The Illusion of Control: Now You See It. Now You Don't | 3

The Illusion of Control: Part 3 – Give it Up, Babe

In Part 3 of The Illusion of Control, Suzanne explores one of the hardest things for us humans to do: live with uncertainty. Why does waiting feel so uncomfortable? Why do we mistake certainty for safety? And why do we spend so much of our lives trying to predict, prepare for, and outthink the future?

Drawing from psychology, spirituality, and her own life, Suzanne explores what happens when we stop demanding answers before allowing ourselves to have peace. Because maybe the goal isn't to know what's coming next. Maybe it's learning to trust ourselves enough to meet it when it arrives.

Thank you for listening! Learn more at suzannsole.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Now you see it, now you don't. The illusion of control is just that an illusion, and sometimes we see it and sometimes we don't, because sometimes we can create that illusion and sometimes we can't. You're listening to the Spiritual Shit Chow Podcast with Suzanne Soul, episode 90. Hello, you stunny fuckers, and welcome to the Spiritual Shit Show Podcast, where we get into the amazingness the healing and spiritual journey can be. I'm your host, Suzanne Sowell, comedian, lifelong spiritual student, and I'm sharing some of the wildastic stuff I've learned along my journey that has helped me and that I hope helps you too. We're talking about the illusion of control. Like, we think we have control, or we think we're trying to get control. It's an illusion. Now you see it, now you don't. One minute we feel like we've got our life completely under control. Then something happens and it all falls apart. And now for part three. I believe in meeting people where they are. That has brought me a lot of peace. And that starts. And that starts by going in. Mm-hmm. Damn, it always comes back to that. Self-help. I know. It always comes back to uh being with yourself. You say working on yourself or becoming a better person. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what I'm saying. Well, kind of, but not really. Um, because for me, that language is too like can be confused with perfectionism too easily. It's learning to make contact with yourself, learning to uh understand who you are, uh learning what you need, learning what's true for you, all of that stuff. Learning to stop outsourcing your worth, your well-being, and even your safety. I'm not talking about physical safety, I'm talking about emotional safety and psychological safety. But we don't like abuse. We never like abuse. But um, and again, it doesn't mean like, oh, that person can abuse me and I just have to go inward. No, no, no, no. There's a line for everything. But if that person is like someone who's an avoidant and they don't go deep, or they don't really have the capacity to be able to really connect with someone in a deep way, that's that's what's happening for them. And and when you make that a measurement about you, you're, you know, it's painful. And I know that so well. More than you can know. I really like this quote by Pema Chodron. And it's not really so much about control, but it's indirectly about control. Because it's kind of like what control can be surrounding. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem. But the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen. Room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. And it's almost like letting go of control is to stop objectifying others, and to stop objectifying yourself, meaning making these things into like inanimate objects. Because the life is always flowing, it's always moving, and we just want to concretize it and we want to be like, let me put the nails in, let me okay, have the structure, okay, here's life. And I've said that before, you know, we want to put a frame around it, put it on the wall, that's life. It's not moving. I like it like that. But you really don't. You just think you do. But the effort to keep it there, it's like you don't realize you actually have to stand there, like holding the picture on the wall the whole time if you're gonna live like that. And life, like, it's like let life surprise you. Right? And so think about like what control are you trying to put on the people around you? What kind of control are you trying to put on yourself that is not like in the self-accountability lane? Self-accountability is I feel like this and I'm gonna advocate for myself with this person, or I'm going to journal about it, I'm going to therapy. Um, I I how I react to stuff is not anyone else's fault. You made me do this, not a real thing. You made me feel like this, not a real thing. People can trigger stuff, and if someone hurts your feelings, that's something that's a relational situation, but no one makes you do or say anything or feel anything. They can trigger, they can trigger something that's in within you that causes you to have that reaction, but self-control is about that world. Self-control is about not blaming other people for your choices and behavior and everything else. And not even yourself, FYI. You're doing your best. And again, the toxic version of self-control is I hate myself and I wish I was different, I want to be skinnier, I want to be taller, or I want to be have a bigger butt, or I wish I was smarter, or um, you know, all these things. Like that's that's not self-control. That's self torment. That's self-abuse. And it's an illusion. Because you are who you are. And uh even in your illusion of control, it's not sustainable, honey. And you know it's not. That shit runs out. Though, like, you know, it's like the person holding a really, really heavy weight, eventually, they gotta put it down. And that's what illusion of control is. Spiritual teacher Eckhart Toll says, Accept, then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Going back to my toxic work environment story, I got to the point where I was like, what if I just noticed what was happening in me when I was being triggered by all of these other people? And I think work is a really uh very powerful place to do this work because it's like your well-being. So it is kind of reminiscent of like if there's a childhood wound there, and uh, you know, because you need the job to survive, uh, just like you needed your caregivers to survive. And so once I started to say, what am I feeling in this moment? I started to notice stuff that was like wanting to come up for me to be with it, to be present with it, the feelings that want to come up and be processed and let go of, the wounded inner child parts that want to be witnessed, to want to be seen and validated for their feelings, to be understood, to be cared for. And uh it's a master class in anything, and it ain't easy. And sometimes it takes a really long time, even years, to get to the point where you're like, well, I've banged my head against this brick wall for like three years, and I haven't made any headway. And sometimes it gets to that. I have had many times where I've had to like just burn myself out on a shitty coping strategy before I finally gave it up. And then, and with every single one, the end result was I gotta turn inward. And not in a way of being like, what did you do, or what's your problem, or uh you made this mistake, or anything like that. It's more like this is something in me that needs my care. And what a beautiful honor and gift it is to be able to hold space for this injured, wounded part of this inner child who's terrified and needs you.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

