The Controlling Parent
Many of us grew up with one or both parents that were very controlling. I certainly did.
When raising my children, a decision was made that I didn't want to be that controlling parent. But the interesting thing is, we all live from a certain level of consciousness that is based in wanting control, so when my children did something that I didn't like or want, that controlling nature arose in me - it's there in all of us. It wanted to control the unwanted event, but because Terri didn't want to be that controlling parent, she resisted and suppressed that controlling nature, which is the same as strengthening and feeding it.
When we strengthen the controlling nature in us by resisting or suppressing it, it will manifest itself in our life in some way or another. In my own life, that control was expressed and directed at my partner and in my paralegal career as well.
The bottom line is that we can't avoid being what we are and what we have been inculcated with through our childhood and environment. We are all messed up in one way or another, but we can learn to use that as a blessing instead of the curse that we believe it to be.
How?
We have to first see that we can't change ourselves. We can suppress the anger we feel in a moment. We can push it down over and over again, but what eventually happens? An explosion... On the same token, we can suppress the controller in us over and over again, but what eventually happens? The controller rears its ugly head through another relationship in our life.
We eventually come to see that we can run but we can never hide.
As strange as this may sound, we weren't really raised by true human beings. We were raised by a level of consciousness that manifested itself through our parents. They listened and acted from a lower level of themselves, just as their parents did. As such, we, as children, learned to do the same. We were never shown any other way of meeting the moment other than through the answers we have given ourselves that have been brought down from generation to generation.
When we see that we cannot do or truly change anything about ourselves, we then enter a place of humility where we come to understand that we must surrender to something higher, something that has everything under control in the truest sense. But what is this "higher" that we are to surrender to?
Take any unwanted moment in your life and see how instantaneously it is reacted and responded to. That instantaneous reaction and response comes from a lower level of consciousness that always negatively responds to what it doesn't want or like. The higher level of consciousness is always there in that same moment to guide us. However, that guidance is typically overridden by the fiercely automatic response of the lower consciousness.
We must learn to be observers of ourselves instead of servers of that lower consciousness. When we can stop in those unwanted moments and wait and watch for that lower consciousness to move through, that is when the guidance from the higher consciousness presents itself. It has always been there, it's just that the "old stuff" has been in the way. We must suffer that lower consciousness in favor of the higher. Something has to be given up in order to receive something new.
We will miss the mark over and over again. We miss the mark because for so long we have unknowingly given that lower consciousness its authority and control, and it takes time for a reversal to take place. It's all part of the process. So, don't condemn yourself for any of it. Just see it and start over.
Little by little, as we work to see the parts of us that constantly want to control everyone and everything and agree to not do its bidding, we learn that it wasn't really us who wanted to control everyone and everything. We were simply living from an old borrowed controlling nature that just does what it does when there's no awareness to oversee its mechanism.
Owning our attention and staying present is essential and is the best gift we can give ourselves and others. It is the best gift you can give your child and the world. Practicing presence is how we learn to remain in the moment long enough to receive that higher guidance. Practicing presence is how we are able to see the controlling parent in us where we can then agree to sacrifice it instead of serve it.
The higher consciousness is the Parent that needs to parent us so that we may parent our children properly. Any other form of parenting is really just a "fool's errand."
Photo by: https://pixabay.com/photos/control-writing-work-clerk-form-427512/
