted there is something we don't want The ego, attempting to keep us safe, launches into an evaluation of the situation. This becomes a story that includes a full-blown analysis of who, what, when, where, why, how, good, bad, right, wrong. The mind begins to spin and delivers a mess of false messengers. So naturally, we can see why the ego devised control as a strategy to remedy the chaos it produces. The problem with egoic evaluations and the stories generated? They are riddled with illusions—false evidence appearing real. The body reacts emotionally to the ego's storyline, and then our evaluations feel very real. Thus, confirming that its assessment is indeed justified. And... this process solves nothing and keeps us in reactivity. Masterful people do not live through stories. They lead life through vision. They lead life connected to themselves, the possibilities embedded within, and are therefore connected to others. Let's break down the anatomy of what happens. A phenomenon occurs. The brain determines if it is safe/unsafe. If unsafe, the alert goes out. The masterful person stops here and notices, without judgment, "I feel off about this." They then ask, "what part do I want to play in this?" They begin with the end in mind, a vision. This stops the egoic mind from derailing into story land. When properly understood, fear is a great asset to have. It alerts us to what we don't want. The Sufi tradition invites us not to stop there. What we don't want is only half a message. What we do want is the other half of the message. What we do want will never be found in fear. We have to move beyond the egoic extrapolations and into our hearts where our wholeness resides. When we stay stuck in fear, it turns from asset to liability. It is just the messenger, never the truth. The truth of what happened does not define the truth of what is possible - unless we remain in fear. The masterful person responds by sifting through all of the virtues embedded as possibilities within them and answers the question. "In this situation, I'm choosing to be the possibility of …." and they fill in the blanks. They lead by vision. They lead by virtue not by vice. Virtues are within us all waiting to be tapped into. Therein lies your true potential. To recap: Fear fragments the mind leaving us in a state of disintegration. Fear fragments us off from possibility and takes us to the land of probability due to reactiveness that has costs attached. What is the good news? Illusions only last as long as we allow them to. Once they are brought to the surface of our awareness, they disappear. We can't fix what we don't see. As we see, so will we be. To this end, I invite you to step out of the story and into the power of your vision. This is living integrated through wholeness. The next time a fear occurs, ask yourself:
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