Controlling Behavior: How Do You Try to Control?

by Margaret Paul Ph.D.

Visualization: How do you try to control?

Controlling Behavior: The Result of our Fears

We have all learned many ways to try to have control over getting love and avoiding pain to feel safe. It’s vitally important that you are very compassionate toward the controlling part of you. Please suspend judgment as you go over the following list of controlling behaviors.

Judging your controlling wounded self is another way to control and will keep you stuck and unaware of your controlling behavior- and you can’t heal what you are not aware of.

The wounded self is the part of us that operates under the false belief that we can control how others feel about us. We have each learned both overt and covert ways of trying to have this control, and we spend much energy trying to get others to love us and care for us, instead of spending that same energy in learning to love and care for ourselves, and sharing our love with others. Our wounded self falsely believes that our feelings of worth and safety come from others loving us, rather than from connecting with a spiritual source of unconditional love and bringing that love to ourselves.

As you read over this list of some of the ways we control, be very gentle with yourself. All of us have learned to be controlling and all of us have the choice to be compassionate with ourselves so we can learn, rather than judge ourselves, which cuts off our learning. Often we try to control others in the ways our parents tried to control us or each other, or in ways we learned in childhood from other children or from TV. Until we learn to connect with our higher source of love and wisdom and give to ourselves what we are trying to get from others, and until we learn how to manage the underlying painful core feelings of loneliness, heartbreak, grief and helplessness over others and outcomes, we will continue to try to control others in many different ways. (Please print this out and check the ones that apply to you).

•Yelling

•Getting angry

•Criticizing, judging

•Arrogance

•Demanding

•Defending

•Saying “Tsk, tsk” and shaking my head

•Getting annoyed, irritated, short, curt

•Accusing

• Blaming

• Pouting, sulking

• Becoming ill

• Drama

• Being sneaky/deceptive

• Lying or withholding the truth

• Therapizing, analyzing

• Dismissing

• Moralizing

• Nagging, bitching

• Lecturing, giving advise

• Arguing

• Debating

• Explaining, convincing, selling

• Becoming self-righteous

• Complaining

• Justifying

• Interrogating

• Denying

• Talking others out of their feelings by telling them they are wrong

• Asking leading questions to which only one answer is acceptable

• Bribery

• Scowling

• Hitting

• Changing the subject

• Using sarcasm

• Raising my eyebrows

• Whining

• Shrugging my shoulders

• Making comparisons

• Throwing things

• Interrupting

• Telling my feelings as an accusation that the other is causing them

• Silent angry withdrawal

• Acting like a know-it-all

• Interpreting

• Pushing others into therapy

• The silent treatment

• Disapproving looks

• Disapproving sighs

• Blaming tears

• “Poor me” tears

• Temper tantrums

• Put-downs

• A superior attitude

• Half-truths

• Being an overly “nice guy” or “nice girl.”

• Giving gifts with strings attached

• Being emotionally or financially indispensable

• Teaching, point things out without being asked

• Flattery or giving false compliments

• Giving in, giving myself up, going along

• Care-taking – giving to get

• Not asking for what I want, putting aside what I want

• Agreeing with others points of view

• People pleasing

• Incessant talking

• Rescuing

• Censoring what I say about what I want and feel

• Second-guessing and anticipating what others want

• Putting myself down

• Turning things around on the other person when I’m confronted with something

• Using threats of:

* Financial withdrawal

* Emotional withdrawal

* Sexual withdrawal

* Exposure to others

* Abandonment

* Illness

* Violence

* Suicide

* Alcohol or drug abuse

Our controlling behavior eventually results in creating whatever it is we are trying to prevent. We control to get love and avoid pain, yet by controlling rather than loving ourselves and others, we create the very pain we are trying to avoid.

Controlling Feelings and/or Behavior

I’ve found that there are two major areas in which we may try to control others:

• Behaviors

• Feelings

Sometimes we try to control what people do, and other times we may try to control how they feel about us and react to us.

