Resolving the Daily Struggle with Control Issues (copyright 2005)

Life is not an experience that can be controlled. At best, it is to be savored and appreciated as we do our best to act graciously and make wise decisions. But a need to control is nonetheless a major problem for many of us.

This need has its source in childhood when we felt passive and had no choice but to submit to the will of others. As adults, some of us become controllers, wanting others to submit, but we are frustrated by our limited capacity to impose control over events or other people. Alternatively, many of us are sensitive to feeling controlled, and we submit or react passive-aggressively, often with growing resentment and sometimes with hatred.

The issue of control has a great deal to do with our capacity for self-regulation, including the behavioral problems of addictions and compulsions as well as emotional problems such as depression and anxiety. The more we are concerned about needing to be in control, the more likely we will be out-of-control in some area of our life.

The issue can be resolved when (1) we recognize our tendency to experience relationships, encounters with others, or everyday situations through the feeling of being controlled, and (2) we acknowledge that the feeling is caused mainly by the lingering emotional memories of passivity and submission in the normal course of our childhood, rather than by the allegedly inappropriate actions of others.

Control issues begin to surface when a child is eighteen months to three years of age. As parents know, children resist toilet training and other attempts to turn them into civilized human beings. The child takes personal offense when his parents tell him what to do and how to do it. At the time of the “terrible two’s,” children scream and protest against feeling controlled. Even the gentlest parents can feel frustrated at their attempts to train their toddlers.

It seemed to us that childhood consisted of passive experiences of giving up what we wanted and going along with someone else’s will. Our childhood was filled with have-to’s: have to go to bed, have to eat my vegetables, have to get dressed, have to clean my room, and have to be good. As adults we experience similar feelings in complying with the needs of others and performing the chores of daily life.

Many of us as children felt we had little influence on the feelings and behaviors of our parents and passively had to endure threatening or neglectful situations. We were rewarded for controlling our emotions and impulses. We were loved if we obeyed without protest. So we interpreted our obligations to our parents and to ourselves through a feeling of control. The more we felt in control, the more it seemed we could make everything work out okay.

As adults we fear being out of control. We know, usually unconsciously, that without control we won’t be able to continue to repress or hide certain feelings. This control, we feel, also makes us acceptable in the eyes of others. Otherwise, we will be weak and vulnerable, which brings up buried feelings of worthlessness and powerlessness. Control issues tend to make us less capable of empathy and compassion.

Control issues cause us to clamp down on our sense of self, and they help us to keep our world “safe” by minimizing or avoiding unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. This form of inner repression extends to others when, through the compulsion to make others into clones of ourselves, we lecture them and supervise their behaviors and even their beliefs.

However, having our sense of well-being revolve around the feeling of control creates anxiety about whether or not we are in control. Control in life can be elusive. Our control is often just an illusion. We are frequently afraid that reality will break through the illusion, and that our vulnerability and helplessness before the forces of life will overwhelm us. We react and try harder to be in control, and then feel even more frustrated and anxious when that doesn’t help.

This need to be in charge and manage the lives of others hides an unconscious attachment to feeling forced to submit to the will of others. When not in charge, we feel dominated and controlled. By controlling certain aspects of our life and that of others, we create an illusion of power and independence. But all it takes is some unmanageable situation to throw us into emotional turmoil.

Since our attachment to feeling dominated and controlled is not appealing in ourself, we cover it up in different ways. We can become defiant or stubborn and rebel against parental or other authority, often in ways that are self-defeating. We will defeat ourselves in order to “prove” our dislike for being controlled, when in fact being or feeling controlled is an old familiar feeling with which we still resonate and which we have not been able to outgrow. It is the main emotional component in addictive behaviors, when our life is taken over by an agenda we are unable to regulate.

When we break free of the question or issue of control, we find that our ego or egotism is less pronounced. Life is no longer seen or experienced through the lens of control, and we have a greater capacity for inner peace and harmony.