Give Up Control

Ever feel like you need to give up control?

Welp. You can’t.

Because while you do have free will, you don’t have full control in the first place.

First of all, kudos for the self-awareness piece that you even recognize you have this need for control.

If you feel like you have this need for control, I want to ask you about self-control.

Holding yourself back.

Restraint.

We learn from an early age to put the breaks on.

While it’s true that we need to put the breaks on to some extent to connect with others and to respect others, because manners can help you go a long way, we often take this self-control too far.

Like an antibiotic that doesn’t know what bacteria to target and destroys them all, this self-control not only helps us be civilized, but often causes us to shut ourselves down in other areas as well.

So we control our own expression to some extent, and then start projecting that onto others as well.

Last week I wrote about how one’s efforts to protect someone else often wind up shooting everyone in the foot.

[Read that post here.]

When you’re doing that, trying to protect, it’s like you’re exercising this need for control.

If you grew up with a parent or caregiver who hurt you or wasn’t there for you in some way, the only way you as a child knew how to make sense of it was to take control and responsibility. Even if only in your mind.

Your parents were like God. The masters of your universe. Without them, you’d die. You were wired to know that.

So if they did something bad?

The only way to make sense of it was to blame yourself.

Wouldn’t you rather believe that something is wrong with you or that you’re bad, than live in a world at the mercy of an evil God?

At least you can change yourself.

At least you can pretend to have control.

I challenge you to be aware of what you’re trying to control.

Are you struggling in your relationship?

Quit judging yourself for feeling certain things.

When people are struggling in their relationships, they are often trying to control their emotions.

People say:

“I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but…”

Stop right there.

You should ONLY feel how you’re feeling.

Our bodily and emotional wisdom is interrelated, connected, entwined in our brains, and HIGHLY sophisticated.

Allow yourself to feel what you’re feeling and even though it might not feel good I can assure you it will feel much better than trying to hold a dam up against it.

When your judgment, need for control and ego comes online to tell you to feel otherwise, you are getting yourself into troubled water.

I challenge you to ALLOW what you’re experiencing.

SURRENDER your control.

Recognize that you don’t have much in the first place.

Trust your emotional flow to take you to where you need to be.

Retain your manners, but lose your rigid self-restraint.

And if the only way you can loosen up is to let it all go and start eating with your hands like a caveman?

Go for it.

Cheers to thriving in business and love,