“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.” ― Lao Tzu
Something inside us remembers…remembers being let down, being used, maybe even abused. We may have been taken advantage of, neglected, and a myriad of other reasons why we may have control issues at some level. We can begin to be controlling in order to feel empowered because we grew up feeling vulnerable. In reality, we have little trust of others, of life, of God.
At some point, in my own life, I lost belief in a good and loving God. For many years, into early adulthood, I set out wanting no others to think there was not good and caring and loving people and to feel as abandoned as I felt. I gave and gave and gave and cared and loved openly and deeply thinking that I would help the lost and rejected and abandoned kids and adults believer in life and a kind god. It drove my personal relationships in that I chose needy, wounded, men who would be grateful for me since I felt I would not be accepted by any others. I paid great prices for this because my relationships were doomed to fail. It was, in some warped way, a way to make sure I would be abandoned, eventually, physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. My life was full of anxiety and a drive to do more than I ever could, in reality, and I became, more and more, a perfectionist who would fail miserably at perfection. The more I tried, the more I failed, because I could not, always, sustain such a highly service-oriented life. I always rode the cusp of losing control and it caused a great deal of drama and chaos I my life. I became more and more emotionally sensitive and almost manic in my need to control what I thought I could. I placed too highly personal expectations on myself and could not sustain even that and failed and felt shame because I failed, when most people would have known that the stakes were too high. Not only I paid, but the relationships paid, my children paid, since my expectations for them were too high as well. The more I felt that I was losing control, and felt I was failing, the more I set higher expectations of myself. The more I ended up failing, the needier I got. I wanted others to give what I gave. I had no idea that I was a control freak, that I was breaking my own heart, time after time after time.
One day, when I was working all hours and going many extra miles, a peer sent me a fax. It read, “Sometimes you have to let go and let me do my own work. Signed, “God”. It was like someone had turned on a light switch. Who did I think I was? How much misery had I brought on myself and others because of my need to control?
Eventually, I figured it out. I was a slow learner. I came to know that my sense of a need to control, in its many disguises, was rooted in fear. I was controlling because I was deluded into NOT thinking about what would happen if I did not. But I came to know the freedom of letting go. I wrote my book about the story of my life and in doing that I came to know my many flaws and in knowing such, I learned to release and relinquish my need to control and let be what would be. How incredible freeing it was. I wrote a sign and put it on my bathroom mirror where I would see it every morning: “Let go! Let God!” It did not happen suddenly. It took a great deal of self-awareness to rid myself of the need to control. I freed my own self and in doing so I began to thrive. I still have to really watch myself that I do not slip, easily, back into those expectations of self and others.
Right up until last year, I was working hard at this. I really began to look at how fear-driven I had lived my life and I met those fears head on and knew them for the WHY of them. This awareness allowed me to let go of more insidious ways of being. I freed myself more and more, even yet but each little change makes me feel more empowered than I ever did when I was controlling things. I stopped expecting others to be what I thought they should be. It took the pressure off me and everyone else around me. How healing it has been. How grateful I am to relinquish the wheel.
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