The Need to Control vs Self-responsibility

Lately I am noticing that when there is something that needs to be resolved and I don’t feel in control of the outcome, I start to harden in my body and become stressed.

Let’s use the example of my study at the moment. Of course there are questions that need to be answered and frustration can arise if I can’t source the answer to a question: I begin to feel anxious and start blaming the study for being responsible for my anxiety because I have a feeling of not being in control of the outcome that I want, which is to find the answer.

But if I am more honest, I can feel within me the tension that I am wanting to finish this question because in my mind, when I answer this question, I can go onto the next question and there is a sense of achievement and recognition from that.

But in doing it this way, there is no focus on my quality of be-ing whatsoever and I have taken myself away from feeling my body, and so I lose all sense of what my body may need or is communicating to me. My drive is just to finish the task but I don’t like how my body is feeling while I am having this thought: my right shoulder is up, I’m even holding my breath, I feel a hardness inside and I feel that my body is using a lot of effort to achieve this because of my intention to just get the task done.

So in actual fact, my whole body has been affected and influenced by my choice to force and control just to get a job/task done, with no consideration for the naturally loving rhythm that my body was in before this occurred.

And then came an ‘aha’ moment when I realised this situation is not asking me to change myself at all, nor is it asking me to go into anxiety: that is my choice. All the task is asking of me is to find the answer, nothing more, nothing less, so why allow my mind and its antics to dictate how I am going to feel in this situation?

With this revelation, there is a knowing that it is absolutely my choice to choose to go into tension or not.

As Eleanor Roosevelt has been quoted as saying, “No-one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” These words are so true, as nothing has to change within me; I can still stay with myself, feel how lovely I am in my body and do what needs to be done from that steadiness.

If I choose to blame the situation or thing, I am only doing this because that deflects away from the fact that I don’t wish to feel that I haven’t taken full responsibility for my feelings and am thus using the situation as the reason for my tension.

This type of reaction/deflection has been my default choice of behaviour for most of my life and it has been a very disempowering, very uncomfortable and unloving choice to make. What I am talking about here is twofold: there is my need for control and a lack of self-responsibility.

My whole theory around control is that I will feel safer if I am in control of a situation or thing, but this is an absolutely ridiculous expectation and leaves no room for me just being me in my preciousness and love.

The problem with the ‘needing to control’ theory is that I have to constantly control as much as I can in order to feel any sort of achievement or okayness, but that state is very short-lived and it needs to be constantly fed.

This need to control is something that I convince myself I have to do and that is not actually a truth – it is a pressure that I choose to place onto myself to divert me from the fact that I am not choosing loving self-responsibility in that moment. So if I break it all down, in choosing to want to control, I’m placing my body in an unnatural configuration that makes it work harder and feels quite uncomfortable.

If I don’t need to control, but breathe my own breath and stay with what is being asked of me (and don’t label it as right or wrong, good or bad, or make it into something difficult or complicated), my body can be left to just support me, naturally so, in an order that it knows right down to the tiniest cell, without complications or tension.

Really my job is to keep my body in a constant balance and my body naturally knows how to do this if I have built a consistent steadiness within me. Then when something comes along, I can just come from that natural steadiness inside of me and then my own stillness can hold me so beautifully right through the whole process of finding an answer in any situation whatsoever.

In not labelling it, I am choosing to be fully responsible for myself in that moment and then it is just something that I need to complete and I don’t need to judge it in any way.

Through this whole learning and unfolding of responsibility and where I sit within it, I can say in all absoluteness I am so much more than my mind will allow me to know and my responsibility is to own this truth and live it as completely as I can in any given moment.

Now that I am choosing to step up in my self-responsibility and claiming more and more my part in situations, I can feel the huge difference in my body and how spacious it feels to claim myself back from the thoughts that will take me down the blaming path and away from my own wise, inner counsel. Now at those times when I can feel myself wanting to blame, I remind myself what is really being asked of me here, and keep it really simple and honouring of my body and its true function.

My body is here to support me through my life and to keep me functioning beautifully for the purpose I was made for, and that is to bring love to humanity. When I let go of control and surrender, what transpires is the most beautiful dance and flow within me that feels spacious, alive and full of love; a love that only knows how to be itself.

It is not that big a deal as I’m not letting go as in giving up; I am actually surrendering to my own grandness and wisdom and saying I am confirming myself as absolute right here and now, so I just let go and let that unfold.

There’s no need for any picture of how that might look like, just a choice to stay with my body, breathe my breath and allow my innate, deep wisdom to guide me. My body is my love barometer and my greatest guide, so if I take all of me to everything that I do (no perfection of course), then everyone gets a woman who is the real me as absolute love in motion.

With deepest gratitude and appreciation for Serge Benhayon as it is through him that I am coming to know my true self every day and feel truly inspired to be that graceful reflection.

I also appreciate the stillness that holds me so beautifully right through the whole process of returning to the truth that I am, as it is my eternal true anchor and guide.

By Julie Chung, Facilitator of my own life, love, and absolute joy

Further Reading:
Energetic Integrity And Energetic Responsibility
First Time Mum: Realising Control is Just Too Much Hard Work
What Are We Really In Control Of?
Control or Connection: It’s a Choice

1,321 thoughts on “The Need to Control vs Self-responsibility

  1. ‘My body is here to support me through my life and to keep me functioning beautifully for the purpose I was made for, and that is to bring love to humanity.” This statement is to say it’s solely about the body, the boss of everything. And when we really look at this from the inside, IT takes care of itself more than ever. Whilst the mind takes us to so many places and runs us ragged, but the exact place we need to be with, is our bodies.

    Much to ponder over with this blog.

  2. This is the lie that we are sold: “I will feel safer if I am in control of a situation or thing” – the illusion of control is a strong one to break, and whilst surrendering to a situation is seen as being weak, in reality a surrender is one where we allow the forces to be seen for what they are and hence allow our true strengths to come to the fore. I used to think that surrender and submission were the same thing but I have now learned that surrendering to one’s inner strength and wisdom is completely different to submitting oneself to the forces of control

    1. I like what you have shared Henrietta. Control is a definite hardening and surrendering is saying you, your body and the internal wisdom within you, knows exactly what is correct/supportive for it. Let the mind not lead, let the body be your loving divine boss.

  3. Thank you Julie for stating it as it is: Anxiety is a choice – and this is the hard part to accept…. Each time I choose to go into anxiety I am simply denying myself the greater picture the opportunity to feel and read what is actually happening.

  4. Julie, this is such a familiar experience for me too: “So in actual fact, my whole body has been affected and influenced by my choice to force and control just to get a job/task done, with no consideration for the naturally loving rhythm that my body was in before this occurred.”

  5. Stopping blaming, and looking at our part in a situation is bringing back responsibility, ‘Now at those times when I can feel myself wanting to blame, I remind myself what is really being asked of me here, and keep it really simple and honouring of my body and its true function.’

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s