Control

After being completely dependent on our caretakers for our survival, it’s only logical that each of us sought to assert control over our experience as youngsters. It started with the little things, not eating vegetables, not coloring within the lines, or not wearing those shoes. Little 'No, mine' monsters emerged.

After our hormones matured, the realm of our control exercise grew. Every opportunity to utilize our authority is seized. As grown ups, we all strive to create a perfect life according to our design. This pattern shows up frequently. Like in the common quip, “If it’s not my way, it’s the highway.” Or, perhaps best epitomized by the Queen Of Hearts from Alice In Wonderland, “Your way? All ways here are my ways!”

Initially, control is a survival habit. With time, it evolves. Many push to attain control because of what we get…security, power, energy, and so forth. And, it often compensates for feeling out of control. There lies the irony.

More often than not, we are all out of our own control...control of our facilities. Our minds frequently drift. Our emotional states easily run the spectrum of highs and lows faster than the weather changes. Our bodies crave anything and everything to make us feel good. And, that inner narration seems to never stop.

The result is a shadow of our potential. A life of struggle directed by other people, places, and things. In essence, it’s a person out of control, non-autonomous, and subject to power games.

Yet, we have the capacity and power to be more. Our natural design is a self-directed, self-determinant, and sovereign being.

Ideally, our experience of life operates more as a dictatorship, not a democracy. A spiritual dictatorship or shenlightenment. At the top of the pyramid sits Shen. From a top-down approach, we can actually gain control of our lives. Then, an ease and grace permeates the tasks, relationships, and areas we engage. Life flows more naturally.

Though it’s not in usual sense of exerting our control on people places things, rather we exert our will upon ourselves. Once we learn to control our own inner narrative, we can create a better story since we are reality-generating organisms. This form of control is a more-ideal. In Shen Life, this is called ‘controlling our narrative.’

To get to this state, things must change. In essence, we must change…become more.

Reach for it!

“Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.”
― Epictetus

Speaking of control, here is a good one from the eighties...