Take Control: Choose to be Better, Not Bitter

Control is something every human being wants. Adler once said that all human problems are the result of lack of control and/or lack of attention. Control plays a huge part of our life and to gain it, people will override many of their values, their dignity, wellbeing and even their humanity. Control is important to our existence.

Let’s be real. The only reason we want control is because… we feel out of control. Why is that? Why do humans feel out of control?

Well, the simple reason is that we are born like that. We start our life without any sense of control and from that moment on, our life journey is an awakening to the realization that even our death, is out of our control.

The only reason we want control is because we feel out of control

Ronit Baras

Crying as a control tool

Think of a baby coming to life. He is totally dependent on the adults around him. He is out of control. He can’t control anything in his life. Not when he eats, not who is going to be with him, not his bowl movements, nothing! The only tool this baby has to “control” the world is to cry.

As we grow older, we gain more and more control over our life and this control gives us the illusion that we are “in control”.

Why do I say illusion?

Because we gain some control over some things, but we have more “out of control” experiences. For example, we learn to feed ourselves so we can choose what we take from the plate, but we still can’t control what our parents put on the plate.

We can dress ourselves but still can’t control what we wear to school for example. We can use our language to express ourselves, but we can’t control what other people will do with what we say.

The illusion of control

The problem children have is that the more control they have, the more they realize how much they can’t control and if they don’t know how to manage that feeling, they grow up to be grownups that are out of control.

They can’t control their thoughts, can’t control their feelings, they can’t control their reactions and can’t control their actions. Those are the people no one wants to hang around with, because they are scared and as a result, are very scary people.

I say that those people are still using the “baby controlling tool”. The only tool they know, “cry”.

People who don’t have a sense of control and don’t know how to fulfill their needs and manipulate their surroundings to their own needs, use crying as a tool. They don’t really do it consciously.

It is a primitive, defense mechanism we are all born with, “if the world does not work the way I want it to work, I will cry, or, I will die”, which is true, if, we were babies. If babies won’t cry, a boob will not appear and feed them, and they will die.

If you cry and you are a baby, it is Ok, your parents love you so much, they will manage, but others won’t. I think it is biological that parents can manage their babies crying while others feel stressed, again, helpless.

It is good to remember that even parents feel sick and tired when their babies cry for too long. Try crying to control the world when you are 4 years old, 7 years old or 16 years old and you’ll know exactly how sick and tired your parents are.

When you cry as an adult, even your parents will not stay there long enough to listen.

Crying, as the only tool to communicate, is the main reason for relationship breakups between parents and children, between couples or between any two people. It happens because one of the parties is crying too much, or both.

When I say “too much” I mean, for the other party, that was too much to handle, and running away from the relationship is more attractive than staying. It is more attractive than parenthood, than loyalty, than love or caring. Remember, it is a defense mechanism, a primitive function. When we are in that state, we can only do the three F’s: Fight, flight, freeze and all of them are a formula for a relationship disaster.

Adults cry differently than children. Instead of this loud noise making babies do, they complain, blame, criticize, judge, mock, attack, aggressive, play the victim, guilt trip and the reason they do it is because they can’t control something in their life or someone.

The connection between out-of-control and helplessness

The biggest problem with this control tool is that it helps only temporarily. It is an illusion of a second of control and it pops right in our face, the seconds after. You complain, blame, attack and you feel that for a second you control the other person or control the situation but in fact, you are crying “I’m weak, I’m out of control” and inside, the baby strengthens the sense of helplessness.

Read this again, you! The person crying, after a crying “session” feels even more helpless, even more out of control.

To make things worse, the people you are trying to control, feel offended, abused, invaded, forced, “raped” and they develop resentment towards you and think of you as a “weak person”.

This feeling will show in the next interaction you have with them, if, they’ll be willing to suffer the “crying”. Remember, crying people are scared, and it makes them scary in the eyes of others around them.

The out-of-control dilemma

If we just sit down and write 100 things that make us out of control, (great activity, go to the 100-list series and follow the rules to make a list) you’ll get there in 10 minutes.

Why? Because this is life, every second of our life, we encounter things we can’t control, and it is better to acknowledge them.

I have the serenity prayer hanging in different places in the house. It is the Saint Francis of Assisi prayer about the importance of wisdom to know the difference between what we can and cannot change – what is within or outside of my control.

There is no wonder the serenity prayer is part of every anonymous support group. Because all those groups are working with people who are trying to control their thoughts and feelings in a dysfunctional way, because they don’t know the difference.

No, drinking alcohol does not give you control.

No, taking drugs, gambling, overeating, not eating, smoking, addiction… they will not give you control; they will take it from you.

It’ll give you a short (in fact, shorter and shorter) sense of control and then, it’ll take so much of it, you’ll be in deficit of “control”. Remember, it is important to distinguish between what you can and cannot control.

