You are listening to the Overthinker's Guide to Joy, episode 13. This is the one
where I'm going to talk about control being just an illusion. Let's dive in.
Hey there, you are listening to the Overthinker's Guide to Joy. This is a podcast
for overthinkers, overachievers, perfectionists, type A, stressed out,
Anxious people who just want to calm down and feel better. I'm your host,
certified life coach, Jackie de Crinis.
Hey there and welcome back. So last week, if you heard my episode,
I was talking about perfectionism and I was talking about how perfectionists need to
make everything perfect. And oftentimes, as a result, they don't complete things on
time or they tend to do things at the last minute to avoid criticism. And
perfectionism is actually an offshoot of what I want to talk about today, which is
another overthinker's go -to modus operandi. And that's the issue of control.
I think control is actually an illusion. I think the greatest control freaks,
and I'm certainly one of them, so I'm speaking from experience. I think control
freaks tend to come from a place of having lost the sense of control when they
were little. I think usually much like perfectionism comes from an unstable
circumstance when you're little, whether that's coming from parents who, again,
were either emotionally unstable due to some mental disorder or if there was divorce
or if there was death or if there was instability in your home when you're a
child, oftentimes what I will see in my practice is adults developing a need to
control everything as sort of a way of course correcting The fact that they felt
like there was very little control when they were younger at home. And it's not
always true. There are people who have incredibly normal, very stable upbringings who
are still control freaks. And there are people who had very normal, stable
upbringings and then run into a circumstance as adults that somehow cause damage or
concern emotionally, and then control becomes the defense mechanism.
So control often comes from the fact that someone in your past has hurt you,
either physically or emotionally. It may have been a moment where someone humiliated
you. It could have been when someone made you feel small or needy. And then even
after they're long gone, whether it's the ex -boyfriend, ex -girlfriend, ex -wife,
ex -husband, former friend, former boss, some kid on a playground, whatever the
circumstance was that left you feeling vulnerable because someone stole your confidence
in a moment of weakness. And that moment may have lasted literally a moment or it
may have lasted years because of an unhealthy relationship. And we've all stayed in
relationships that were long past their expiration date. But the point is that
someone in your life hit a button or found a weakness. And as a result,
you feel exposed and subsequently vulnerable. And then it's like someone let the
genie out of the bottle. And for fear that will ever be exposed again,
whether it's as weak or as a failure or as taking a creative risk and being
rejected, or whether it was an emotionally abusive relationship or whether it was
just a breakup. I mean, it doesn't have to be catastrophic for us to feel exposed,
rejected or vulnerable. It can just be part of life. And it's really just how much
power you give away to that other person as to whether or not it's going to have
a permanent impact on your life, or whether or not you're going to say, "Okay,
lesson learned." Or maybe they weren't a good person. And it just all depends on
how we allow it to manifest in our bodies as to whether or not becomes a lifetime
theme, or whether or not it's just a moment in time. But for people who develop an
overwhelming sense of needing to control information, their environment,
their social status, their appearance, all of those things, that's fear of being
exposed again. And look, I've seen it manifest in every possible different way.
I've had clients who were afraid to date again after divorce. Their circumstances
were all different. One was emotionally abused by his wife, and he was terrified
that all women, if he ever fell in love again, would take advantage of him and
just emasculate him. Another was afraid to date after her husband came out as gay,
and she felt like after 15 years of marriage that she was both shocked and
embarrassed that she didn't see the signs, or that she felt like everyone knew but
her, or that because they were such close friends, she felt like she couldn't trust
anyone, that he had to harbor the secret and that he didn't trust her with the
secret, or that she wasn't even aware of it. And so there was shame and there was
guilt and there was embarrassment. And she took that upon herself. And so the idea
of dating again was just too scary. I have another client who was a victim of
abuse decades after the relationship ended. She just wouldn't let people know very
much about her private life for fear that her ex might someday find her again. I
have clients who were so traumatized by their mother and or their father that they
just never let anybody get close again. So everything was very private. They didn't
talk about their personal life. They didn't talk about their work. They basically
kind of created their own castle, if you will, and drew up the drawbridge so that
nobody could come into their space and judge them or take away their independence or
take away their control. So, Like I said, sometimes we allow that moment of
embarrassment or humiliation or rejection, whether it was a single moment at a party,
on a playground, at an office, or whether it transpired over a decade -long
relationship. But we allow that damage, those feelings,
to keep us small and invisible and fearful of ever enjoying our lives again,
or trying new things. And we start playing everything safe. So we don't take chances
on our dreams, other relationships or other experiences. And we want to control
everything so that nothing can ever hurt us or reject us again. But we only end up
hurting ourselves in that process. We give all the power away to that person who
may or may not even know that they hurt us, humiliated us, rejected us.
We just gave away the power to the bully on the playground, to the ex -girlfriend,
to the parent who might've been a narcissist. And then we are left with the scar
tissue for the rest of our lives to try and wall up our hearts, or our appearance
or our well -being so that we don't ever get hurt again.
So what does this lead to? Well, eventually this could lead to isolation, depression,
or even a physical manifestation of pain. So often I see clients with inexplicable
chronic back pain as a result of trying to control everything,
or it may be neck pain, or it could be migraines, or something like that, something
that the doctors have seen, they've tried to treat it, and it just keeps coming
back. And it is because of this overriding self -protection device of control.
