HOW often have you been sailing along, planning and organising what you are going to do today, or this week, or even for the next few months, when something happens, maybe right out of the blue, that throws your plans completely out of kilter?
Or, maybe you were anticipating something happening which you did not want to happen and were doing your utmost to stop, but despite your best efforts it happened anyway?
Maybe a significant person in your life behaves in a way which you do not like and you put a lot of work and energy into getting them to do what you want, but to no avail – there might be a change for a little while and then they revert to the way they were before and this drives you mad? Does any of this sound familiar?
We might want our partner to stay home more, to spend more time with us or the children, drink less, do more house work! We might want our teenagers or twenty somethings living at home to study more, come home earlier at night, not turn the house into a tip! We might want to be working in a better job, or just working!
Wikipedia defines control as the ability to purposefully direct, suppress or change! Control is quite a short word, but it resonates in lots of ways! Are we in control of ourselves? Do we want to be in control of ourselves to the extent that we are? Do we lose a lot of our spontaneity in our efforts to do and say the right thing – whatever that might be? Are we afraid of being out of control? Do we feel that we are controlled by someone else – that our choices and decisions are not our own?
How do we try and control things? If we don’t like a situation do we try to change the other person so that the situation becomes more to our liking? For instance, maybe we like to keep the house clean and tidy but our partner, and our kids, don’t care what it looks like? Do we insist on them bending to our will and do things our way? Why might this be? Is our identity as a person mixed up in it?
Do we feel we need to be seen as super housekeepers to be accepted? What will other people think if the house is messy? Maybe being seen as super-efficient masks our feelings of inadequacies in other areas? Or are we afraid that we will lose control if things are not in order and the way we want them? Giving up control by negotiating with others so that they do their bit in their own way can be quite a challenge!
On the other hand, we can feel that we have no control; it is difficult for us to say what we think or ask for what we need because we are nervous of the other person’s reaction. Maybe they will be angry with us? Maybe they will feel hurt?
Maybe they will think we are being selfish? All of these possibilities can worry us and inhibit us so that we respond in a way which we think will control how the other person reacts so they are not upset with us. Maybe we just agree to what the other says and wants even though we don’t agree – we swallow what we feel.
If we have learnt do this we can end up in relationships which have a lot of emotional pain and we can feel a lot of resentment towards the other person. And it can be pointless, because we cannot change or control how another person will feel anyway. It is only by giving up the fantasy that we can and working to empower ourselves so that we can take different actions on our own behalf that we can change things. We need to learn to take responsibility for how we feel and leave responsibility for the other person’s feelings with them.
“If it be your will that I sing no more” – words from one of Leonard Cohen’s songs (based on a piece in the bible) in which he promises to sing no more if that is God’s will – the ultimate handing over of control by a singer and song writer.
As we move through our lives, we realise that we cannot control everything – nature will rage in whatever way it wants – we can’t dictate if the weather will be sunny or dry even if we do have a barbecue planned. Our children will get the exam results they get, not always the ones we or they want regardless. People will feel and react in their own way and we cannot control this, no matter how we twist ourselves inside out to keep them happy.
Sometimes there is nothing to be done other than accept whatever is happening, learn to check in and listen to our own innate wisdom about what is right for us and work with it as best we can.
Evelyn Burke, MIACP, Counsellor / Psychotherapist practising in Naas
www.naascounselling.ie