Why do we have such a strong need to control others, reality and even or most of all ourselves?
Isn’t this because of fear? When we experience fear, no matter if we are aware of it or not, we immediately turn on the control mode. It happens automatically, as our mind is trained to do so. It takes over control, also simply because it is not in the present moment, but trying to figure out the future. And because it can only create future scenarios based on the past (it is what our mind knows and remembers), we tap into fear of our past experiences, whether they are conscious or unconscious (usually the second option). We create future scenarios in our heads only based on what we know from the level of our mind, from the level of programs we have inherited or created by ourselves and the collective, because apparently they were useful. If they weren’t needed, they haven’t been created by our minds. And our mind will always do everything to take over control, simply, because only our mind creates fear.
Let’s look at the fear. What is fear? In simple words fear is the unpleasant emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain etc. whether the threat is real or imagined (source: dictionary.com).
Fear is needed as an emotion as an alarm for the real threat. However, perhaps we got used to this emotion so much in our evolutionary process, that we tend to create fear causing scenarios in our minds and eventually, experience the feeling of fear again and again. Like a loop. And again, it is “only” due to the fact that we create scenarios based on the past. When we know and remember the past, perhaps also full of pain, danger and evil, we can only recreate similar scenarios which will deliver the same emotions. And that is how the circle is turning.
Another cause of fear is the totally unknown future and here the self-defence mode turns on by our mind. When the mind is not able to control the outcome, it creates emotion of fear in order to take over control over our heart, our intuition, our inner knowing, which all are usually irrational, therefore rejected by the mind. Well, we also need our friend- mind. Not always it protects us from the inner knowing, sometimes it protects us from our low evolutionary instincts and unhealthy habits, so the best option is to be able to differentiate these. And create balance.
Under every fear there is also something else, often it is the anger. Anger also related to the past, that perhaps when we felt fear and didn’t act at that very moment the way “we were supposed to” or rather the way we wanted to, but the fear blocked us, we didn’t get the result we wished for or in the worse case scenario, we experienced a lot of pain, evil, harm, serious danger or even death (for those who believe in past life experiences). Under such unconscious anger there is also perhaps something more. There might be a feeling of being guilty, shame and perhaps even a lot more. Fear somehow works as a protection, but when there isn’t any real threat, it just shields our hearts and could be the response to past traumatic events in our lives.
What does it mean that our fear is unreal? Maybe every fear is actually real if we experience it? I would say that there are two important aspects- the fear and the cause. The emotion of fear is real if we experience it but maybe the cause of the fear is not really real? Or at least not as much as we believe at that very moment? And perhaps the way we respond to external circumstances with the feeling of fear is only coming from inside of ourselves and how we experience the reality. As mentioned above, it could be a reminder of deeply buried traumatic event, which is triggered by external event, which might be only a bit similar to what we experienced in the past. Our mind immediately finds connection with what happened before and will do everything to protect us from that experience. Even, if this even has nothing to do with the past. To experience current event in the same way as we experienced it in the past, our mind uses mechanism which is called “projection”. Very tricky bastard… It really works like displaying a movie. The scenario carried within ourselves is being projected onto the external reality, so that we could see it there and chose response. If our response come from fear, there are only four ways of how we react, based on psychological research. First is escape, second is attack/defence, third is being frozen and fourth is turning on an auto pilot- the automatic behaviour, which is usually coming from the programs and scripts that we have learned through our live, which helped us survive at some point, but also at some stage of our lives, become useful or even harmful. All these reactions come from our animal instincts that we have within, as animals need those reactions daily to survive in the world’s jungle.
How to differentiate whether projection of our mind which tries to experience the same trauma from the objective reality in front of yourself?
I really recommend to ask yourself these questions and always remember to refer it to yourself as you only have influence of how and who you are and how you respond to external reality:
No matter if the fear or our response to the external event refer to our personal life or the collective (we have collective memory and therefore traumas as well), if we act from fear, we always get trapped in the four above mentioned reactions. There is no other way. When becoming a conscious person, responsible person, you will start choosing your own way of how you respond to external reality as anyway, it is just a reflection of your inner world.
We all need to heal, as we all have wounds. Wounds that call us for healing and to be taken with love and care.
As below, so above. As within, so without.
With love,
Marta ???
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