I turned over to a new page in my notebook. At the top of the page, I wrote in capitals “A List Of Things That I Control”. I sat there and pondered. I sipped my green tea. I looked out the window. Minutes rolled by and my pen remained on the notebook. Unmoved. Nothing. I had a suspicion that the page would remain empty, but I wanted to take a fresh look to see if I could think of something I do or can control. Nope. Nothing.
I got up, to follow my need to use the bathroom. As I walked back to my home office and sat down, I thought about writing down ‘when I decide to go to the bathroom’ on my list. I knew better. I didn’t control that. It occurred to me to go. And I went. No control there. OK, I do have bladder control, but I don’t consciously do that bit of controlling. It works fine without my conscious involvement.
The page in my notebook was empty. Still nothing.
There’s a legend about King Canute from a thousand years ago. His flattering courtiers would say he had supreme power and could even control nature. The story goes that the King knew better and demonstrated this by having his throne placed on a beach below the high tide line. He sat on it and commanded the tide to not come in. Of course, his feet got wet. The legend illustrates the humility of the ‘Great King Canute’.
Canute knew better.
No one controls the uncontrollable.
And everything is uncontrollable.
There’s a point in the whole notion of control that gets overlooked. It is: what happens inside the mind of someone when they want to control something.
It puts more thought into the mix. A controlling thought narrows the mind down. The mind is heavier and narrower. The opposite of a mind working at its best.
So why do we think we can control and why do we want to control things? Good questions to be curious about… For me, it comes to 3 reasons.
Reason one: it looks to us that in order for us to be OK, the things in our lives need to be a certain way. If you’ve ever heard me speak or read anything I’ve written in previous blogs, you’ll see that this is a fallacy. OK-ness has nothing to do with our life circumstances. Once I realised this fact, the notion of me wanting or needing control became a lot more loose. (If this seems like a ridiculous notion, I invite you to read other blogs on my website or watch my videos on YouTube).
Reason two comes in the form of what I often hear people say as “Control the controllables”. I get why this might seem like a good idea. Our egoic intellect likes to have the semblance of control. And we can often think that being in control settles our nervous system, and think it can bring us back to a feeling of calm and inner peace. It’s based on a myth. A fantasy that our ego can create of how important the ego is. Ego doing egoic things! And the ego itself is a construct of thought, not real.
Reason three comes from not seeing how well we are made. That we have real-time intelligence that is 100% reliable. That carries us through life. That is innate, unbreakable, and once seen as truth (not just a nice idea), can help us realise that we don’t need to control a darn thing.
Each of these 3 reasons are from my own experience along with the hundreds of people I’ve had this conversation with, and how much more pleasurable life is when control is seen as an unnecessary burden on the mind. It also leaves the mind free to be present to what is, not to be thinking about it.
My friend and mentor, Dr George Pransky, said to me many years ago that knowing the difference between ‘noise’ and ‘signal’ is about as important a learning any human being can have. When noise is understood for what it is, it doesn’t take over in the way it can in so many of us. Signal is that other inner voice, that has the feeling of calm and clarity in it. It comes from another place within us. Not ‘heady’. That ‘real-time intelligence’ I mentioned in the third reason above. Wisdom. Common sense. Being guided. That.
Control is noise. The feeling of wanting to control, the feeling of more noise is so helpful! It’s telling me I’ve made something up and I’ve forgotten the deeper, more intelligent part of me that takes care of everything. Always has, always will.
And I’m back to my mind being at ease, and out of the noise.
With love and thanks,
Wyn
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