00:00 

Well, hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 191, "Why We Seek to Control Others." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:21 

Alright. Hello there, my sweet friends. So glad to have you here today. I just love this podcast so much. I love creating the content. I love sharing it with you. I love when I get little emails from you telling me how these have impacted your life and I appreciate that a lot. Thank you so much for those of you who have taken the time to do that. It always gives me that little extra burst to just kind of keep moving and keep doing this. If I may ask, if you have not left me a review, will you go on iTunes if you've got an Apple and leave me one there? That would be fabulous. Or I've heard that you can leave them on Spotify, so you can do that as well. That would really, really help other people to find this podcast so that this amazing information that I share with you can be found by more people. 

01:18 

So today, let's jump in. Episode number 191. Are you freaking kidding me? I'm almost at 200. I realize first part of March, I will have been podcasting for three years every single week. In fact, the first about six months I did two a week, which then I just made a point where I'm like, "I can't do that anymore." But one a week for three years, so amazing to me. Anyway, here we go. Today, we are talking about why we seek to control others. And sometimes I just know that there's something I need to do a podcast on because it just keeps coming and coming and coming and coming into my life. And I see it in my client's life. I see in my friends' lives. And this is one of those topics that has just kind of kept coming up for me for the last few weeks as I've seen different aspects of control coming up. People trying to control others, whether people are trying to control you or you're trying to control somebody else. I have just seen it over and over and over and I finally was like, "okay, I'll do it. I'll do a podcast on control," because it just feels like it must be time since it keeps coming up. That's kind of how I gauge, you know, if there's a topic that I feel spiritually inclined to talk about, and this is one of those. 

02:40 

So let's just start off by talking about maybe some of the typical controlling things that people will do. There are things that look really big to us and that we're just like, "oh, yeah controlling," right? Like so for example, we may set ultimatums on other people. For example, we may tell a teenager "if you don't start coming to church, you're never driving the car again, right?" We set these huge ultimatums. We may use manipulation to try to control how other people behave. For example, someone may tell another person that if they leave the relationship, I'm going to start engaging in self-harm. Okay? We may try to control by constantly stepping in and telling other people how to do things. Even simple tasks that they may already know how to do, like driving a car or cooking a meal or cleaning a room. Things like that. These are situations where it can be easy to spot controlling behaviors At least when somebody else is doing them. 

03:35 

I have a great tendency, I know that I have somebody in my life who will very often, when I'm driving and they're passengering, that they will constantly be trying to tell me things. And I just get so frustrated, right? I'm like "just stop telling me what to do!" And yet sometimes I find myself, when I'm in the passenger seat, doing the same thing. So it's easy to see what other people are doing. It's not always easy for us. So when we're the one doing the controlling things, we just think that we're trying to keep the flow going, right? We're helping people see better ways to do things, or figuring out how to get things even to go our way. And I don't think these actions are always conscious. In fact, I believe they're most often unconscious patterns of behavior. 

04:22 

So we've talked about patterns of behavior in the last few weeks, right? Things that have worked in the past that our brain continues to put out there because they have worked in the past, and so it thinks that it's going to work now. So very often our own controlling behaviors can be really hard to see because they are these patterns that happen without conscious awareness. So here's one reason that I think our own controlling behaviors can be really hard to see as well. Because we so often cushion them in sweet little phrases like, "I just want them to be successful in life," "I just want everybody to be  happy," "I want this to be a magical Christmas for everyone," "I want everyone to get along during this vacation." Okay, now don't those all just sound so sweet and lovely? It sounds like we really have everyone's best interest at heart. And guess what? No doubt that we do. But it's so important that we learn to recognize the controlling nature behind these kinds of phrases. Did you just freak out a little bit? Because those are nice super loving phrases that you use. Let's just take a look at it and and be curious about, how could those be controlling behaviors? 

05:47 

All of them have an underlying belief that people should behave in a certain way, that everyone should think and feel a certain way. And the underlying belief that we can control all of that. Okay? So think about it. "I want everyone to be happy," thinking that I can control whether everybody else should be happy and they should be showing up happy. "I want everyone to get along during this vacation," right? I think that I have control over whether everybody gets along, how they show up. Okay? So how about this one? "If I pay for all 23 people to go to Disney World for a week, they should all be happy and grateful and there shouldn't be any drama." Okay? That sounds lovely. Sounds like something out of a Disney movie, right? Okay. But here's the thing. Just because we pay for 23 people to go to Disney World doesn't mean that any person has to show up any way that they don't want. They don't have to be happy. They don't have to be grateful and they can create as much drama as they want to. That is the joy of being a human being. I get to do what I want. 

