Fear and Love: Control

What is Control? 

We’re taking a deeper look at emotions – how they are expressed, whether our expression of emotion is “socially-acceptable” and how people try to control others through emotions. Let’s look at an example that you may have witnessed at some point: A child crying (or screaming or acting out) in a public place, like a store.  

Whatever caused the outburst, the parent thinks they need to control the child’s behavior. They are likely to feel embarrassed, to the extent of issuing “The Glare”, yelling, “Stop it!” or even giving a swat on the behind. The parent won’t stop in the moment to analyze the root cause of the incident (child wanted a treat or toy, parent said no) or to perform psychoanalysis in the middle of the store. They may, however, cave to the request in order to change the child’s emotional response (which is perceived as negative). That will eliminate the “socially-unacceptable” behavior. 

It is the fear that makes them change, not our power over them.

The parent’s mindset is that somehow they have power over the child to make them feel, think and do the parent’s will and the reality is that's not true. Nobody can make somebody else do anything. The only reason we believe we can is because we mistake people changing their behavior out of fear of harm for our own power. It is the fear that makes them change, not our power over them. It’s a temporary force exerted to disrupt their reaction to something they experienced.  

Here is the sequence we described above, broken down by segments: 

The child asked for a toy. 

The parent said no. 

Child cried.  

Parent yelled. 

Child stopped crying. 

In reality, if it stops there, you’re lucky! But honestly, the child didn’t stop crying because the parent had control over his behavior, he stopped crying because experience taught him to fear what might happen next. It can go the other way, depending on the nature of the child. Either way, the yelling or any other negative feedback teaches him that his parent’s love is based on being a good boy.  

Power: Give or Take? 

The underlying principle is that power is given to us by others, it’s never taken. However, fear can be exerted as a force that may change (temporarily) the reactions of people around us. Lynn said it’s like taking an aspirin – your headache goes away but you don’t address the root cause of the pain. It’s a mistake to think that we have the power to cure the root cause of someone’s behavior by exerting power in the form of fear.  

That’s where we are going with this series – digging deep into the thinking about and understanding of what creates those symptoms (behaviors) to emerge and teach people to address the root cause. We want people to know that you can love other people through the symptoms. 

Ben talked about a recent example with his daughter at school. She struggles with keeping her emotions inside and told Ben there’s no way for her to release her emotions when she’s there. If she starts crying, the teachers tell her to stop, and since they’ve taught her that “no crying” is the rule, she tries not to. Sometimes holding it all in is just too much, and tears erupt. Ben believes it is okay to cry, but that makes her mad because everyone at school tells her not to cry. Ben gently explained in 10-year-old terms: When a grown up says, “don’t cry” they just don’t know anything better to say. It’s their way of trying to calm you down and say, “I wish you didn’t feel so badly.” It’s not really loving, but it is meant to be comforting so she can regain her emotional composure.  

Power is given to us by others, it’s never taken.

Time will tell if a very complex psychological concept came through the counseling session. Deep down, it isn’t about the tears at all, those are the expression of emotional pressure (or a sudden trigger) that resulted from fear. That fear could be generated by a perceived threat or a word or action out of alignment with her core beliefs, or some other external force. It’s very complex and very few people will understand – so the go to is, “Don’t cry because crying is disruptive. Stop crying and everything will be fine.” If it was that simple, it would have worked years ago. 

Times Change 

Some people remember what it was like growing up in the 1940s and 1950s – if you got out of line, you were spanked – if you really got out of line, you were sent outside to get your own switch (spanking stick). The idea was that if you made it clear to children where the line was, they would be too afraid to cross it. They were the “good kids”. We believe that raising confident, loving and unafraid children removes the need to draw the line. They know where the boundaries are and because they love you, they stay clear, not wishing to violate your values. These children grow up to become confident, loving and unafraid adults. They don’t cross boundaries because violating another person’s boundaries is antithetical to their core beliefs.  

Next time, we’re going to talk about the transitory realm between our conscious and our subconscious mind. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about how behaviors emerge from the roots of fear and love, contact us.