Chapter 4: Noticing Your Intent: Is It To Relate Or To Control?
“Control-oriented communication tends to backfire on you; it often leads to the exact opposite of the result you were hoping for. It also leads you away from your present experience.”
“Relating is motivated by the wish to know and be known, to open yourself to another so they can see and perhaps empathize with your experience.”
“Controlling comes from the need to be comfortable and safe, to avoid feeling awkward, uncomfortable, or unsafe.”
“If our ideas about being in control are illusions, where does this leave us? I think we human beings need to become more comfortable with the discomfort of not knowing… we need to learn to tolerate that uncomfortable in-between part of any interaction, that stage of no-knowing-that-which-cannot-yet-be-known.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know, before your time on earth is up, how the world responds to your unique ideas, feelings, foibles, and gifts? Or are you content just to give a good performance of the script you were given by society or your family?”
“Let’s put more value on seeing what is than on being comfortable.”
Control Patterns (variety of unconscious ego-protective strategies people use when they feel unsafe)
- Identifying with your story or script.
- Filtering your perceptions through strongly held beliefs.
- Getting your buttons pushed.
- Gesturing automatically.
- Speaking in a patterned way
- Replaying the same self-talk over and over.
Noticing Your Intent
- In most human interactions relating is preferable to controlling because it brings you into the present; it helps you trust yourself; it helps you trust the unknown; and it helps others feel connected to you. Also, most people resist or close up around others’ controlling behavior even if they appear to be going along with it.
- Although there are times when controlling is the way to go (when you’re on a sailboat in the ocean and a storm comes up, it’s perfectly appropriate for the captain to start barking orders to the crew, or when the building is on fire, it would be ridiculous to ask whether people feel like exiting the building), most interpersonal communication does not involve that kind of danger. In most situations, we can’t expect others to act on our behalf unless they feel some connection to us. That sense of connection comes from relating.
- Most people exhibit a variety of unconscious control patterns. These patterns limit your freedom of expression. They keep your energy locked into repetitive, compulsive behavior – such as overtalking, explaining, comparing the present to the past, or smiling no matter how you feel. Control patterns reinforce the belief that you need the pattern to feel safe. Noticing and unlocking the conditioned fears and beliefs associated with your control patterns can get your energy flowing again and give you the confidence that no matter what life deals you, you’ll be able to handle it.
- In these times of shifting paradigms, there will be moments when you choose to control and moments when you choose to relate. The important thing is to look honestly at what your need to control is designed to protect you from and whether it actually supports your well-being.