Roger Harty: Control — It Gets Bad Press

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LIKE in every household, ever since being a small child and being told to go to bed early, we start to resist being told what to do.

‘Go to bed now’, ‘eat your vegetables’, ‘put on your coat and hat on when you go outside’, gets met with a very regular and equally resistant ‘no I won’t – you won’t tell me what to do’, type of attitude.

This is met with the inevitable ‘tears’ and some form of ‘parenting’ (mostly through kindness and cajoling but maybe not always the case!)

I believe I have set the scene for many households across the world. The bottom line is that we don’t like being told what to do, from early childhood the reality that we don’t like being controlled is inbred into us. It’s as if our freedom is being attacked.

So we can see how the platform is set  for, human rights, religious rights , prisoners’ rights, gay rights, free speech, racism, and now the ‘Me Too’ movement etc ,etc.

While all of the above hold great importance in their own right, the common ground for all of the above is that they resist any attempt at control.

It is an attack on freedom. Control – It gets bad press!

Why? Because there is another type of control.

For instance, if you had a car and you turned the steering wheel to the right on 10 occasions but if on one of the occasions it caused the car to veer to the left then I’m pretty sure you’d soon lose confidence in that car.

Why? Because the car is not performing as it should then ultimately we are putting our lives in danger and we feel unsafe. In other words we are out of control and that comes with a very uncomfortable feeling.

Thus, the only avenue open to gettting a comfortable, safe feeling back, is to change the car and get one that we are sure gives us control.

What I am trying to demonstrate here is that control, safety, security and confidence and ultimately peace, all go hand in hand.

As I have said before – We cannot control what happens in our lives but we can always control how we react.

The secret to inner peace as human beings has to lie in the area of our reactions as this is ultimately all we can control.

Control of reactions = Peace

All human beings are made of emotions, so I believe that when we learn to control our emotions, then this in turn controls our reactions which is the secret to inner peace.

How do we control our emotions?

Jesus gave us the answer when He said “ I Am (is) The Way”

I Am – Mindfulness – Meditation – Buddha Practice -The Power of Now are all saying the same thing and all will help us to regain control and thus peace of mind.

Inner Control (of our emotions) = Peace of Mind

Next week I am going to write about — Emotions – What are they?

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