Comfort control

This is the last in my sporadic series on control. Other posts are here, here, here and here.

A popular feature in higher-end cars for some time has been Electronic Automatic Temperature Control. In fact, nowadays it’s not unusual to find two- or three-zone temperature controls so that driver, front passenger and rear passengers can all have a say in their own comfort.

We love to control our environment, and I think it’s because we are comfortable doing things over which we have control. We love our remote controls for our TVs, garage doors, ceiling fans, lights and so on. We love putting in our ear buds or putting on our noise-cancelling headphones to control what goes into our ears. We like to control what comes into our home on TV and the internet, so we install parental controls and filters. We control what goes into our bodies, so we watch our diet (or not), and we keep our divinely revealed health code (or not).

In fact, we rightly tout the virtue of self-control, praising someone who has the discipline to train as an athlete or musician, praising those who overcome adversity by their sheer grit and determination, praising students who earn great grades.

The Lord’s Plan of Happiness reminds us, however, that there are limits to our control. In the grand council in Heaven, we agreed to a plan that would allow us agency and accountability for our choices; we rejected an alternative that would have guaranteed our safe return and yielded honor and glory to the guarantor, Lucifer. (It’s worth noting that both of those provisions are offensive, though we tend to focus on the first just as I’m doing here.)

Even God Himself did not control Pharaoh as Moses sought the release of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt. God offered consequences for Pharaoh’s choices, but he could not force Pharaoh to comply. And Pharaoh only complied with God’s will once the pain of not complying was great enough. Whether God could or could not force Pharaoh to comply is a moot question: the fact is he did not.

As I’ve written in this series, I have struggle personally with the issue of control in my life. I have at times overshot the mark in trying to control my children’s behavior, trying to control outcomes in conflicts and trying to control circumstances that were clearly beyond my control.

Albert Einstein is credited with the idea that insanity is trying the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. In trying to exert control where I do not have it, I have lived that definition, and the results are not pretty. I’m fortunate that they people who matter most to me are gracious and forgiving and that our relationships are intact despite my human frailties.

As I have worked over time to sort out what I do and do not control (not what I should or should not control), I have found increased peace in letting go of the things that are not mine and focusing on the things that are.

Stress and Control: Fight or Flight

This is another in a sporadic series on control, which started here. Other installments are here and here.

After a series of nightmares over a few days about losing control of a car I was driving (well, I was driving TWO cars at the same time, against the flow of traffic, and lost control of the one I was not in, and it flipped back on top of the car I was driving), I decided it was time to see a therapist. Waking up at 2 am every night sweating and panting was a sign to me that things were not as they should be.

The therapist I met was kind and unassuming, and he was exceptionally helpful.

We talked in my first session about my job, my family, my reaction to stress, and so on. He pretty quickly helped me sort out some scenarios for the dream in relation to specific things that were going on in my life at the time.

As we continued to meet together over the next few weeks, he helped me understand some interesting relationships within myself. Each of us has, he said, because of our evolutionary heritage, a fight or flight reflex. That reflex is typically activated by some kind of stressor, and for some of us, the fuse is short and for others the fuse is longer. But for all of us, because we no longer live among predators who will eat us if we do not fight or flee, the fight or flight response may lead to overreaction to the stressors, unless we learn to do something about it.

My way to avoid stress up to that time was also my cause of stress. If I could control everything around me, then I felt no stress. Since I could not control everything around me, stress was inevitable. And often the results of my reaction to the stress were not pretty. I was at my worst the anti-poster child for Section 121’s counsel to exercise power and influence through long-suffering, kindness and meekness. And the less control I felt I had, the more I wanted.

One of the things we worked on was the fight or flight response. His hypothesis, which seems to have been correct in my case, was that stress triggered the fight portion of that response in me, and my fuse was very, very short.

We worked on ways to lengthen my fuse, so that I would have time to plan and execute my own reaction, rather than relying on my untrustworthy (and unnecessary) instinct. What was valuable to me in the process was learning to recognize that this tendency of mine was not completely a flaw in my moral character, but rather a product of my biology (and perhaps my earlier responses to my environment). Learning to overcome it was not just a matter of willing myself to improve, but it was taking positive and specific steps to give myself time to do what I knew in my heart I wanted to do, but didn’t seem to be able to do.

