Sometimes control is not about power

Sometimes control is not about power.
Sometimes control is about safety.
I’m not arguing that controlling is a good thing…
I’m not making excuses for people that have tendencies to control…people, outcomes, narratives, life.
I had a revelation recently about why I become so anxious when I am relying on someone else to participate in a responsible and productive way in something I have a part of whether it is a personal or professional relationship.
When communication is foggy.
When things feel thrown together not done with care.
When lack of preparation affects something I am responsible for.
When I interpret lack of urgency as lack of care.
It makes me feel helpless and powerless.
(And read to the end…
Because what I just said can feel really accusatory 😁 because my expectations are not everyone else’s standards)
What God showed me was….that underneath all the frustration in what I just said was one sentence…
Lori…you have no choice.
When someone else is partly responsible for an outcome that affects me and they don’t operate in ways I can clearly see are efficient I feel helpless.
Out of control.
I feel like I am at “their” mercy.
That sentence right there took me back to an ancient wound in my soul.
You are at their mercy.
When I was growing up, nearly everything was last minute.
My mother was creative, but she was also an alcoholic and often unable to manage what needed to be done.
Sometimes I went without lunch money.
I missed field trips because permission slips were not signed in time.
I missed trick or treating once because my costume never got finished.
My home was in disarray so much so I couldn’t have company despite her promises to fix it up.
I remember the embarrassment of projects being thrown together at the last minute because we did not get the supplies I needed.
I was a child living with the consequences of an adult’s choices.
I could not sign the permission slip.
I could not buy the supplies.
I could not do things well because my choice to do something with excellence was taken from me.
That’s what it felt like.
I could not make my mother sober, prepared or dependable.
I had no choice.
So I created one.
I became responsible.
Over responsible actually.
Prepared.
Over prepared.
Efficient.
Exceptionally efficient.
I learned to anticipate what could go wrong and handle it before it did. I developed high standards and learned how to produce excellent outcomes.
Those are real strengths.
But somewhere along the way….excellence became more than a value.
It became protection.
Preparation protected me from embarrassment.
Order protected me from chaos.
Achievement protected me from being seen as incompetent.
Control protected me from ever feeling like that helpless child again.
We often think of control as power, dominance or an attempt to make people do what we want.
But sometimes control is a safety strategy.
Sometimes hyperindependence sounds like…
I will do everything myself because depending on people is dangerous.
And codependence says…
If I cannot do it myself, I will manage everyone else so their choices do not hurt me.
They look different, but they can come from the same wound. That was the revelation that set me free.
Both are attempts to control outcomes so I can prevent embarrassment, anxiety, disappointment, stress and failure.
Both promise that if I work hard enough, plan far enough ahead, anticipate every need, remind everyone often enough and compensate quickly enough, I will never be helpless again.
And sometimes these adaptations work.
They produce results.
They make us capable, dependable and highly effective.
But they can also steal our peace.
The project, the relationship, the experience becomes less beautiful because I can’t be at peace with something that feels out of my control.
I have spent much of my life believing I had only two choices…
Carry everything myself.
Or become vulnerable to the consequences of someone else’s irresponsibility.
So I became hyperindependent when I could…and codependent when I needed other people to participate.
I shut others out.
I took on too much.
I isolated
Or…
I reminded.
I managed.
I monitored.
I nagged.
I compensated.
I complained.
I begged.
I rescued.
And then resented everyone I felt forced to carry.
I felt forced to carry the burden of their decisions.
I felt forced to carry the load of responsibility.
And sometimes their decisions affected me more than others but one thing was always the same…
I felt as if I was being forced to accept helplessness, powerlessness and give in to the chaos that I felt they created.
That was the way my nervous system interpreted this process.
I have tried to help develop other as individuals, leaders and just productive human beings by helping them understand why they do these things.
Why they procrastinate.
Why they are ok to do things that are just ok and not excellent.
Why they stress themselves out to the point of breakdown when it doesn’t have to be like that.
Maybe I’m trying to do that because I couldn’t do that with my mom.
As a little girl.
Maybe they weren’t struggling with these behaviors at all…
Maybe I was.
Because it made me feel so vulnerable.
And let me also be very clear maybe it is my preferences to have things done ahead of time. Or just so I could feel less anxious. Just because people do things differently than I do doesn’t always mean that they’re not done well I don’t want to communicate that at all.
But healing is helping me understand that I was never actually controlling other people.
I was trying to control the possibility of feeling powerless again.
And now I am grieving the loss of something I never truly possessed…
A choice that could guarantee safety, order, excellence and a good outcome without requiring me to carry everything myself.
The truth is that I cannot always choose the outcome.
I cannot make people become responsible.
I cannot make them care about what I care about.
I cannot make them desire excellence, communicate clearly or prepare in advance.
I can create the conditions for people to flourish under my leadership, but I cannot make them flourish.
I can define expectations, establish boundaries and clarify responsibility.
I can be faithful to what belongs to me.
