Everyone Wins Mediation: Who Are You Trying to Control?

    When life presents many challenges the desire to control can seem natural. There is the illusion that if we control events, ourselves and others, we will be safe, successful and secure. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. The tighter we grip, hold on and manipulate, the more out of control we become.            

Especially in relationships, where people feel vulnerable, emotions are high and a great deal is at stake, the wish to control arises. At first this may appear as possessiveness, wanting to know all about what the partner is doing, dictating what he/she can or cannot do. Possessive often intensifies. Power struggles erupt. There is the sense that the person belongs to you and you have the right to direct their choices and the way their life goes.  

Both the person dominating and the one being dominated lose freedom and well-being. Although the dominant one may say they are doing it out of love, for the good of the partner, the bottom line is that there is fear and anger here, manifesting as the desire to control. Love always honors and respects another, it gives a person space to be who they are, to make their own changes and discoveries. It does not seek to take over another's life, but to enhance it.  

However, some very much enjoy being controlled. They feel that if their partners are possessiveness and controlling, it means that they care. This is a dangerous confusion. When one individual controls another, it is always to make themselves feel secure. And, control and domination can become an addiction. There is a rush that goes with control, the person feels powerful, as though they are strong and on top of the world and often the one being controlled may also feel a rush of safety and security, feeling they belong to someone now. Sooner or later all of this has to collapse.            

The need to control can be traced to not having a true sense of stability within. This happens when we do not live from our core. It is vitally necessary to contact and live from our true selves, the true source of security within.  


EXERCISE:

Step 1:  Who Are You Controlling?
A)   Make a list of everyone you are controlling -- or want to control.
B)   Include yourself in this list. Write down the ways in which you control and dominate yourself.

Step 2:  Stop Controlling Them
A)   Take one person on the list and just let them totally be as they are. Accept them completely.
B)   No matter how much you've tried to control them, have you succeeded? Write down what the result has been. How has it made you feel? What price have you paid for this? 
C)   Imagine that you simply allow them to be exactly as they are. How does this make you feel now? What happens to your relationship? What happens to your own energy and sense of well-being?

Step 3:  Granting Freedom To Yourself As Well
A)   Now do this exercise with yourself.
B)   Allow yourself to be exactly as you are. Stop fighting, pushing, and punishing yourself for ways in which you function. Take the noose off your own neck.
C)   How do you feel? What new ways of being may be open to you now? What has your endless desire to control yourself stopped from happening?



Dr Brenda Shoshanna, speaker, divorce mediator and author, is a relationship expert. Some of her books include, "The Anger Diet (30 Days to Stress Free Living)" and"Save Your Relationship (21 Basic Laws of Successful Relationships)." Learn more about her at: http://www.brendashoshanna.com. Contact at: topspeaker@yahoo.com.