Why I’m Tired of Being a Control Freak

What does a control freak look like?

Maybe a little like the girl in the mirror.

It’s strange to think that I am a control freak, but secretly I have known this for quite some time. I have just chosen to ignore it. I have allowed my blood pressure to start rising when things don’t go my way, or to start feeling anxious when things feel “out of control” or holding my shoulders high and squeezing parts of my body to try and control my body as I walk.

Wait, what am I doing?

Being pregnant has allowed me to realize so many aspects of myself that I have long kept hidden. Each month of pregnancy it feels like another layer of skin is pealing off to reveal the new. I can’t run and I can’t hide because you cannot run from yourself. And ultimately, if you are going to birth new life into this world, the universe won’t allow you to bring your old shit with you. It just doesn’t serve you anymore. There’s no room for it. Embrace the change and jump into your new life.

Then why do I feel so scared?

The truth is the roots of my control go very, very far back. Probably further than I even consciously remember. But one thing I will tell you is when you grow up in a home where a marriage is falling apart, you do what you can to clutch on to anything that gives you any sort of comfort. Like many growing up in a broken home (with 60% of marriages ending in divorce, this is pretty much what any NORMAL household looks like nowadays unfortunately) I learned that control was the only thing I could do to hold our family together. At least, that’s what I thought I was doing. I thought that by controlling things mommy would be happier and daddy would be happier, but you cannot control that can you?

I grasped at straws.

I made myself sick so I could stay home from school. If I was home from school I could control their fighting. I could control the home environment to keep it calm. I was the 10-year-old referee that didn’t even really want the job of referee.

You see, control really comes from pain. So if you know a control freak, you shouldn’t be so mean to them. They’re only reacting out of hurt.  Every day they try to grasp at anything that can make them feel comfortable again…just normal.

And I’ve been clenching my body so hard that I’ve even damaged it. I’m not even in that broken home anymore but the control has become such a part of me that it is very hard to let go. I have to go to massage therapists to work out the muscles that I have been holding.

There are two things I am grateful for and that have helped me let go of my controlling ways…because honestly, I am sick of being a control freak.

I’m Thankful for Yoga

Breathing,meditating, being, sitting with my shit. Yoga has been such a powerful tool to help me to let go. It was only on the yoga mat that I even first realized that I did have a problem with letting go. I had covered it up so well in my mind that even when my therapist brought up the word control, I turned it back on him and told him he had a control problem and was just reflecting it on me. But here in downward dog with the sweat dripping from my brow I realized how my heart was beating and my chest was heaving and I fell to my knees to realize the control I didn’t have and wanted in that pose. Yoga taught me to breathe and just be me. To find muscles in my body that I had wound up so tight. To listen to my own heart beat. To help me let go of old stories and start living the stories I WANTED TO CREATE. I am so ever grateful to yoga for these lessons. I am so profoundly humbled to be part of a yoga community of men and women who are teaching me how to be myself…by letting GO.

I’m Thankful for My Husband

From cliff jumping, to roadtripping, to unlimited spontaneous adventures. Though many people may not understand our connection (we are very much opposites), every day Rob pushes me outside of my comfort zone. He challenges me to do something new, to open up, to let go, to defend myself, to stand up for my beliefs, to never stop pursuing my dreams. I never thought I would find a love quite like this. A pure divine love. The kind of love that doesn’t need words or fancy dinners or expressions on mountain tops. He makes me realize and understand myself in new days I had never thought of before. He knows I am controlling, but he loves me anyway. With him I feel like I can just be myself. And over the years I have found as much as I would like to control him, there is no way I ever could. It’s the best kind of medicine for me, to be in love with someone that I cannot manipulate or control. That I can just BE with and be happy with that.

So I’m tired of being a control freak. It just doesn’t serve me anymore. I’m ready to let go of it and not force it into my child’s life too. I never want my baby growing up feeling the need to cling on, hold on, grip tight to this earth. So much more can be learned when we loosen the grip.

I realized yesterday that when I see control in other people it makes me angry. But this is only a reflection on how I feel about myself. I am angry at myself for wanting to control.

I am learning day by day to let go of the grip. It feels like I’ve been holding on forever.

And maybe I have.

But slowly, as I let go, I am swept up by the energy of the universe. I am guided to be the extraordinary human being I know I am. And I am grateful to bring a new life into the world, one that will be cherished, loved, and given freedom…not control.

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Photo by Pro-Non