Janet McNeill

<July 18/09>

Now, I’m not a psychological expert of any kind. I did get a B.A. in Psychology back in pre-history (1974), when really very little was yet understood about the human brain.

There’s plenty I don’t know about human psychology – don’t really understand – but I am a keen and constant observer of human nature – and I read a lot, think a lot, and have the occasional “Aha!” moment.

I believe there are two levels to our control freak-ism – the very, very personal, and the more global, shall we say.

I’m pretty convinced that the genesis of our tendency toward control freak-ism goes back to the time in human history, widely said by scholars to be about 10,000 years ago, when we chose to abandon the tribal lifestyle – the life of gatherers and hunters – and began to practice settled agriculture. Several books introduced this idea to me: In the Absence of the Sacred – The Failure of Technology & the Survival of the Indian Nations (Jerry Mander, Sierra Club Books, 1992); Ishmael – An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit (Daniel Quinn, Bantam/Turner, 1992); and My Name is Chellis & I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization (Chellis Glendinning, Shambhala, 1994). (I highly recommend all 3,btw.)

In doing so, we detoured away from millennia of placing our faith in the Earth/Universe to provide for us (which the Earth/Universe was so generously doing), and decided to “take control” of things. In retrospect, it now seems to a lot of us, I think, that this was a very, very problematic choice.

Abandoning the tribal lifestyle has had many unfortunate and no doubt unintended consequences (I love that phrase: unintended consequences; life is full of them, hmm?), to put it rather mildly. Separating ourselves from Nature – and from each other and our tribal ways – has been nothing short of disastrous.

That’s the global piece.

So now we all have 10,000 years of a control mindset wired into us – into our brains and our genes and our culture and our guts.

Bringing it down to the more personal level, many of us on the planet grew up in families in which dysfunctionality was rampant; is it not so?

There are/were alcoholic parents, parents who abandon/ed us in one form or another, mistreat/ed us, sexually abuse/d us, visit/ed violence upon us, berate/d us constantly – and we wind up/wound up very damaged in a startling variety of ways. If our childhood was very chaotic, unpredictable and out-of-control, as adults we tend to have an intense need to control our circumstances – our emotions, our surroundings, the people around us, and so on. (Even the appearance of our lawns! To the point of being willing to use poisons on them to “subdue” weeds. Sheesh!)

It’s not so surprising, is it? We want to somehow right the wrongs that were done to us, and so we become control freaks – to a greater or lesser degree. We want things to be predictable. No more out of control stuff, please, we are saying, hmm?

It’s a coping strategy, pure and simple. It doesn’t tend to work terribly well, of course, given that the very nature of life is to not be controlled or controllable. So it becomes a vicious cycle. The more we try to control everything around us, the more out-of-control things seem to become. And on and on we go, around and around, making ourselves (and the people around us) miserable, sick, and maybe even crazy.

Control freak-ism is kind of a losing strategy, you might say, hmm?

It often seems to take a personal disaster of some sort to make us see that our excessive need for control is causing us more problems than it solves. (Been there!)

When life throws an unexpected curve ball our way – especially one of rather large proportions (and Life seems to positively delight in doing so!) – and life as we’ve known it is shattered, often light begins to dawn. We see the illusory nature of the control freak-ism that has so limited us, and we begin to see that a generous Earth/Universe is there to support us, quite without our trying to always be the Great Big Sheriff of this, that & the other thing. We let go and, as it were, the Earth rises up to greet us.

It’s all quite magical, really.

I find all of it very, very poignant. Tragic, but poignant. So much of human endeavour and our human frailties (and worse) can drive us right around the bend, almost – but when we come to see that underneath all the nonsense we are really quite innocent creatures – innocent, but very, very damaged and hurt; well, it helps, somehow, doesn’t it? It certainly helps bring up compassion, if nothing else.

I’ve heard that some of the major writers (being terrible with details, I can’t remember who) have pinpointed alienation as the key human problem or issue. I think they’re right. A word I would twin with it is abandonment. So many of us feel we were abandoned in one or many ways by our parents (and we were, we were) and/or by spouses/partners along the way (we were, we were) – and this comes down through the generations, and Heaven help us all, we then pass it on down to our own children, one way and another; tragically, tragically, this is so.