Let’s take the example of Christopher and Pam. Christopher tends to focus on what Pam does – how she spends her time and who she spends it with, how much money she spends, how well she keeps the house, and how she looks. When Pam doesn’t behave in the way Christopher thinks she “should”, he becomes angry, judgmental and withdrawn. In Christopher’s mind, he will feel loved and safe when Pam behaves the way he wants her to behave, and he feels justified in attempting to control her when she is out of line. Love for Christopher means someone doing what he wants, and he wants control over this. Pam, on the other hand, tends to focus on Christopher’s reactions to her. Pam wants control over Christopher being warm, accepting and understanding. When Christopher is judgmental and withdrawn, Pam feels unsafe and tries to control Christopher with her niceness and care-taking. Pam gives herself up and tries to do what Christopher wants in order to control his feelings about her and his reactions toward her. Eventually, when Christopher does not give her the acceptance she desire, she gets angry, but niceness and care-taking are her first choices. Love for Pam means someone being accepting of her and she wants control over this.

It’s easy to see Christopher’s controlling behavior. His anger, judgmentalness and withdrawal are quite obvious. It’s harder to see that Pam is actually just as controlling as Christopher – not about what he does, but about how he feels and reacts. It took me a long time to recognize my own controlling behavior, because I’ve never been controlling of what people do. I’ve always given my family and friends great latitude to be themselves and do whatever they want regarding what makes them happy.

Eventually I realized that my control was always around how people feel and respond. I wanted people to be open, caring, and compassionate with me so that I would not have to feel lonely with them and helpless over them. It was a huge awakening for me when I realized how many controlling things I did to try to get others to be loving with me. Accepting my lack of control over how others choose to treat me has been extremely freeing. Now, if someone is unloving to me, I’m no longer compliant in an effort to get them to be loving. Now I just go to my higher self and find out what it means to take care of myself in the face of their unloving behavior, accepting that I have no control over how another chooses to be. Accepting that I can’t control others’ feelings or behavior has freed me to take loving care of myself.

Control as a Cry for Connection

How do you respond when you feel that your partner is trying to control you?

How does your partner respond to your response?

Do you end up feeling connected with each other?

Take a moment right now to tune inside and see what is really happening when you protect yourself with your controlling behavior.

• Do you feel alone and lonely?

• Do you feel empty inside, desperate to feel some love within?

• Do you long to connect with your partner, but you become protected and controlling when fearing or experiencing disconnection with him or her?

What if you saw your own controlling behavior and the controlling behavior of your partner as a cry for connection? Would this make it easier for you to have compassion for yourself and your partner?

What if you stayed connected with yourself and compassionately felt the deeper feelings of loneliness, heartache, heartbreak, helplessness and grief if your partner disconnects from you with protective, controlling behavior? What if you were connected with yourself enough so that you did not scare yourself with losing your partner to the point of becoming protected and controlling in response to your own fears? What if you recognized how much we all love to feel connected with each other, and stayed connected with yourself so that you could keep your heart open to your own feelings and the feelings of your partner? What do you think would happen with your relationship?

It’s not easy to reach this point of non-reactivity and taking loving care of yourself. It takes much Inner Bonding practice to heal enough to respond as a loving adult rather than from your wounded self.

Today’s Loving Action: Acknowledge your main forms of control

Today, notice the many different ways you might try to control. If you are in doubt, ask your partner or a good friend or relative. While it’s often hard to see our own forms of control, it’s often easy to see others’ forms of control. Asking someone close to you with a true intent to learn how they see you trying to control can be very helpful regarding your awareness – provided you don’t judge yourself for your controlling behavior. Be very compassionate with yourself regarding your controlling behavior – it might be the only way your wounded self knows how to try to connect, or how to feel safe from rejection or engulfment.

Read Part One of this article here.

For more information on Margaret Paul, Ph.D. go to http://margaretpaul.com/

Controlling Behavior – How Do You Attempt to Control?

by Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

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!

Read part two of this article here.

For more information on Margaret Paul, Ph.D. go to http://margaretpaul.com/

she’s here! onyx solace morissette-treadway June 23 2016‪ #beyondblessed

A new episode of Conversation with Alanis Morissette is now live! In this podcast Alanis talks with Dr. Peter Levine about stress and trauma recovery, resilience, Somatic Experiencing, and more.

