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Letting go of control creates expansion in your life
Episode 114
Letting go of control is going to open up your future in ways that you cannot imagine. Are you someone who craves certainty? Do you feel that you are in your power when you know what's going to happen next? I want you to think about that. What is it about needing to know what's going to happen next, or that certainty that brings you so much comfort? And I use that word comfort intentionally, because it's surprising how many people actually pride themselves on getting outside of their comfort zone, yet they grip tightly to controlling certain aspects of their life or their business. That need to control impacts everything because when things need to be adjusted, when changes need to be made, then it throws off your expectations, and it's our attachment to our expectations that create unhappiness. This need for control, this desire for control, this desire for certainty, comes from needing to be in a place that's familiar because within that familiarity is a sense of safety.
[00:02:47] If you're someone who is controlling or you know someone who is controlling, what has happened is that at some point in life there was a certain set of circumstances that your brain uses a model of reality for its way of responding. So let me give you a really extreme example that might help you, understand what I'm saying? Take a woman who has been battered in a marriage. She's been in an abusive relationship. She's been there for years. She finally manages to get out of that relationship and maybe she gets back on her feet. She feels comfortable dating a few people, and let's say she meets someone who is just adorable. Someone who will truly take care of her. Someone who truly loves her, and she just abruptly walks away from that relationship. And everyone around her is like, 'Oh my God, why would she ever walk away? This is someone who would never hurt her. They love her, they adore her. I don't understand what's going on.' And it's because the brain, not her consciously, but the brain sees that relationship as something extremely uncertain. It can't predict. So the instinct is to activate fight or flight and to run away.
[00:04:32] I know it sounds very counterintuitive, but what the brain perceives as familiar is often considered the safer option because it's predictable. It doesn't mean it's the truly safe option. So then what happens? Oftentimes, unless this person does the healing that's necessary, through therapy or whatever means, they will end up in another abusive relationship. Another example that might be a little more familiar is one where you grow up in a home and you watch your parents, you watch how they interact, and perhaps the way that one of your parents behave is not, you don't like it. Like you love them, but you don't like the way they handle relationships. So you say to yourself, I'm never gonna be in a relationship with someone who acts like, let's just say mom, never gonna be in a relationship with someone who acts like mom. And then lo and behold, you go out into the world, you get outta high school, maybe you go to college, or maybe you're in business for yourself, and you meet someone and you fall in love. And next thing you know, you realize is that you've fallen in love with someone who's just like your mother. And how did this happen? How did it happen? Because you swore you would never be in a relationship who exhibited these specific, personality traits or characteristic? Well, the way that it happened is your subconscious picked up on those traits. It then recognized them as familiar. It didn't matter that you didn't like them. You grew up in that environment and it's familiar to you. So the subconscious mind does that so that the sooner that you recognize that those things happen, you can curb those behaviors. Sometimes it requires some subconscious work. Not always, but that's a couple of examples of how certainty can come from some very strange places.
[00:06:51] When it comes down to
Published on 3 years ago