Control

Do we really have it?

And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others                                                                                                         II Corinthians 9:8

I was thinking the other day about the paradox of control. As I have said often in this space, control is the antidote to anxiety. The more control we have, or believe that we have, generally the less anxiety we have. Anxiety really arises out of our sense of little or no control in situations- real or imagined.

The paradox of control is this- we have more control than we realize, but less than we think we do. What do I mean by that?

Let’s begin…

When I say that we have more control than we realize, I mean that there are often aspects of situations we are in whereby we only see the external threats. We believe that other people or situations are overwhelming and powerful, and there seems to be nothing that we can do.  The truth is, we have control over our own thoughts and actions- our adaptive assessments and behaviors.

During times of high stress and anxiety we tend to minimize our own power or strengths. Maybe that is because we are just emotionally flooded. Or perhaps, the situation seems so threatening that whatever we think we can do seems puny in comparison.

The truth is, having control over our own thoughts and behaviors is incredibly powerful. We also must consider that part of our power is the power of our team. As I have said before, anxiety control is a “team effort”, and we must be ready, willing and aware to ask for help from our team.

What about the “less than we think” part? Well, we like to believe that we can change others so that we can escape from their control. The truth is, we are unlikely to change other people, but heaven knows we try! We do not need to change others to have peace and anxiety control, so let’s not count on changing the minds of others in order to minimize our own anxiety.

Just my thoughts for the day friends, what think you?

Prayer: Lord, you have given us all that we need to face difficulties. We can rely upon you, Amen