I Need To Be In Control

If I let go of control, my life will be one, big disaster.

I had a client who was exhausted. As a self-proclaimed control freak, she insisted that being in control was necessary because one time when she stopped trying to figure things out, it was disastrous. 

In our session, we identified that the predominant limiting belief preventing her from achieving her goal of being OK with what is, was that she believed, “if she was not in control, her life would be a disaster.” 

On one hand, she wanted to live life in a state of allowing, to trust that what was happening, should be happening. She wanted to live life from the Alignment Zone. On the other hand, she had this powerful belief that to let go, to stop trying to figure things out, would result in a disastrous life. 

My client shared that when she was a little girl she always got what she wanted. If she went to her mother and her mother said no, she would go to her grandmother who always said yes. She was never denied anything as a child and became accustomed to getting what she wanted. Now, as an adult when things don’t work out as planned, it doesn’t sit well with her. Just like it didn’t sit well with her when her mother told her no. This client grew up never having considered the perspective that to be told no could be a positive. Therefore, her brain didn’t have proof that being told no, could be a good thing and didn’t have any positive emotional experiences of how a “no” could feel good. 

Her brain did have proof however, that circumventing a no until she got a yes, was preferable to accepting a no. She made the mental thought connection in childhood that she could control how she felt on the inside by controlling the experiences on the outside. Or, in other words, the outside world dictated how she felt on the inside. 

Most limiting beliefs go unnoticed and continuously trigger automatic responses unless we are intentionally aware of what we are thinking, feeling and how we are behaving. 

Limiting Belief - Emotion - Strategy (Behaviour/Response) 

A limiting belief is a thought that restricts our perception of who we really are. The separation between what the mind is thinking and the true essence of who we are creates emotional and physical discomfort. 

When we experience negative emotion like sadness, anger or frustration, even the slightest agitation or form of physical discomfort is letting you know that you have a limiting belief that has been triggered within you. It works like an alarm bell. 

As a child, we had limited experience and knowledge about how to deal with negative thoughts and emotions so we often created a strategic patterned response to keep ourselves from ever having to feel the original discomfort again. The problem with these old strategies is that they were designed by a child, with a child’s mindset and may no longer be an appropriate or helpful adult response. 

Often times one of the three, a Limiting Belief, Emotion, or a Strategy, will stand out during a coaching session as something I need to explore more deeply with my client. I have found that if I can identify one of the three, I can usually help the client make the connection between how that connection may be influencing their present-day experience. 

Below are some of the beliefs, emotions and strategies that came up during my initial one hour session with the client. Keep in mind as you read through the list that the client’s goal, was to be OK with what is, or in other words, she wanted to live life in a state of allowing.

Limiting Beliefs 

  • There is a right path. 
  • There is a person I am supposed to be. 
  • I am confused. 
  • I am not supposed to be doing what I am doing. 
  • I have my own inner demons. 
  • Answers won’t come to us. 
  • I am very spoiled. 
  • If I don’t get what I want it’s not normal. 
  • The things that come to me come in baby steps. 
  • I inherited impatience. 
  • I’m in alignment if there are more good times than bad times. 
  • Doubt comes from intuition. 
  • Things are not going the way they should go. 
  • The only way to get answers is to go by how I feel. 
  • How I feel is my intuition. 
  • There is a wrong decision. 
  • If you’re not a person of action, things won’t happen for you. 
  • I can reroute the present moment. 
  • Things are not the way they should be. 
  • My father is a higher power. 
  • I’m misunderstood. 
  • You can’t give up. 
  • The journey you want is not going to happen. 
  • My vision is not right if it doesn’t feel right. 
  • Nothing that should come to me should be hard. 
  • If something feels wrong it is wrong. 
  • If something feels good it is right. 
  • This is not fair. 
  • Life is fair if it goes the way I want it to go. 
  • If things don’t go the way I want in my life, I am losing control of my life. 
  • If I am not in control, my life will be a disaster. 
  • My life was a disaster because I stopped caring. 
  • My life was a disaster because I stopped trying to figure things out. 
  • Letting go, made my life a disaster. 
  • Feelings determine if I am on the right path. 
  • Hard work will get me what I want. 
  • You can have it if you want it. I always got what I wanted. 
  • If I am not getting what I want, it’s the wrong place. 
  • If I am getting what I want, it is the right place. 
  • My expectations are right. My vision is right. 
  • I should get what I envision. 

Emotions 

  • Doesn’t feel right 
  • I don’t feel the way I think I should feel 
  • Frustrating 
  • Impatience
  • Not grounded/doubt 
  • Not trusting 
  • Fear 
  • I don’t like it when I don’t get what I want 
  • Pain 
  • Heart break 
  • Sulky 
  • Victim 
  • Defeat 
  • Weak 
  • Disappointed 
  • Tired 

Strategies 

  • If I don’t get what I want, go to someone else who will give it to me. 
  • Don’t accept the answer no. 
  • Work hard. 
  • Get really busy. 
  • Change focus or attention onto something else. 
  • Find reasons why what I am doing is wrong. 
  • Find reasons why where I am is wrong. 
  • Stop doing what I am doing. 
  • Start something new. 
  • Be driven. 
  • Try hard. 
  • Do something different. 
  • Don’t see things out to the end. 
  • Not seeing things through to completion. 
  • Starting things and then stopping. 
  • Control. Seek verification. 
  • Second guess myself. 
  • Use feelings to determine rightness. 

Her thoughts, emotions and actions were responsible for her inability to maintain a state of allowing. 

If she chooses to not transform the thoughts, emotions and behaviours listed above she’ll probably never be OK with what is because her L.E.S. loop is operating in complete opposition to what is necessary to be in the flow. The minute she makes a baby step towards accepting what is, the baby step action triggers one or more of the limiting beliefs above, which in turn, triggers one or more of the emotions which triggers her to engage in one or more of the above strategies. 

Keep in mind that the experience of being told no and doing something different to get a yes doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve moved out of the Alignment Zone. You can be told no, and the no can be a guide post for what to do next. By remaining aligned, you are able to keep yourself open to the infinite possibilities, opportunities and solutions that are always available to you and to notice and follow the positive, gentle guidance as to what to do next from a clear, aligned state. 

Alternatively, being told no, and experiencing the feeling that, “it doesn’t sit right” was letting my client know that she had moved out of the alignment zone and a limiting belief was active. It was the discomfort, whether emotional or physical, that was directing the client’s future thinking, behaviour and responses. Not aligned guidance. Since the client had lived most of her life in a false state of alignment, the feeling of discomfort (not sitting right), often got misconstrued as her inner wisdom instead of the emotional response to a triggered limiting belief. The wisdom she was actually getting, was her mind’s wisdom which was based on her belief that she needed to control outside circumstances. She needed to control the outcome. She needed a yes, equivalent to the experience of Grandma’s yes and if she wasn’t getting it she would second guess herself, discontinue projects and start new ones which made it difficult to bring anything to completion. 

If we take action when we are out of alignment, we are taking action to try and relieve the discomfort of being out of alignment. In this case, my client would leave one project unfinished and move onto another one to get relief from the feeling of something not sitting well. Any action taken out of alignment, creates more of what it was birthed from,…lack. This fuels the pattern, fuels the loop of pursuing the false state of alignment perceived as outside of ourselves instead of recognizing that we already are aligned. It’s our natural state. Divine wisdom, feels good before, during and after. 

If she was getting divine guidance in an aligned state, she would have been drawn towards what action to take next, with no attachment to outcome and in a state of continued fullness rather than moving away from the discomfort, or moving towards pleasure. To have the belief that, “you always get what you want,” is in itself, not a limiting belief. 

If I am aligned with my true self, I believe that everything is for me and that I always have everything I need, exactly what I should have then, with that understanding, I wouldn’t feel the need for anything other than what I have. I would want what I have. I would be able to perceive the wholeness of that. It becomes a limiting belief when we perceive that what we have, is not what we need, which creates the wanting of something different. The perception of need or want draws us out of alignment and into a state of lack. 

What if you had a strategy to stop the mind’s intention of drawing you out of alignment and to instead, draw you into or maintain alignment? 

What if you could skip over that process of moving out into the Outside Zone or beyond to deep resistance? 

What if you could spend most of your day aligned, so that life became a gentle dance with reality, no matter how it showed up? It is possible. 

To find out how to live life from the Alignment Zone you can 

1. Attend the Unleash Your Greatness Conference  
2. Get Coached - One on One Coaching with Lori Brant 
3. 28 - Alignment Deep Dive

www.LoriBrant.com