Controlling behavior: Behavior intended to control your own feelings,
control how people feel about you and treat you, or control the outcome
of things.
All of us have grown up learning many different ways to control - we
had to as part of our survival.
Perhaps you grew up in a family that used anger and criticism as forms
of control and this became the role modeling for what you do now. Or
you might have been a child who picked up on anger early, had temper
tantrums, and you are still using anger as your primary form of control.
If anger and criticism was used in your family, you might have learned to
respond to it with compliance - being a good girl or boy. You might have
learned to put aside your own feelings and needs and go along with
what others wanted in the hopes of controlling their feelings and actions
toward you. You might use care-taking as your primary form of control.
Or, you might have decided to go in the opposite direction and resist
others' attempts to control you. You might have decided that having
control over not being controlled is what is really important. If you
struggle with procrastination, you might want consider that resistance
has become a major form of control for you.
Perhaps you decided as a child to just withdraw and shut out others'
attempts to control you. You might have also decided to try to control
your own feelings through addictions such as food, alcohol, drugs, work,
TV, gambling, spending, and so on.
Finally, you might have decided that avoiding your feelings by staying in
your head instead of your heart is the way to feel safe from pain. The
abandonment of your own feelings - the lack of love for yourself - results
in inner emptiness. Your emptiness becomes like a vacuum on others'
energy, pulling on others to give you the love you need to fill your inner
emptiness.
Most people chose a combination of the above ways of trying to control.
For example, you might be a caretaker in the hopes of getting people to
love and approve of you, and then you might turn to anger when that
doesn't happen. You might find yourself giving in to what people want to
a certain extent, and then retreating or resisting their attempts to control
you. You might find yourself being furious at someone's attempts to
control you, but then giving in anyway to avoid his or her upset with you.
Or perhaps you are a mellow person until you drink, and then you
unleash your rage. Or vice versa - you are nice only when you drink
and you are a rageaholic the rest of the time. Or, on the surface you
might be a nice and giving person, all the while pulling energetically for
others' love, attention, and approval.
All of these behaviors are intended to protect you from some form of
pain - the pain of rejection, of engulfment, of failure. Most people
attempt in numerous ways to have control over getting love, avoiding
pain, and feeling safe.
Yet it is these very behaviors that, as adults, are causing most of our
pain. Anger feels terrible in the body, as does compliance. Being stuck
in procrastination or withdrawal also feels awful, as does the emptiness
of staying in your head instead of your heart. All these behaviors result
in feeling alone inside, because they are all ways to abandon yourself.
Controlling behavior is not loving to yourself or to others.
We've all heard that you can't love others until you love yourself, and
this is very true. Loving yourself means that your focus is on what is truly
in your highest good - what fills your heart with peace and joy and a
deep sense of integrity and self worth. Loving yourself means that you
are asking throughout the day, "What is in my highest good in this
moment?" It is never in your highest good to try to control others or use
them to fill your own emptiness. Nor is it in your highest good to harm
yourself or others in any way.
Try practicing throughout the day asking this question, "What is in my
highest good right now?" Answers will come to you, and then you can
take the loving action. This one shift in your thinking can change your
life!
Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?" and ?Healing Your Aloneness.? She is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding healing process. Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com or email her at margaret@innerbonding.com Phone Sessions Available.
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