We’ve all felt abandoned/alienated for 10,000 years, so how could things be otherwise??

We human beings evolved to be loved and looked after and cared for by a whole tribe of people, whom we in return love, look after and care for.

How then could we feel anything other than abandoned and alienated in a world that tells us to get by on our own, more or less – or in the care of a very small number of people, some of them too damaged themselves to do anything but pass along their hurts and pain and damage?(1)

It’s all very sad – nay, tragic – and so poignant to realize that we are all in the same darn boat. We’re all damaged – to greater and lesser degrees – and we live in a world – an industrial economy that, as Wendell Berry has said, “thrives by damage.”

Healing is always possible, however. It is human nature to change/grow/evolve. It may very well be that we have let the sickness go on too long, and our condition (as a species) is terminal – but at least as individuals, we can turn ourselves around (only if we truly want to, of course. That is a choice we make, and choice is key, key, key in human endeavour…).

Now. All of this is just my opinion. None of it is scientific fact, and you can’t put any of it under a microscope or conduct a scientific experiment to prove (or disprove) it.

As Einstein once said, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts.”

It seems to me like truth. Make of it what you will, hmm?

Janet

P.S. The essays ‘Control Freaks Anonymous’ and ‘Ditching the 2 x 4’s’ are also about the perennially important subject of control – which I see as the central issue/dilemma of human endeavour, pretty much… You can find those essays in the blog Index. I also wrote another essay on the same day as this one. It’s called ‘Out of Control,’ & I will post it eventually. It’s considerably more personal and more passionate than this one, & I’m just not quite ready to post it yet.

<June 28/08>

I’ve written elsewhere about “looking good,” and how the Landmark Forum folks say that’s what our lives are pretty much organized around. For sure, I think they’re onto something big…

We dread looking stupid, don’t we? You can try and tell me you don’t care about looking stupid. For one thing, I won’t believe you, and for another, if you are one of those exceedingly rare people who really doesn’t give a darn about looking good/looking stupid, I’m going to tell you you’re so rare as to be merely the exception that proves the rule (maybe from another planet, even!)

I know darn well how badly most of us dread looking foolish. It’s possible I’m a little less obsessed about “looking good” than most folks, but like pretty much everyone I know, I sure don’t exactly relish looking stupid.

When we feel as though we look stupid, what is really going on inside us?

I think we feel alone.

I’ve thought lots about feeling alone – and I’ve felt alone. There have been times in my life when I’ve felt not just alone – not just lonely – but abandoned; bereft. It’s the worst possible feeling I can imagine.

I’d better not get started here, or I’ll be off on a lengthy lecture about how human beings evolved to be tribal creatures, and how bereft I think we’ve all felt ever since we abandoned our tribal existence, 10,000 years ago…

When all I really set out to talk about was how awful it feels to feel or look stupid, and how very, very hard we work to avoid that sensation. Actually, I think the more we try to not look stupid, the more stupid we sometimes wind up looking. Y’know? I suspect that this feeling/looking stupid business, and also the feeling alone part, are all too darn common.

I’m going to point out that I’m writing this little item on July 1^st weekend, and that all the “long” weekends – the holiday weekends – the “family” weekends – bring up complicated emotions for me. For a variety of reasons I needn’t go into, I generally wind up feeling somewhat alone/abandoned on these weekends, and that can make me feel as though I “look stupid.” Fortunately, I do a lot of talking to myself about this kind of stuff (little “pep talks”), and I keep it pretty much under control…most of the time.

It might be useful for all of us to do a little honest delving into our thoughts and feelings about “looking stupid” – because I think when we’re caught up in worrying about looking stupid (which for all I know is, for some folks, a lot of the time), we’ve got ourselves hemmed in by fear.

We become afraid or incapable of relating honestly with people, and we wind up doing or saying some pretty dumb stuff that actually probably does make us look stupider than if we just acted like who we really are, and owned up to the truth. What is the truth? We’re all lonely sometimes – lonely, insecure and afraid, and we all need to surround ourselves with people who help us feel good about ourselves, instead of trying to make us feel bad, or stupid, because of their insecurities.

And, we all act stupid sometimes. We all do dumb stuff, we all make mistakes, we all have vast holes in our knowledge, and we all want and badly need to be loved, accepted, affirmed and appreciated.

As long as we walk around being incapacitated by our need to “look good” and not “look stupid,” we’re liable to continue to do – and say – lots of pretty dumb stuff. Including some seriously planet-damaging things…

I say, let’s all work at finding ourselves a tribe – one that not only helps us feel good about ourselves (and each other), but also helps make the world a better place for all of us, while we’re at it.(1)

Whaddya think?

Janet

<drafted in October 2005>

It’s 3½ years ago now (i.e., Oct. 2005) that I took part in a Landmark Forum weekend. This was a very memorable and, I’d have to say, even life-changing experience.

It was inspiring – enlightening – exhilarating – powerful – emotional – draining – empowering – and transformational!

While there, I gained some major insights about human nature and human society, and also about my own life, shortcomings and unfortunate tendencies.

The language of the Landmark Forum (LMF from here on in) is that we are each “whole, complete and perfect” – a most affirming concept; a valuable, empowering, wonderful, generous concept. One that many of us are able to grasp (if at all) only in an intellectual sort of way. Down in our guts, it feels pretty un-graspable for most of us, I suspect…

Importantly, the language of the LMF is not about fixing. However much we may feel broken, we are assured that we are whole, complete and perfect, and that the LMF is not about fixing ourselves (or anyone else!) – it’s about transformation.

Other key LMF terms are authenticity (we learn that many of our relationships have been inauthentic) – possibility (we learn that when we begin to behave authentically, we create possibility) – and integrity.

The LMF weekend is constructed as a series of conversations. The leader has her/his pieces of curriculum to cover (and it’s fairly powerful stuff!) – but much of the real gut-level learning comes from listening to people at the microphones talk about the experiences and lessons of their own lives.

It’s a very emotional weekend. Sometimes the people at the microphone cry; very often those listening cry as well, as I did on more than one occasion.

A key piece of learning that emerges is that all of us have been hurt in our lives – and that, while the circumstances vary widely, the hurts – the emotions – are very, very similar (or the same) from one person to another.(1)

What an amazing (and transformational!) experience to learn that not only is none of us alone (although we sometimes feel that way), we are all in good company – in very, very abundant company – as human beings who have been damaged or hurt.

I ought to point out that not everyone in attendance at a LMF weekend does choose to get up to the microphone – that’s a choice not everyone makes. Some of us (myself among them) learned from the experience that there are some of us who may sometimes need to do a little more listening and a little less talking…a bit of a paradox, in that the power of the LMF is in the magic of listening to and participating in conversation. The power of conversation is very much a strong feature in the LMF…

Another powerful lesson for me during the LMF weekend was that not everything that happens is all about me. This was a huge opportunity and lesson for me. I learned it as the result of a rather negative or charged dynamic that seemed to have sprung up between the LMF leader and myself.

This woman seemed to turn a “disapproving mother” face on me, for some reason. I had evidently said something to her that offended her, and for the rest of the weekend she was rather impatient and curt with me. This was a bit of a challenge for me to deal with, but I got quiet with it, said to myself “Hmm. This feels really, really, really uncomfortable. I wonder, what am I meant to get from this experience?”

What I learned was very valuable. I realized that the “Disapproving Mother” face the leader kept turning on me is probably the very same face I have turned on some of the important people in my own life – and that it sure as heck can’t be a whole lot of fun for them.

What I gained from this was a very powerful lesson about mirroring. This woman held up a mirror for me and helped me see something I very much needed to see. It made relating with her pretty awkward – pretty uncomfortable – but hooey! – did it ever teach me an important lesson! This in itself is, I think, a pretty important lesson for all of us. The people in our lives do hold up mirrors for us. If we’re too afraid to look into them, we will miss grasping things we’d do well to grasp.(2)

One very key lesson we learned during the LMF weekend is that a lot of what we do in our lives is really a reaction to events that took place a very, very long time ago – that whatever it was that took place, we created a story about it, and we have lived our lives as a reaction to that story we constructed decades and decades ago. In doing so, most of us have robbed ourselves of a great deal of energy, vitality and possibility.(3)

Possibility is a word that comes up a lot in the LMF. “Rackets” and “strong suits” are also discussed. We’ve all created “rackets” that we play out endlessly. For example, a lot of us who were damaged by the behaviour of our parents have learned to play the “Look – see how strong I am now!” game in reaction to our life circumstances. This one has been a significant one in my own life, I reckon. Other ones I can think of are the martyr and the “Oh poor me” victim racket. Plenty of us are caught up in these – or our parents were, and many of us have created our own roles and rackets in reaction to their rackets.

A unique element of the LMF weekend is the frequent exhorting of participants to make contact with family members/loved ones, to begin the work of being authentic with them – then reporting back to the group. (When I attended, there were about 135 in the group, and as I say, not all went up to the mikes. Too, some folks dropped out as the weekend proceeded; for some, perhaps, LMF methods are not quite their “cup of tea.”)

Creating authentic relationships in the present is a way we can put the past back into the past, where it belongs, and eliminate the endless dramas many of us choose to create in our lives from day to day. This creates vitality and possibility; who among us can say they don’t want some of that? It’s about creating the kind of life we want to live now – and moving into a future of possibility – not living so much out of our past that we create a present and future that are virtually repeat performances of our now-distant (and not always very pleasant) past.

Another teaching of the LMF is that, when we live out of our past, we tend, among other things, to “make people wrong” – something I know I’ve done plenty – and see many people around me doing also – so reflexively that they are perhaps not even aware they are doing it.

At one point in the LMF weekend, our facilitator led a meditation in which she asked us to confront our fear. I have no way of knowing what others saw or experienced during this meditation – I know that it was a moving and powerful and emotional experience for me. I re-visited a childhood incident – and then recalled a rather significant dream I’d had just before the LMF weekend. What I realized was that some of the fear I experienced in childhood had led me to circumscribe my own potential as an adult – and that, forty or fifty years later, it is surely past time to drop that ancient fear!

There are some other key, highly useful learnings in the LMF. I can honestly say I can’t think of a single person I know who would not benefit from the LMF experience.

I think far too many of us drag around baggage, wounds and experiences from our childhoods into our day-to-day lives – ancient hurts and grudges, resentments and pain – that hobble our present and our future. Most of us live our lives out of an old, old story that is not merely terribly out-of-date, but also highly unhelpful to us as we attempt to live now. It’s kind of like trying to drive a car down the highway while never facing forward – always relying on the view in the rearview mirror. This way of living limits not only our own selves, but also our relations with the people we love the most.

For me personally, the three LMF days taught me some very useful and practical concepts that opened up for me distinct hope for possibility in my relationships – as well as helping me understand better how so many of us limit ourselves as individuals, and even how we limit ourselves as a species. Real personal and life transformation can and do emerge for some of us as the result of a LMF experience.

In my case, a friend who’d “done” the LMF weekend had offered to pay my way for me (I was in a pretty unstable financial situation at the time). She was convinced I am “worth it” – and I agree. I am worth it.

I think you are too. We all are. I also know that transformations of a variety of kinds are very much needed here on Planet Earth, at this unique time in human history.

Ask yourself this: what do you have to lose?

Janet

P.S. This is not the only kind of powerful emotional learning experience I’ve had. I’ve also taken part in one-on-one counselling on several occasions in my life. As well, I’ve attended other kinds of workshops. I recommend all of these, including the Art of Living courses and the couples’ workshop on ‘The Dance of Wounds in Couples’ Relationships’ that I attended at Serenity Renewal in Ottawa. Each of these has helped me gain insights for which I’m very grateful. I’m pretty convinced our personal growth is meant to be a lifelong process. These days, I’m reading, re-reading and re-reading yet again, Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth – Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose – and also listening (over and over) to his audio CD’s (and gaining new insights each time!). This is a very, very challenging world we live in, and it’s also a uniquely challenging time in the history of our species. I think most of us need all the help we can get!?