If I had to make a very short list of what I cannot control than: I can’t control the weather, I can’t control how the people on the road drive, I can’t control what my readers will think of my books, I can’t control what my children would choose to study, I can’t control what other people think of me, I can’t control the dust in the air, I can’t control the storms in the sun that causes floods, I can’t control the price of the petrol, I can’t control if my child will be born with a heart defect or not or when will I die…

This list is huge.

It does not mean I didn’t wish I could control those things. I want to control so many things, this is why I’m fascinated by movies of heroes and people with special powers, but when the movie, book reaches the end, I acknowledge the fact I can’t, I couldn’t, never will be.

Can and Can’t

I think making this list can be devastating for many people. When I think of what I can’t control, it makes me feel helpless. It takes me back to this young, baby who wants to cry “help!”

Here is when evolution can help us. We progress to our next stage of our evolution when we acknowledge what we can’t control and at the same time, focus on what we can.

I might not be able to control what happens to me, but I can always, always, control how I react to it.

If this did not sink in, read it again: I might not be able to control what happens to me, but I can always, always control how I react to it.

I can’t control the weather, but I can control what I do in every weather.

I can’t control how the people on the road drive, but I can always control how I drive.

I can’t control what my readers will think of my books, but I can always control what I write, how I write, and what I think of my writing.

I can’t control what my children would choose to study, but I can always control the way I encourage them to follow their dreams.

I can’t control what other people think of me, but I can control what I think of myself.

I can’t control the dust in the air, but I can control the dust in my own house.

I can’t control the storms in the sun that cause floods, but I can control how prepared I am for a flood.

I can’t control the price of the petrol, but I can always control how much petrol I use.

I can’t control if my child is born with a heart defect, but I can always control what I do with it. I can choose to learn from it, to grow. (Which I actually did!)

I can’t control when I’ll die, but always, I can always control how to live.

You see, I can focus on what I can control or focus on what I can’t. Both are correct. What I can, will bring me courage and strength and what I can’t take me back to being a baby and strengthen my sense of helplessness.

Bitter or Better

About 30 years ago, I lost my son who was born with a heart defect. I felt “helpless” in every cell of my body. The realization that I never had any control was devastating.

Understanding I can’t control the future was heart breaking. I already had a 4-year-old child, and I was convinced (illusion again) that at the end of the nine months, I would hold this baby in my arms, go home and build dreams.

Wow, that was a beautiful illusion that burst in a second.

Playing the “what if” in my head was an attempt to gain control over my thoughts and feelings. It was only worse. “What if I knew he had a heart defect earlier?” “What If I didn’t get pregnant that day?” “What if doctors could fix it inside the womb?”

Nothing!

Nothing changed the fact he was gone, and I was left with an illusion of what “should have been” or “could have been” my beautiful, healthy baby.

At one stage, I realized that while I have no control of the past, I do have control of the future. I got pregnant again and on the 32nd week of my (wonderful, healthy) pregnancy, my baby girl stopped breathing, and I went through the next illusion of “it won’t happen again”, because I had my share of pain.

The illusion I had that if something horrible happened to you once, it is like insurance, nothing bad will happen to me. It wasn’t!

Hope as a tool

I was still helpless, and hope was an amazing tool, and I figured that I can always, always choose how to react to it.

I focused on dreaming of the new baby. Imagining him and wishing. For moments of hope, I could escape from the loss, from the grief, from the helplessness.

Don’t get me wrong, hope is an illusion, much like control but hope was taking me forward and the other one just reminded me how out of control I was. Hope it gave me many more choices.

Then, it hit me.

I can’t control what happens to me, but I can always choose how I react to it. I can be bitter or better and I choose to be a better version of myself. This is how I gain a sense of control. I take whatever happens and choose to become a better version of myself.

While bitter is an easy approach because it takes us back to our primitive, survival baby mode of crying, choosing to be “better” takes us through a process of growth.

Growing down and growing up

That is the difference between babies and grown-ups. It is not the passing of time that makes us older but the growth we experience as we stay away from crying and gain control over our feelings, thoughts, and actions.

This is why it is called “Grownups”. Bitter is a grown down mode. Better is a grown-up mode.

My son Tsoof was born after the two losses. When he was born, I was a much better version of myself. I had a better perspective of life. I chose to be better and not bitter. Throughout the whole pregnancy, I was aware of how “out of control” I was with predicting the future. His future and it was scary, but I was wiser.

I focused on what I could control. I could control my health, my diet, my exercise, my meditation, my mood, who I hang around with, when I go to sleep, my wellbeing and that is exactly what I focused on.

Every time I had this out-of-control moment, I focused on doing something I could control. Breathing, taking a deep breath was my transition from the “out of control”, helpless, devastating feeling to doing something I could control.

I’m a better person now. A better mom, a better daughter, a better wife, a better friend, a better professional…thanks to my utmost out of control experience and it was a choice.

We always have a choice!

Join me in the next chapter of the “control” series and until then, Be Happy and remember, Happiness is also a choice.

Hugs,
Ronit