Control issues -

[Doreen Peri]

I was just reading Sunday's Washington Post. It takes me a week to read the Sunday paper. *smile*

In the Sunday Source section, there is an advice column called "Tell Me About it." Though I'm not usually an advice column fan, the answer struck me as so very true, I thought I'd reprint it here and ask for comments.

What do you think of Carolyn's answer? Is she dead on target? Is there more to control issues than this? What's your take on "being in control"?

Here's the column --


Dear Carolyn:

People have often shrugged me off with, "Oh, that's just because you like to be in control," and I'm starting to wonder if they're correct. Any suggestions for identifying/solving my possible control issues?

Carolyn's answer -

If you think someone else might be right, congratulations! You're cured.

Kidding, but only a little. The need to control is really just a failure to trust. You have to drive because so-and-so will be reckless, have to keep your mate in sight or else s/he'll cheat, have to do everything yourself because underlings won't be as competent.... Stop me when this sounds familiar.

A failure to trust, meanwhile, is really just a triumph of fear. Fear of crashing, heartbreak and failure in the examples I just gave, but it's all one biggie -- fear of the unknown. Specifically, that you won't be able to handle any outcome that deviates from the one you've envisioned.

Which means the person you don't trust is yourself. Right? Hard to admit, but also, I think, the hardest part of the process. From here, there's no universal solution, but asking why you're so scared is a start, or -- the true measure of strength -- just slowly releasing your grip.

[hester_prynne]

Hey Doreen, great post here, really captured my interest anyway.
Since that last solar eclipse, I've been asking myself all kinds of questions like the one noted here..."what are you scared of..." or, why do you trust so fiercely?
I wish I knew the answers.
One thing that keeps coming up for me is the fact that I'm realizing that I don't have much of a relationship with myself. Don't really even know how to. I'm too busy processing what others need and think. Relationships outside of myself are good. But with myself, uh, relationship is sorely lacking.
Is it safe to say I'm feeling scared of alot of things? Safe to tell you that new awarenesses are crushing beliefs I used to have into bits? That the the trust i've always felt invited to cultivate, is now reforming into big grins floating all around me, that laugh at me, for believing in, for trusting in, what was ingrained in me.
I'm realizing that the promises made to me, were never as real as I made them. Big chunks of what I used to think, are breaking off as bogus rubble. It hurts. It astounds me. I feel empty. I don't want things to be like they are for me, but they are.
Indeed, letting go of the grip is not easy, in fact it's hard to discern that that is what is in process.
Columnists can only offer simplified answers. That doesn't mean that the answers are simple.
I find myself unable to write lately, unable to tap into my good stuff.
My big and wonderful heart seems to have gone into hiding, due to too many insults at one time these days.
I'm scared it won't come back to me.
Very hard to shrug that off......
What is your relationship with yourself? Can you put words around that?
Hopefully, at the end of this process, I'll be able to myself.
In the meantime, i'm hangin in there.
barely.
H

[Doreen Peri]

my relationship to myself is incestuous.
two hands embracing each other
around my back.

I catch pieces of me falling for me
repeatedly despite the lies i tell myself.

i have no simplified columns
or rows to define the ordering
of such things. no answers swing
in daVinci wings painted precisely
to fill a ceiling.

i kneel in reverence
to assasination and
resurrection, rubble
tumbling off
a jelly-spine.

mine is a world of process.

i am lost to the significance
of order, yet i crave explanation
and an impetuous dance.
.my relationship to myself is
a chance pirouette of incestuous
circumstance.

i am eluded by gripped
guilt, dependant on
cradle-rock.

i am ladeled-up
in gravyboats spilled
for washrag swipe.
there is hype in the
advertisement
for clean-up products.
there are always
superficial stains.
i know this.

my relationship to myself is
incestuous for lack of a better name
but who could blame me for such a scam?

this ain't no slambam
thankyouma'am!
i've decided to marry me.
tomorrow, i'll ask for my hand.
and damn! If I turn myself down,
i'll never talk to me again!

what an idiot i'd be.
wait 'til tomorrow.
you'll see.

[hester_prynne]

"a world of process..."

I like that.
heck, I like the whole reply Dor...
reading it again and again.....
each time....delighted.
Tanks dearie!
H

[Southbound Snackyderm]

My relationship to myself is better known as the Stockholm Syndrome...