Our constant human attempts to ‘control’ life and to ‘maintain appearances’ may seem beneficial — at first glance — but they stem from deep fear, and eventually create even more pain and fear.
Control and fear go hand-in-hand. Often, our lives are built — literally constructed — around the idea that maintaining an effective ‘act’ is the only way we can survive. Most of us learned very early to make our inner being invisible (in reaction to intense fear and shame) — and since not being able to be and express ourselves is very painful, we soon shut down even the memory of our true self in order to survive.
We believed we needed a consistent, convincing act to present to the world (primarily our caretakers), which under no circumstances — ideally — could ever be breached. Outer appearances became all-important, while our invisible inner reality had to be forgotten and denied.
What ‘losing it’ really means
Fortunately, it’s almost impossible to totally deny or avoid our true self — but we certainly try (and try!). However, our real feelings and needs occasionally ‘leak out’ in the course of our daily lives — and then we usually feel like we’re ‘losing it,’ or ‘falling apart’! Often, we freak out and feel terribly ashamed. Uh-oh! Our inner reality is becoming visible to all!
What is this IT we’re so afraid of losing when we ‘lose it’? Control, of course! What do we imagine is ‘falling apart’? Our constructed self AND our supposedly invincible self-control.
Why are we so afraid of ‘losing control’? Because we’re still enslaved by our childhood survival strategy; we’ve totally forgotten that it was meant as a temporary expedient, and we unconsciously believe it’s still necessary to our survival now, as adults.
In a very real sense, we are all just anxious, frightened children, hiding inside our adult bodies — hiding behind our control-obsessed ‘act.’
Is there any way out of this self-created trap, our defensive ‘false self’? Not as long as we are heavily invested in maintaining control and outer appearances, because this controlling stance continually supports our act, our mask — and our belief that we must maintain it to survive.
Every successful attempt at control solidifies our belief that we ARE our act, that we ARE the outward self we appear to be.
And this belief, in turn, always reminds us (subconsciously) of the perceived threats and terror which led to our creating a false self in the first place … which reinforces our fear and our ‘need’ to control … which leads to more fear of failure and exposure — which drives us to try to ‘control ourselves’ and everything around us even more ….
A devastating downward spiral
This dark, convoluted pattern creates a downward spiral of increasing stress and negativity that can only end in our becoming totally out of control, to the point of addiction, violence, psychosis, life-threatening illness, or even death.
Obviously, this result is not what we intended when we first began, as children, to ‘control’ and hide our true selves — but when we KEEP doing it as adults, over and over again, it leads to massive destruction: personal, interpersonal, societal, international.
Why? Well, to be ‘in control,’ we have to always be ‘right,’ on top of things, ‘together,’ invulnerable — and people who disagree with us or challenge our act are therefore a threat. They must be ‘wrong,’ ‘bad,’ or deluded, and should be dealt with — aggressively.
They are our ‘enemies,’ and we must defend ourselves against them. We must control them by converting and changing them to be and think like us — or else by killing them off, either physically or through social invalidation and objectification. They certainly can’t be fully human like WE are!
The profound paranoia of ‘normal’ consciousness
We have accepted this way of thinking and feeling as ‘normal,’ but it is actually profoundly paranoid. It is inherently separative, self-justifying, and violent. If Christianity is ‘right,’ Muslims must be ‘wrong’ (and vice versa); if Americans are ‘good,’ the Russians (or Chinese) must be ‘evil’; if white skin is evidence of ‘superiority,’ then people of color must be ‘inferior’; and so on, and so on, ad infinitum.
Our false selves are inherently very judgmental; they are trapped in dualistic thinking and are only capable of divisive, ‘black-and-white’ thinking. What this really means is that our false selves are only capable of dualistic, divisive, ‘black-and-white’ thinking. When we are identified solely with our carefully-maintained false selves, we are constantly on the defensive, on guard against any threat (real or imagined) — and we keep creating/inventing enemies who are ‘wrong’ to prove that WE are ‘right.’
Obviously, this paranoid ‘reality’ creates the underlying pressures and judgmental beliefs that lead to social and domestic violence, religious bigotry and conflict, war, and terrorism.