06:58 

So notice when we say that kind of thing, "there shouldn't be any drama." "They should all be happy." "They should be grateful." Notice the shoulds. This is one of the first indicators that we are stepping into controlling behaviors. We're having these expectations and we're going to start pushing them on other people. So here's the deal. We have no control over how anyone else shows up ever, even if we've just paid for them to go to Disney World. If you have raised toddlers or tweens or teens or now have young adults, yeah, I think you know this. And if you say that you don't, I think you're not watching out very closely, right? We know that we cannot control these people and yet we still try to control their behaviors. We try to control their feelings. 'Oh, don't feel that way." Right? We say things like that. We try to control their thoughts. And this is a totally human thing to do. And every single one of us, myself included, have a tendency to step into the space at times. 

08:02 

And here is the point that comes to the topic or the title of today's podcast. Here's the why for controlling behaviors: because we're afraid. Controlling tendencies come from a place of fear rather than a place of love. And there are two fears that we're going to talk about today. And one of these has two tiers underneath it. So I'm going to say one and then one, two, and then I'm going to say two. So try and keep that in mind as we go through, right? 

08:33 

So there's two fears. The first fear is that we are afraid of the consequences of other people's behavior. Okay, so here's the two places under "the consequences of people's behavior." Let me give you an example. If your 25-year-old is making what seems to you to be sketchy financial decisions, we may try to step in and give unsolicited advice or even press our opinions on them because, one, we want to save them from the consequences of their behavior. We don't want them to experience 

the consequences. And two, we want to save ourselves from the consequences of their behavior. Okay, so wanting to save our 25-year-old makes sense, right? We don't want them to be in over their heads in debt. We want them to be financial and secure. We don't want them to have to experience the stress of being in debt for the next 15 years over a stupid six months worth of thoughtless spending. But, if they choose to get in debt, they are also choosing their own consequences and that's entirely their right to choose that. 

09:45 

Now, might we see challenges and consequences that they don't at the time that they're in that spending spree? Absolutely. But, this does not mean that it's our job to save them from those challenges and those consequences. And, here's the thing, how do we know that this isn't the best path for them? Maybe the challenges they encounter getting in debt at this age will actually save them from an even more horrendous decision later on. Or they will learn other lessons that will bless their lives in ways that we can't even comprehend. We just never know the path another person needs to walk to grow how they need to grow. We just need to get out of their path and worry about how to learn our own lessons on our own path. 

10:37 

So here's the thing, other people in our lives, this 25 year old, is making these decisions, they may or may not be able to do that. may not ask for our opinion. If they don't, really kind of none of our business. But if they do, then that's great too. 

However, let's pay attention to this. Okay, if your child is an adult, I can have an opinion, but I do not have a say. I don't get  to make the decision for them. And when I try to control their decision, it just creates disconnect in the relationship. Okay, we may try to control their behavior by bringing it up continually or by sending them articles or asking questions every time we chat or an email every day asking them about it or text message. And all this does is cause the other person to get defensive and put those protective walls up, right? And once the walls go up, the connection is down. The connection is cut off. 

11:37 

So, does this mean that we just turn away and we don't care about what happens to our adult child who's making these decisions? Well, I'm going to say yes and no, right? We can always be concerned for the well-being of those people that we love, but we have to learn to recognize when we are crossing their boundaries and stepping into controlling behaviors. If you give your opinion and then get upset when they don't apply it, chances are good you have some controlling tendencies. If you continually bring up a topic over and over again, chances are good you have some controlling tendencies. Well, I'm going to say that all of us have controlling tendencies, but those are places to start paying attention for it, right? 

12:24 

Okay, so the second part of consequences we are afraid of is saving ourselves from the consequences of their behavior. So here's what this looks like. If your child gets in over their head in debt, gets evicted from their apartment, loses their car, we may have a tendency to think that it is our job to fix it for them. We take on the consequences of their choices. We may think that we need to help them pay it off or give them a place to live or loan them our second car. But guess what? We do not have to do any of that. And although so many of us think that it is our duty as parents to step up and save our children from their bad choices, we don't have to. But because we're so afraid that we're going to bear the brunt of their bad decisions, we try to control their decisions in the first place. And this is where a discussion about boundaries with our adult children will be so important to have. "Oh, sorry, you can't live in my home." "I'm sorry, I cannot loan you this second car. I need to be able to get back and forth to work." Those kinds of things, right? We don't have to take on any of the consequences of our poor decisions. 