Subscribe on iTunes now and stay tuned for the next episode coming soon. Below are the references discussed in this podcast:

In an Unspoken Voice
Waking the Tiger
Trauma and Memory
Healing Trauma
Trauma-Proofing Your Kids
Trauma Through a Child’s Eyes
Freedom from Pain
The Polyvagal Theory —Stephen Porges
SIBAM—five core components of Somatic Experiencing
Resolving Trauma in Psychotherapy: A Somatic Approach

What is SE?

by Dr. Peter Levine

SOMATIC EXPERIENCING® (SE) psychobiological trauma resolution is a potent method for resolving trauma symptoms and relieving chronic stress. It is the life’s work of Dr. Peter A. Levine, resulting from his multidisciplinary study of stress physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics, together with over 45 years of successful clinical application. The SE approach releases traumatic shock, which is key to transforming PTSD and the wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma.

The SE approach offers a framework to assess where a person is “stuck” in the fight, flight or freeze responses and provides clinical tools to resolve these fixated physiological states.   It provides effective skills appropriate to a variety of healing professions including mental health, medicine, physical and occupational therapies, bodywork, addiction treatment, first response, education, and others.

Trauma and the Science Behind the SE Approach
Trauma may begin as acute stress from a perceived life-threat or as the end product of cumulative stress. Both types of stress can seriously impair a person’s ability to function with resilience and ease. Trauma may result from a wide variety of stressors such as accidents, invasive medical procedures, sexual or physical assault, emotional abuse, neglect, war, natural disasters, loss, birth trauma, or the corrosive stressors of ongoing fear and conflict.
The SE approach teaches that trauma is not caused by the event itself, but rather develops through the failure of the body, psyche, and nervous system to process adverse events.

In his studies, Dr. Levine found that prey animals in the wild are rarely traumatized despite routine threats to their lives. Yet human beings are readily traumatized. Since humans and other animals possess nearly identical brain- and body-based survival mechanisms, Dr. Levine worked to identify what was interfering with the human threat-recovery process, and to develop tools for restoring people’s innate capacity to rebound following overwhelming experiences.

All mammals automatically regulate survival responses from the primitive, non-verbal brain, mediated by the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Under threat, massive amounts of energy are mobilized in readiness for self-defense via the fight, flight, and freeze responses. Once safe, animals spontaneously “discharge” this excess energy through involuntary movements including shaking, trembling, and deep spontaneous breaths. This discharge process resets the ANS, restoring equilibrium.

Although humans are similarly designed to rebound from high-intensity survival states, we also have the problematic ability to neo-cortically override the natural discharge of excess survival energy. Through rationalizations, judgments, shame, enculturation, and fear of our bodily sensations, we may disrupt our innate capacity to self-regulate, functionally “recycling” disabling terror and helplessness. When the nervous system does not reset after an overwhelming experience, sleep, cardiac, digestion, respiration, and immune system function can be seriously disturbed. Unresolved physiological distress can also lead to an array of other physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral symptoms.

How the SE Approach Works
The SE Approach facilitates the completion of self-protective motor responses and the release of thwarted survival energy bound in the body, thus addressing the root cause of trauma symptoms. This is approached by gently guiding clients to develop increasing tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and suppressed emotions.

SE trauma resolution does not require the traumatized person to re-tell or re-live the traumatic event. Instead, it offers the opportunity to engage, complete, and resolve—in a slow and supported way—the body’s instinctual fight, flight and freeze responses. Individuals locked in anxiety or rage then relax into a growing sense of peace and safety. Those stuck in depression gradually find their feelings of hopelessness and numbness transformed into empowerment, triumph, and mastery. SE trauma resolution catalyzes corrective bodily experiences that contradict those of fear and helplessness. This resets the nervous system, restores inner balance, enhances resilience to stress, and increases people’s vitality, equanimity, and capacity to actively engage in life.

Dr. Peter A. Levine received his PhD in medical biophysics from the University of California in Berkeley and also holds a doctorate in psychology from International University. He has worked in the field of stress and trauma for over 40 years and is the developer of Somatic Experiencing. Peter’s original contribution to the field of Body-Psychotherapy was honored in 2010 when he received the Lifetime Achievement award from the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy (USABP). That same year he also received the honorary Reis Davis Chair in Child Psychiatry for his innovative contribution to therapy for children and adolescents.