We tried a few exercises, but the one that worked best for me was the catastrophe exercise. In this exercise, I spent specific time in a room alone. I thought of something that would cause me stress, and I talked myself step by step through successively more serious consequences of successively less controlled circumstances until I got to some ultimately untenable conclusion. The point was to get my heart rate up, my breathing more rapid, to increase the physical feelings of stress in the process, and then, once I articulated the most dire end-game, to take a large cleansing breath and tell myself (aloud), “And that’s ok.” And then within seconds to start again. I was to build up the time I would do the exercise – five minutes a day in the first week, then ten the next week and fifteen the third week. By the end of the third week, I could no longer get myself worked up doing the exercise. That was, my therapist told me, the point.

The exercise sensitized me to the stress so that my instinctive response did not kick in immediately; instead I would have time to plan my own response.

Generally today I’m much better than I was most of the time. I still tend to rely on the fight or flight response when I’m particularly tired or when there are multiple stressors at work at the same time.

As cheesy as it seems, Stress Management for Dummies was really helpful, as was Overcoming Anxiety for Dummies. I’m sure there are more sophisticated books on the subject, but these helped me to identify quickly some key concepts that I could work on.

The reason I share this story is not to suggest the solution that worked for me will work for everyone (thought it might), but rather to point out what I said above: my reaction to stress was more than just a moral failing. It was something that I could not simply will away by "working harder." If the gospel teaches us nothing else, it teaches that we cannot overcome this moral condition without the blessings of the atonement. Each of us is dependent upon the Savior's grace to overcome the finite nature of our existence, and to overcome sin. Similarly, we may also require the help of trained professionals to help us in our path, as well.

Controlling Behavior: Rules & Boundaries

This is the third in an occasional series on control. Click the links for parts one and two.


Part of our charge as parents is to train up a child in the way he should go. We want to rear our children in righteousness. We hold Family Home Evening, family prayer, family scripture study and family counsel in the hopes that our children will feel the love that surrounds them and grow up sharing our gospel-centered values and our love of the Lord.

The stakes are high for us, and often we are tempted to try to control our children so much that their outward behavior complies with our image of what it should be. In our hearts we know we shouldn’t do that; we know that it is more like the Adversary’s plan to force us all back home. We know our children need to learn to choose the right, but sometimes we just want them to sit quietly in church!

As a parent, I’m better off focusing on what I can control. I can establish rules and I can establish boundaries, and I can enforce consequences in the event that rules are broken or boundaries are crossed. Rules and boundaries are not the same thing to me, though they may look similar.

A rule is there to control behavior: a speed limit is a rule; “no hitting” is a rule; “do your homework before watching TV” is a rule. These all are there to control behavior, and the consequences will either punish violations or reward compliance. All ordered societies, including families, have rules. And every member of the society gets to choose whether to obey the rules or not. When someone disobeys a rule, he suffers a consequence; when he obeys, he gains a reward.

Consequences for violating or adhering to rules are best when they are proximate, consistent and clearly related to the rule. I had friends when I was growing up who had to help with the dishes in their home after dinner. A favorite trick was to let Sister wash while Brother (my friend) played outside, and then Brother would come in and put the dishes away after they had air-dried. Sister and, more importantly, Mom found this creative solution at odds with the idea that Brother and Sister were to work together. So if Mom saw the dishes air drying in the rack, she’d call Brother to the kitchen and then pour a pan of water over the air-dried dishes so he could have the full experience of drying and putting them away. The consequence was clearly related to the rule; it was linked in time to the offense, and it could be implemented with minimal drama on the part of Mom.

An unhealthy alternative to Mom’s dousing of the dishes might include Mom’s calling Brother to the back porch and loudly enumerating all the times that day or week he had skipped out of his chores with a promise to administer a “real” punishment when Dad got home later in the evening or grounding him for days at a time. Brother would quickly learn to let the yelling go over his head before he returned to play. And he could count on Mom’s forgetting that he was grounded within a day, or that the promised more serious punishment from Dad would never come.

Mom’s plan of action to douse the dishes, however, gives her something positive to do instead of losing her cool. And the consequences so administered are more meaningful. He gets to choose what he does, but he also chooses the consequences.

Boundaries are different: they are there to protect the person who sets them. And they are all about what the boundary setter will do in the event the boundary is crossed. A boundary is particularly important for a person who is a victim of abuse or a person who has an addict in the family. The boundary is not an expression of what the other person must do. It is instead a positive statement of what the boundary setter needs, and what the boundary setter will do if the need is not met.

For instance, a parent of a teenager may say, “I need to go to bed early tonight so I can be ready for a meeting tomorrow. For that reason, I need you home by 10 pm. At 10 pm I am locking the door, and if you are not home, you’ll need to spend the night somewhere else.” Or: “If you don’t have the car home by 10, then you may not use it this weekend.” A spouse who is tired of verbal abuse can say, “I need to have people speak to me with respect. If you cannot meet that need, then I will exit the conversation. I will go to another room until we can talk more calmly. If I need to, I will lock the door.”

Boundaries are much more difficult to administer in my view, because when someone crosses the boundary, the stakes are often much higher than when a child breaks a family rule about washing dishes or cleaning a room. And our actions that we have power to take are really limited. But understanding what we really do control is also liberating. I will never be able to control my teenager’s mood. I cannot force him to agree with me, nor can I ensure that he is happy with what I want him to do. If I release myself from that expectation, then I am free. It will, ironically, be easier for me to remain calm and inviting without the expectation that he react in a certain way, and so I am more likely to get the reaction I want (but wisely no longer expect).

I can make rules and I can set boundaries. I can be consistent in my behavior. I can meet out consequences in an even-handed and fair way. I can say what I mean, mean what I say, and not say it meanly. The twin concepts of rules and boundaries can provide me a hedge against assuming a false sense of control that will only frustrate me.

Expectations of Control

This is number two in a series of I don't know how many installments, and I don't know how long it will take for me to tire myself out on this subject. I promise I won't only cover this topic over the next while, but it so happens this one follows the introductory post, here.

In 12-step programs, one of the hallmarks is identifying through a personal inventory the sources of resentment in a person's life and working through them. Often, the resentments lead a person to the behaviors that bring him to the 12-step program – substance abuse, eating disorders, co-dependence and so on. It stands to reason, then, that helping to sort through the underlying resentments helps a person to have the strength to deal with the addictive behavior in his life.

(Most 12-step programs will not try to cure a person of his addictions; indeed Step One makes clear that the addicted person cannot resolve the addiction on his own, and most people acknowledge that addiction is a life-long condition that requires management, like diabetes, rather than a cure.)

In my case – and this is true for many people who work through the steps (and I believe that most Latter-day Saints would benefit from working the steps, even though most of us are not addicts) – I discovered that nearly all of my resentments came from unmet expectations.

More specifically for me, I had an expectation about the outcome of events, I tried to control those outcomes, and I failed; resentment (and often more powerful emotions) followed.

One of the hallmarks of the “Anon” programs designed for family members of addicted loved ones (for instance, Al-Anon) is the giving up of expectations. It’s not unusual for a frustrated parent to say, “I expect to be treated with respect,” or “I expect my son to clean his room.” That construction raises a red flag because unmet expectations lead to resentment, and our lack of control over other people leads to unmet expectations. By establishing un-meetable expectations, we set ourselves up for recurring resentments.

A popular saying I’ve heard in 12-step recovery is this: You have a right to be treated with respect, but cannot expect it to happen. What that really means is that one has the right to choose how to react when he or she is not treated with respect, for instance.

Parents sometimes couch their family hopes and dreams in terms of expectations: We expect our children to study hard, to go to church, to serve missions, and so on. Experienced parents learn over time that they do not own their children’s future or their dreams. Just because I think my daughter should be a doctor does not mean she thinks she should be a doctor. And in the end, she will be the one choosing.

When I am successful at curbing my expectations, I am calmer about outcomes that are different from what I may have hoped for. I am more accepting and tolerant of other points of view. And I am happier.