13:47 

And some of you are thinking, "that's so mean, how could I do that to my child?" I promise you, they will figure it out. People are made to be resilient. We can learn to say, "oh, wow, that's a tough spot. What are you going to do about it?" And I'll tell you what, they will figure out what to do about it. And they will be smarter and more empowered for figuring it out by themselves. When we continue to step in and save our adult children from their poor decisions, the poor decisions just keep on coming because they don't ever have to figure it out. So when we learn to have our clear boundaries around their adulthood, we don't have to be afraid of the consequences of their decisions. That doesn't mean that we're not going to feel sad for them. and it doesn't mean that we're not going to pray for them and just say, "please help them figure it out." And it doesn't even mean that there won't be times that it won't be appropriate to loan them a car or to let them live in our home. But that needs to be coming not from a place of fear of the consequences of their choices, but really from a place of love. And that's kind of a different discussion that we need to be having because there are times that that's going to be appropriate, but we really need to not be afraid of the consequences of their decisions. So to recap the fear of consequences, the two pieces of that: we're afraid of the consequences for them and we're afraid of the consequences for us. Okay. 

15:20 

So then back to the other one. Here's the second reason we have fear around other people's decisions: we are afraid of the discomfort that we feel when people don't act the way we want them to. When people don't do what I think they should do, my brain starts to freak out a little bit and it feels uncomfortable. My brain sends this message to my body and my body will 

start having vibrations that are just feelings, but they feel uncomfortable. So here's a quick and easy example. When I'm the passenger in a car and my daughter starts to drive to the store not the way that I always drive, my brain starts to freak out a little bit and it starts to get uncomfortable. And I start thinking, does she know where we're going? Maybe she doesn't know the way. Maybe it's going to take us two minutes longer to get there. Right? My brain starts making all of these things and then inside my body, I start getting like this little discomfort like we're going the wrong way. And so I start to side seat drive. "You're supposed to turn there. Wait, why are you going this way?" Right? I start to do this kind of stuff because I'm feeling uncomfortable. My brain likes things to always stay the same. And when it's not, when it doesn't happen the way that my brain thought it was going to, I thought my daughter was going to turn left to go to the store and instead she turned right, and my brain is like "whoa, whoa, whoa, danger, danger, we're going the wrong way." Right? Our brain likes things the same. There might be 10 different ways to go to the grocery store, but in my brain there's a reason that my way is the right way  and that right way feels very comfortable. 

17:07 

So when someone does it different, we can interpret that as the wrong way and it feels uncomfortable. Our brain sends these vibrations into our body, feelings that feel uncomfortable. So we try to correct them so that we can get rid of the discomfort. So that's a pretty seemingly small and simple example, but let's apply this to the above circumstance of an adult child making financial decisions that you don't determine as "right." Because your brain is interpreting them as wrong, it's going to feel discomfort. It's going to create those vibrations. It's our brain telling our body to start freaking out, to let us know that something's not going the way that we expected. And that can create these vibrations that we will interpret as nerves or anxiety or frustration or maybe even anger, lots of others. But it can interpret these vibrations in different ways. So to leave the discomfort of the anxiety or the anger or the nerves of the frustration, we will try to change or control the other person's behavior. We think that if they change their behavior that we will feel better. Which, okay, I'm going to give you that. That is true. When someone stops doing something that creates emotional discomfort for you, yes, you're going to feel better. But the more important issue here is learning to manage our own discomfort, those own vibrations that are making us feel uncomfortable and not trying to change the circumstance, i.e. change the other person to make ourselves feel better. 

18:47 

Okay. So the point here is our brains naturally want to control other people to control our emotions. But what we have to start learning to look at is how to control my own mind, my own thoughts to control my own emotions. So remember that thoughts create feelings. So if someone is doing something that creates discomfort, it's actually an opportunity for us to look at our own thoughts and see what's going on there. Why do we think they're doing it wrong? Why do we think that they should have turned there? Why do we think that they should or should not make a certain decision? Right? Sometimes the thoughts are ones that we would say are true and that we want to stand by, such as "they shouldn't hit me when they're angry." Okay, that's kind of a given, right? We know that those kinds of things are true. But sometimes the thoughts are our own opinions such as "they shouldn't be spending money that way." This thought creates an uncomfortable feeling and sometimes that may show up as maybe self-righteousness, which never feels very good. 

20:00 

It may be a fear of the consequences for them or for us. Okay, so I have the thought they shouldn't be spending their money that way. I feel some kind of a nervousness or anxiety or something that feels bad to me. And then the actions that I take because of that uncomfortable feeling can often be controlling behaviors, trying to circle back around to change the circumstance, which the circumstance is the person in the behavior, engaging in that behavior in the first place. Our brain is freaking out because of the discomfort and it creates behaviors that it thinks will alleviate the discomfort. We may try to tell the other person what to do. We may be relentless about it. Bringing it up again and again and again until they finally cave and do what we want them to do. We may give them the silent treatment or we may get passive aggressive or even manipulative in the things that we're doing and the things that we're saying. It's fascinating what our brains will do to get away from the discomfort of that emotion that we're having. 