But I cannot manufacture another adult’s willingness without sacrificing myself in the process.
That is what I have been doing. Abandoning myself, sacrificing myself for an outcome that they may never want.
This still feels defeating sometimes. I’m not gonna lie.
My nervous system has interpreted “I did not rescue the outcome” as “I failed.”
Literally.
If things are chaotic then I’m failing. If things are thrown together then it means I failed to perform with excellence. If I can’t see what’s happening then I will be caught off guard and I will be seen as incompetent and less than.
Just like when I was a kid.
The one with no lunch money.
The one that couldn’t go on the field trip.
The one that couldn’t have normal play dates.
The one that had birthday parties that were thrown together and chaotic when others had beautiful well planned parties.
I felt like I didn’t deserve those things.
So I rescued and managed.
And if I didn’t I was a failure.
But those are not the same thing. My mind is starting to see that.
Healing is not asking me to lower my standards.
It is releasing excellence from the impossible job of making me feel safe.
Just saying that has set my soul free.
It is teaching me that another person’s choices may affect me, but they do not eliminate my agency.
I still have choices.
I may not always have a choice that gives me the outcome I want.
But having no painless choice is not the same as having no choice.
Read that again.
I often tell people…
You say you have “no choice” but the truth is …
You have no painless choice and that carries a feeling of helplessness.
Here is what I know now…
I can choose what I carry.
I can choose what I release.
I can allow an outcome to reveal the truth about everyone’s participation without believing it defines my character or competence.
I can trust God without pretending unreliable people are reliable.
I can be faithful without controlling the outcome.
I can lead with excellence without manufacturing everyone else’s excellence.
I can stop abandoning myself to save everything around me.
Hyperindependence and codependence gave me a false sense of control.
They helped me survive helplessness.
But they also stole my peace.
And maybe healing begins when I can finally say to that little girl…
You were powerless then.
But you are not powerless now.
You cannot control every outcome, but you can choose what you carry.
You no longer have to manage everyone around you to be safe.
Resentment grows when I continue accepting responsibility for something I do not have the authority or ability to control.
That truth right there was like a 🤯.
I am learning that I cannot remain fully accountable for an outcome while being denied the authority, information or cooperation required to produce it.
Trusting God does not mean pretending that what’s happening is healthy.
Releasing control does not mean remaining silent.
And surrender does not mean accepting responsibility for another person’s choices.
It means clearly identifying what belongs to me and what does not.
It means communicating…
This is what I am responsible for.
This is what I need in order to complete it.
This is the deadline by which I need it.
This is what will be affected if I do not receive it.
This is the portion of the outcome I cannot own because I did not have the authority, information or participation necessary to control it.
That is not complaining.
That is clarity.
That is not resentment.
That is a boundary.
A boundary does not force another person to perform.
It establishes what I will do, what I will not carry and how responsibility will be understood if they choose not to follow through.
I do not have to nag, tiptoe, remind repeatedly and then take over when another adult does not do things the way I think they need to be done.
I can tell the truth.
I can simplify the plan.
I can allow something to remain unfinished.
I can arrive separately.
I can refuse to treat someone else’s delay as an automatic emergency for me.
That does not mean their choices will never affect me. They will.
Boundaries do not guarantee that I will receive the outcome I wanted.
They keep me from repeatedly abandoning myself to manufacture it.
🤯 💥
But…
This has brought me to another painful realization…
Sometimes I feel as though I have lowered my standards to accommodate other people’s incompetence, unwillingness or lack of preparation.
And that feels like I am diminishing myself.
I can feel as though my leadership, character and capability have somehow been reduced.
But my standards and my outcomes are not the same thing.
My standard is the quality of faithfulness I bring to what is mine.
An outcome is the combined result of everyone’s authority, decisions, participation and effort.
I can maintain my standard even when a shared outcome does not meet it.
I do not have to lower my character to acknowledge someone else’s capacity.
I do not have to diminish my value to stop compensating for another person’s choices.
And I do not have to make every outcome excellent in order to prove that I am excellent at what I do.
Sometimes allowing the outcome to reflect the preparation it actually received is more honest than exhausting myself to make everyone involved look more responsible than they were.
And one last thing…
I have also realized that sometimes my “standards” are high. Not always too high but higher than others might think is acceptable.
I’ve realized this because sometimes my standard is perfection masquerading as excellence.
Sometimes people are doing and performing to the best of their abilities and the outcome will be beautiful and sufficient but because I have a standard that was developed to protect me…
I push for my standard.
Not Gods standard.
So it would be prideful to act as if I want things to be beautiful and go well and nobody else cares.
That’s not true.
I just know that my tendency to control was an adaptation to protect me from having “no choice”. From feeling powerless and helpless to another person’s choice.
Healing with God has taught me that whatever the outcome…
He is always the highest and best choice and I can stop abandoning myself because He will never abandon me to an outcome that was never my responsibility.
And that has set me free today.
Peace is restored in my soul.