And so when we control, we tend to tense our muscles, and I'm going to do a based
on this later about chronic pain, but we tend to tense our muscles and we tend to
not let things go easily. And that creates cortisol and adrenaline and a tightening
of muscles and a chronic pain loop. So where does that leave us? It actually leaves
us in chronic pain, whether it's emotional, physical or psychic pain. We're in pain
because we've done it to ourselves and our world gets very small and our judgment
of others gets really big and then all of a sudden our circle of friends also gets
kind of small because of that judgment and it's all just one big defense mechanism
to avoid that one time that you trusted someone or possibly a series of people that
hurt you. So I tell this story about my dad, and this goes back to 20 years ago,
when 9 /11 hit and the towers fell in New York, and I was living in Los Angeles,
and so ostensibly not affected by the towers falling in New York, although I woke
up to the news and saw them fall, saw the planes hit and saw them fall, and like
so many Americans on that day, couldn't make sense of it, couldn't wrap my brain
around it, couldn't understand it. And of course, we didn't even know on that day,
9 /11 /2001, even why it happened, what happened, what else was going to happen.
It was just utter terror done by we later learned terrorists.
And I remember having this feeling after watching, you know, 12 hours of news that
day and I can't tell you how many times I watched the footage of the planes
hitting and the buildings falling down and the smoke and I had even again not even
being in New York but post -traumatic stress disorder dreams of like imagining the
sound of the planes hitting, imagining the smoke and the rubble and running and it
was because I had simply watched too much footage and it got into my being and the
collective sorrow and sadness of that event in American history was so profound,
and it was all anyone talked about. And I didn't want to leave my house. I didn't
want to go to the grocery store because I didn't understand what the agenda was of
these terrorists who didn't yet have a name. And I didn't know what else was in
store for Americans, and was it going to affect, you know, suburbs across the world?
was it going to affect schools, was somebody going to drive a car into my, you
know, children's elementary school down the street? And I thought, well, I can't go
to work. And so I became paralyzed in fear. And it was just all of this irrational
thinking. But mostly the fear was, I was afraid to do the mundane. I, like I said,
I was afraid to go to the grocery store. I was afraid to let my children go to
school because I didn't know if this could happen on a sunny day in New York City
or in leaving Boston or in Washington, D .C. or all of the places, where else could
it happen and what else could be targeted? And my father said to me, "You can't do
that. You can't stop living your life because otherwise you let the terrorists win."
And that statement, which was 20 years ago that he said that to me, hit me so
deeply, But not just on a literal standpoint, but on a metaphoric like how many of
us Let the terrorists win every day and the terrorists being yes I mean certainly
that level of terrorism on a global scale, but even on an emotional scale Where are
you letting the terrorists win in your life? And if that's an ex -boyfriend or ex
-girlfriend or ex -boss or if that's even yourself for harboring pain,
chronic pain in your body, because you feel guilty or humiliated or rejected from
something that happened in your life that maybe had nothing to do with you. You
were the victim of it, but it wasn't even about you. But it felt so deeply
personal that you've internalized it and now you've allowed it to ruminate and take
residence in your body. And by doing so, by not getting in touch with whether
that's physical pain, psychological pain, or even just a habit that you have as a
result of something hurting you a long time ago, you're letting the terrorist win by
not living your life. So I think about that all the time and I think about that
just in my own life Where I let something ruminate and again, we're back to you
know, why I'm even doing this podcast on the overthinking brain but overthinkers have
this habit of taking something that once happened and Ruminating and letting it
affect your daily life and certainly your future happy life.
So basically this is an episode for my fellow control freaks and my fellow
overthinkers. If there is something in your life that happened recently or a long
time ago that has caused you to play it really safe or to fear trying again,
or to fear being hurt or rejected, I invite you to just examine what that might
have been and bring it out of the closet and into the light and really ask
yourself, "Could this still hurt me?" And if it's not a real threat anymore,
and if there is a possibility that it's now just become your narrative For reasons
not to do something not to try something not to try and grow or be or be bigger
Or fulfill a dream of yours. I Invite you to see if you could take one baby step
Towards doing something a little bit scary That you've always wanted to do Again,
whether it's a creative project whether it's traveling Whether it's dating, whether
it's making a connection, whether it's reconnecting to someone, but letting go that
whatever happened in that incident or that year or that decade that caused you pain
or caused you rejection, letting that go, that's the past.
And you don't have to hold on to that as your future story. You get to choose
your new story whenever you're ready. And you get to do that by saying,
"I see you and I'm going to let you go. And I'm going to move forward on that
thing that I want to do. And I'm going to do it with a baby step. Just one
little step." So I invite you to do one little thing that's out of your comfort
zone this week. And just see what happens. See if, when by letting go of the
reins, just a little, you don't find some magic and some liberation in your life.
If you wanna learn more tips about managing your stress and how to manage your
overthinking brain, just go to my website and sign up for my weekly newsletter at
jackiedecrinis.com. That's J -A -C -K -I -E -D -E -C -R -I -N -I -S dot com.
You can also follow me on Instagram at Jackie de Crinis. Bye for now. Thank you for
listening to this episode of Overthinker's Guide to Joy. If you like what was
offered in today's episode, I would love you to leave a review and subscribe or
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