Doug

If only I could throw away the urge to trace my patterns in your heart I could really see you.
--David Brandon

Trying to control and change the people around us creates great problems in our relationships. When people we love are expressing themselves, we're thinking about what we wish they would say, and it blocks us from hearing clearly. A need for safety and for a guarantee that we won't be abandoned urges us to manipulate the people we love. We know we have innocent motives. We say we only want what is best and that we are only trying to protect ourselves or be helpful. But we hide from the effects our actions have on our relationships.

We seem to be more trapped in these self-centered behaviors with the ones we are closest to. We can change ourselves by slowly releasing our security grip on others. We can focus more on understanding what others are saying to us than on changing how they think and feel. Intimacy is clearly seeing each other and knowing the differences as well as the similarities. It requires that both people be allowed to walk on separate paths.

I will release my grip on my loved ones and turn to my Higher Power for security and serenity.


Touchstones

Dan

Ouch. That one got me in the middle.
Thanks Doug.

Ann

Damn! I was trying to avoid this thread, but you know you should never print the word "Control" anywhere a codie can see it!!! It just reached out and grabbed my mind.

For me, too often, I think that if I can "control" then a bad relationship will get better. I try to control other people and make them change, I try to control the situation so that I don't feel vulnerable, and if I feel I have any control, then I feel that I can control the outcome. I am wrong on all counts. Sometimes a bad relationship is just a bad relationship and nothing more. Control, or any thoughts of control, for me, is just another name for denial.

Thanks Doug...I think...don't ever post that word again!!!

Hugs
Ann

Gooch

This is way too much good information to fit on the insides of my eyelids.

Gabe

Thanks Doug, another for you from me.

nutz

Make sense to me.
Been on the giving end and the receiving end.
The receiving end lately.

Still have to depend on my higher power reguardless, to be free.
choose peace instead.
get my priority straight.

The paradox
Helping others wihtout parallel is praticing on my listening skills.


thanks Doug

Peaches04

Doug - this is just what I needed to see today. Isn't it amazing how things can be so crystal clear when we read them, but it is so hard to identify these behaviors in ourselves? Your post read "When people we love are expressing themselves, we're thinking about what we wish they would say, and it blocks us from hearing clearly" - that is ME..I just would not have thought of it in such a well put way. Thanks for sharing this!

abtchonamission

[QUOTE=DougA need for safety and for a guarantee that we won't be abandoned urges us to manipulate the people we love. We know we have innocent motives. We say we only want what is best and that we are only trying to protect ourselves or be helpful. But we hide from the effects our actions have on our relationships.
[/QUOTE]

Thank you. Those sentences above made me see more clearly about some things I've been dealing with the last few days. I see now why he thinks I'm mad at him, when I'm actually upset with a situation that is out of both our control...Can anyone say Time to LET GO? ...

Paulie

Like Ann, I saw the word control and just had to read. LOL

WOW - this just helped me alot with my step kids. I will say thanks for them . Seriously, sometimes I know I am hearing their mother in their voice or seeing her in their manerisms and I am not listening to what they are saying because of it. i want to control them. I don't want them to be like her. How wrong is that? nevermind don't answer, I know how wrong it is....trust me.

Thanks Doug.

rondab

Wow I really needed that. Thanks for sharing

RondaB