21:08 

Here's the main gist of what we're talking about today: our brains want to control other people because life always feels better right now when people do what we want them to do, how we want them to do it. Our brains also want to connect with other people, and these controlling behaviors that we just talked about break down our ability to connect, not only now but also long term. Our primitive brain, though, will only be thinking about getting rid of the discomfort right now and not about the connection or the lack of connection in the future. Our brains are going to want to go to controlling behavior. I want to control the circumstance. I want to change the circumstance. I want that to happen right now so that my emotions feel better. It does not look at the long term "it's okay to feel this anxiety. It's okay to feel this dis-ease because I know that they will figure it out. I know that in the long term I will get what I want which is more trust in this relationship more connection in this relationship." 

22:13 

When people feel we are trying to control them, they will back off immediately. Even little tiny kids back off. None of us like to feel as though other people are seeking to control us. How many times did you hear your little three-year-old say "no, I do it myself," right? That was like multiple times a day. Or how often do teenagers rebel just because they're pushing against their parents' controls, or young adults completely back off from parents and separate themselves and don't contact them  because they feel like their parents are too controlling. Humans innately want control of their lives and when we try to control other people, it breaks down the relationships. It never helps our relationships. So becoming aware of when we're trying to control others, that is the most important part. So many of us engage in controlling behaviors without any awareness at all that we are being controlling. So learning to recognize our own discomfort around other people's choices and allow ourselves to feel feel that discomfort and focus on the connection we desire instead. This is the path to better relationships and to backing away from being controlling. 

23:34 

So much of the coaching that I do with clients cycles around either them pushing against other people trying to control them and they need to learn how to set appropriate boundaries, or it's seeking to understand how they are stepping into controlling behaviors themselves and learning how to recognize it and work through their own discomfort about it so that they can have better relationships with the people that they want to. I promise you my friends this work is so worth doing. Is it challenging? Absolutely. There have been times that I have seen some of my own controlling behaviors and it has brought me to tears because I didn't see it before. I didn't understand it. I thought I was being so helpful and yet I was breaking down the relationship. And as I have noticed those things and learned how to step back from those controlling behaviors, I promise you the result is so worth it. This work is challenging. Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's scary, sometimes it's overwhelming, but I promise you it is worth doing. 

24:45 

My clients see amazing results in their relationships when they learn to recognize either their own or someone else's controlling behaviors and learn how to respond in the way that they really want to, either with healthy boundaries or with completely backing off from their own controlling behaviors. And as I've learned with my adult children, and also in the people that I've been dating this last year or so, to step back from my own controlling behaviors, as I've learned to do that, I have seen a huge difference in the relationships I have with them. My relationships with my my adult children have completely changed. The kinds of relationships that I've had while dating have been so completely different than what I experienced when I was married or that I experienced even before my marriage when I was dating other people. I am experiencing completely different relationships now than when I thought that I was in charge of all the things. A little presumptuous, right? That I thought I was in charge of all the things. But how many of us do that? Learning to stay in our own lane and keep out of other people's lanes. 

26:03 

This is priceless, my friends. It is so worth the investment in coaching, whether it's in time, energy or money. I promise you it is worth the investment. Cleaning up this aspect of your life right now will pay dividends for the next 30, 40 or 50 years. And you really cannot put a price on healthy, emotionally intimate relationships. And this is the space that I work in and this is the space that I love. I have seen a huge, huge impact in my life in learning how to identify more my own controlling behaviors. Do I still engage in them? Absolutely, I probably will until the day I die, but I tell you what, I am not the same person that I was before I started this process and my children will tell you that I'm not the same person that I was. Makes a huge difference in every relationship in your life. So this is a great option. Growing up is amazing. This middle-aged gig, my friends...this is the best time of our lives. I know a lot of people at this stage, they think that it's time to start to ride it out in their rocker. And I tell you what, this is actually the best time of our lives. I feel like I'm just getting started on the most incredible experiences of my life and I would love to have you join me in this process of stepping into the time of your greatest contribution, of really having yourself come to yourself and become the person that you're capable of becoming and the person that you were born to become. This is the time in our lives that it can happen for us. 

27:51 

Let's set up a consult, talk to me, let's figure this out. I can help you, I know I can. I can help you have the kinds of relationships that you wanna have. I can help you feel better about how you're showing up and the kind of person that you are. You can go to tanyahale.com, you can book a free 30-minute consult and we will talk about how coaching can help you have the life that you really want, the relationships that you really desire. Okay, that's gonna do it. If you love this content, please share this podcast with people in your lives who you think also would love this. Not everybody does, not everybody wants to grow, not everybody wants to push themselves, that's fine. Not everybody's the same, but you do, that's why you're here. And most likely your tribe, they do too. A lot of the people that you really connect with, they also want to grow, so share this with them and let's make this an amazing year for all of us, shall we? Okay, love you, my friends, thank you for being here and I will talk to you next week, bye. 

28:59 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya!