Have you noticed that your levels of presence have varied considerably as your child has been at different ages?
I have.
When I was pregnant, I gave up things. Like chocolate. And sugar.
And when my daughter was born 12 years ago, I was determined (notice the use of the word!) to be incredibly present with her as much as I possibly could. Plenty of this came from my own experiences and wanting her to have what I didn’t!
This meant that I gave up most of my own cps. I wouldn’t eat sugar and chocolate whilst I was breast-feeding, and when she was a toddler and a small child, because I didn’t want her to have it. I didn’t let myself read novels. I only went on the computer after she had gone to sleep at night. This was before the days of iPhones, and I didn’t have a pre-iPhone mobile phone. In effect, my aiming to give my daughter presence was my motivation to be present. However, I’m certainly not enlightened, and other ways of avoiding feelings presented themselves – mostly shopping for toys and creating order in the house.
When I had my son, four and a half years later, I again ramped up my presence and reduced the ways I avoided connection with myself and with them.
But once he was a toddler, and they would spend hours playing together, I became more distracted. New to FaceBook, I would have my computer open and would check FB several times a day. I wrote emails during the day.
As they got older, and needed less connection, I found myself picking up old control patterns. Reading novels. Eating chocolate.
As they got even older, I found it harder to tell when they were doing something because they enjoyed it, and when they were using it to distract themselves from themselves. This was particularly because they (of course) learnt their control patterns from me; particularly device use!!!
Nowadays I need to be much more diligent. If I spend hours on my computer, they will happily do the same. If I want them to be connected with themselves, their bodies, their feelings, and other people, then I keep needing to choose that for myself….
I’ve been thinking about how we can tell if something is a control pattern.
1. There’s a sense of urgency to it. We really really need to eat that piece of chocolate. We really really need that coffee. We really really need to buy another dress/tshirt/pair of shoes. We really need to check FaceBook/Twitter/Instagram. We really need to write those emails now. We really need to do it right now…. the urgency is a give-away…
2. If someone wants to really connect with us whilst we are doing any of these things, we can find ourselves agitated or frustrated.
3. We might find ourselves doing the thing long past when we really ‘need’ to. For example, we read one novel, and as soon as we have finished it, we start another. Or, we write the emails and then get involved in reading a blog. Or, we have one piece of cake and then have another. Not stopping is another signal.
4. We often do it soon after waking up, or just before going to bed. For example, we ‘need’ to read before falling asleep, or we ‘need’ a tea with two sugars right after waking. This is a key clue!
5. We do it repeatedly during the day.
6. We do it straight after feeling upset.
So, control patterns are things that we have ongoing and ever-changing relationships with throughout our lives. I wonder if you have tracked yours throughout your life?
For example, when I was a child I had a soft toy rabbit that I would cling to. When I was a child, I would only eat very few things. When I was a teenager I would restrict what I ate, play with my hair, and pick at my face. When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I drank alcohol. When I was in my mid-twenties, I tensed up my muscies (and had a lot of headaches). When I was in my late twenties, I still tensed up my muscles (but less! I’d had many years of psychotherapy by then!) Throughout my twenties, thinking about clothes and buying them was a favoured cp. When I was in my thirties, I ordered the house and bought lots of toys and spent a lot of time keeping them in order. When I was in my late thirties and early forties, I spent a lot of time on the Internet, especially FaceBook and online support groups. Now, at 45, my cps-du-jour are chocolate (organic!), Internet (still) and ordering things (still). They ebb and flow depending on my true emotional state.
Tracking our cps can help us feel self-compassion. At all of those times, we had feelings that weren’t being heard. At all of those times, we were doing those things to protect ourselves from feeling uncomfortable. At all of those times, we were doing things that we had learnt or discovered when there wasn’t the emotional safety we needed to feel what we were really feeling.
So, what can we do with our control patterns now?
1. The first thing to know is that if we think we ‘should’ give them up, we will get nowhere. ‘Should’ doesn’t come from a self-loving place.
2. Our motivation needs to be from a sense of self-friendliness. Wanting to be more connected to ourselves, wanting to be more connected to others. These motivations are most likely to help.
3. If we give up a control pattern but we are not willing to be present with what is really going on with us, another control pattern will take it’s place. For example, recently I mostly gave up FaceBook but found myself obsessed with a different website!
4. We need to replace them by listening to ourselves.
5. Our limit needs to be loving. For example, say I have the desire to eat just before bed. I get curious about what I might be actually feeling. I might still go to the fridge and get something out, and sit with at the table and self-enquire. Or I might tell myself I am going to get the food, but stop close to the fridge for a minute and listen to what comes up. Often the feelings aren’t as big as we think they are. For example, I still get the desire to pick at my face when I am driving sometimes. As my hand comes up to my face, I notice it, and ask myself what I am feeling. Usually something is going on in the road and I’m feeling a bit worried, or I am having a conversation and some feelings are bubbling, or I’m thinking something and feelings are coming. When I stop and listen, and simply give myself self-empathy, then the desire to pick simply falls away.
6. We need to be willing to connect with ourselves, and not willing to distract ourselves. For example, in the health food shop the other day, I went to go and get a big block of chocolate from the jar. I stopped, and said to myself, “I’m not willing to keep on distracting myself from feeling lonely at night.” It wasn’t a harsh voice, simply a willingness to feel those feelings. Then I thought, “I can choose some nuts instead.” Again, I realised that I’m not willing to replace the chocolate with the nuts. In that moment, I was willing to be with the feelings that bubble late at night.
7. Getting support, watching a sad movie, joining a group, listening to our needs, connecting with what we really want, valuing our true desires…. all these are antidotes to control patterns.
It is really important to remember that control patterns aren’t ‘bad guys.’ We learnt them from people who live in a culture that thrives on a lack of presence and a lack of self-connection. When we learnt them, we needed them, to protect ourselves from uncomfortable feelings, to be included and belong, to be accepted, and to be able to function in society.
If we want to give some up, it is important that we are also free to use them if we really need to. For example, perhaps some really big feelings are coming up and we don’t have the support or the self-empathy resources to listen to those feelings. Much preferable to distract ourselves, doing so with choice and compassion for ourselves, than sink somewhere we are not ready to go.
For example, a couple of years ago my children wanted me to go on the Brisbane eye – a big big wheel. I was scared, but I said yes. As soon as I got in there, I felt waves of terror. I was so glad that I knew about control patterns, because at that moment, I got out my handbag and started sorting through my receipts, keeping them right up close to my eyes so that I couldn’t see how far up we were! I didn’t have the emotional safety or resources at that point to feel what I needed to, and so I chose distraction. My kids had an amazing time. I told them what I was doing, and because they know all about cps, they were quite comfortable with me doing it.
Of course, the ideal thing is to then find those emotional resources; the support, the listening, the empathy, the space, to feel the feelings.
Sometimes our uncomfortable feelings come from unhelpful self-talk. In that case, avoiding the feeling can be helpful too, because it’s not a feeling that will move if we feel it. Again, in the long run it’s most helpful to change our self-talk, but in the moment, stopping the spiralling of the feelings that go with that kind of self-talk can be helpful.
Using a control pattern consciously, from self-compassion, is a very different thing from doing it without awareness.
Gradually giving up a control pattern, from self-compassion, is a very different thing from ‘trying’ to give up a habit.
I often find that if I have lots of support, if I’m doing all the processes which help me stay connected with myself, if I’m letting myself get my needs met and am doing things that I love, then I simply don’t feel drawn to my control patterns. The desire to do the thing just drops away, without me needing to do anything. I love that way; it feels so natural.
The key to all of this conversation is our ongoing journey to deepen our connection with ourselves, our willingness to keep on listening to what is really going on, and to have plenty of self-compassion when we disconnect and don’t listen. And to be curious about ourselves, and life.