When we identify so completely with the rigid false self, we live in such a narrow comfort zone that anything different and unfamiliar is automatically felt to be a profound threat –- and the more different it is, the more threatened we feel.
Intercepting ‘automatic’ reactions, shifting our awareness, and becoming response-able
So … what to do? What can we do to escape this terribly destructive pattern?
Here’s the bottom line: Unless we learn to intentionally intercept and interrupt this automatic process, we will simply continue creating ‘enemies,’ in the broadest possible sense, and in every aspect of our lives, from intimate relationships to international politics.
This interception and interruption process can only work if we recognize our fear, own our snap judgments and discomfort, and gradually let go of the driving ‘need’ to change and control everything that we perceive as ‘other’ (including even our own denied inner selves).
Our concept of control is fundamentally anti-life, anti-growth, and anti-relationship. It is also a total illusion, because our compulsive need for control shows that we are being controlled by ancient enmities, fears, and survival strategies.
We are being controlled by our inner child’s fears of abuse, abandonment, helplessness, and possible death. We are controlled by our ‘need’ to maintain a stable facade and to suppress our pain, anger, grief, fear —and even our joy and aliveness. We end up being dominated and controlled by our ‘need’ to dominate and control!
Dependence, counter-dependence — or neither
Once again, this pattern is born of fear and our sense of separateness, and it constantly re-creates both. It is self-destructive because it is self-defeating — that is, it affirms our ‘separate’ false self while preventing the emergence of our true self.
On the inside, our false selves feel very fragile — so we fear that disapproval or harsh criticism might shatter our ‘self-image’ (which we imagine IS us). What a terrible state of fear this puts us in! Often, we choose to preemptively criticize others’ behavior, ideas, or appearance to try to beat them to the punch — and keep them from doing the same thing to us.
This is clearly a ‘counter-dependent’ reaction. Instead of feeling vulnerable, and dependent on other’s validation, we often act invulnerable — strong and shameless — and keep the focus off of us by intimidating, shaming, or attacking others.
Instead of fearing/anticipating criticism or domination, we may aggressively try to dominate and control everything and everybody around us. Sadly, in the process we often turn relationship into a contest, and communication into a battle for dominance and survival — so even if we ‘win,’ we really lose.
An effective — but challenging — ‘way out’
The way out of this terrifying dilemma is simple but difficult. The nature of the dilemma itself presents us with all the clues we need.
Anytime we feel defensive; anytime we feel tempted to lie, exaggerate our accomplishments, or belittle another’s; anytime we feel the urge to dominate or attack; anytime we feel compelled to defend our ‘rightness’ or our righteousness — we are faced with three possible choices (four, if we include just storming off — but that’s a childish, chickenshit option).
We either:
1) give in to these defensive feelings and judgments and act on them — creating even more conflict and separateness, or
2) we deny them and act as if nothing is really happening and everything’s just fine (maintaining appearances at any cost),
OR
3) we acknowledge our defensive/hostile reactions inwardly while refusing to succumb to them, and instead of choosing control choose to go BEYOND appearances to touch the openness of the true self within us — and within the other person.
We learn (gradually) to open our hearts and minds, and move beyond our initial judgmental reactions. Then we can begin to truly communicate; then we can receive and relate instead of just reacting and resisting.
Non-resistance, acceptance, and empowerment
Only the third choice is healthy and healing. The first choice condemns us to continual ‘ego battles,’ competition, and defensiveness with others — the ‘active’ mode of control; the second choice condemns us to frustration, powerlessness, and ‘being NICE’ — the ‘passive’ mode of control … and the third opens the door to owning our feelings and dealing with them in the only way that’s ultimately effective: getting to know and accept our own inner self, and to recognize and connect with the inner self within others as well.
The third choice — non-resistance, acceptance — embraces both assertiveness and vulnerability. It allows us to go straight to the source of our pain, since it was the suppression of our inner child/true self that entangled us in our false selves to begin with.
Only by understanding and loving our true inner self, and accepting his/her pain and fear, do we have any chance at all of stepping out of the endless, odious control game — or of liberating the immense inner power and love that is our true self, waiting to emerge from behind our walls of control and denial.
What a wonderful paradox for our fearful, controlling ‘rational minds’: Control is powerlessness, and acceptance is empowerment!
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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