It's a process.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

It's a process to uh get to the point where you're burnt out on a shitty coping strategy all the way, burnt out, so that it's like there's nothing else to do but turn inward. And learning how to be with yourself when you turn inward. Highly recommend a therapist. Highly recommend. There's a lot of really cool uh YouTube videos on therapy too, get you started, but nothing I think takes the place of working with a good therapist. And you can try therapists on, you know, you don't have to be like, well, I don't really vibe with this person, or I feel like we're we're not we're missing the mark on each other, et cetera, et cetera. You know, if you've gone to a few sessions and you're like, it's not, you know, I don't think we're, you know, in alignment, that's okay. You can look for someone else. They have that all the time. You know, just be respectful about it. Alan Moss has a quote that says, Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Like totally leaving it alone. And like I was talking about with the toxic work environment, Victor Frankl said, when we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. Another thing that we can let go regarding the illusion of control is our timeline. Not saying don't have goals, I'm not saying don't have, you know, I'm gonna want to be, I wanna be done with this in a year, I want to do this. Those are great. But you have to allow life to live, to breathe within that. And sometimes if it takes longer, that's just what's happening. And to allow that and don't come down on yourself or beat yourself up for not moving fast enough, guilty as charged. So that is definitely something I continue to work with. And I will tell you from my own personal experience and observation, it has not once made my life more enjoyable. Here I am living my life and doing what I'm doing, and with the goals that I have and where I'm at right now is where I'm at. And as I just, and the best thing I can do is just keep showing up for myself, for the love of myself, for the love of my dream. And that's all I can do. I have no control over what happens after that. And I have to trust that showing up with the love in my heart is the best thing I could do for myself, and I don't know where that will lead.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

And to just be okay with that. Or suffer. Let's choice B.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

So, what are things that we can do to try to learn to let go of the illusion of control or trying to control? Well, uh, we can start reframing the way we see what control is going to do for us, what we believe control is going to do for us. Recognizing that safety and well-being cannot be consistently achieved in outer circumstances. Hmm. Yeah. Giving up trying to get people to be safe spaces for you. They either are or they aren't. It doesn't mean they're perfect and they, you know, even the safest person is gonna fuck up. But they're gonna come back and continue to try to uh keep the connection strong. This person is just gonna keep saying, I hear you, I hear you, and not do anything. We gotta let that go. And either just accept them as they are in our lives in whatever way that works for us, you know, or if it's a partnership, maybe we need, you know, to step away and say, uh, you know, if I'm looking for this person to be this and I'm not accepting that they're not giving it to me, where am I not giving it to myself? Sorry, but that's what's happening. Get a tissue. You can start to recognize if you are trying to have the illusion of control and how to let go of that, to live a more free and peaceful life. Can you have moments where someone's there for you and you feel safe and warm and your you have your well-being is intact and your being is well? 100%. But is it going to be always the case? No, that person has a life too. They may be busy on Tuesday when you really need a hug. And uh, you know, it's a it's wonderful to reach out to people. And uh we have to know that if we really recognize with love, with love and appreciation for others' lives, that we cannot get that consistently without, you know, 100% of the time get that consistently. We'll appreciate when it's not available. We'll let it be okay. And we'll learn to then go to ourselves. It's such a beautiful thing to sit and meditate, to listen to beautiful music, to be there for ourselves in a loving way. OMG, I can't even tell you how much illusion of control you don't need anymore when you can start to really be a place of love and kindness and compassion for yourself, even when you're feeling bad. You can get there. It's a it's a process. And you gotta let go of those timelines. And lastly, let go of trying to be perfect. Ain't never gonna happen. Okay? You ain't never gonna be perfect. Never, never, never, never. Isn't that great? Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that incredible news? You're never going to be perfect, and neither is anyone else. You might have a moment where like, oh my god, that was perfect. You're perfect, you look perfect. We have those perfect moments, but in general, not perfect. Not ever gonna be a hundred percent perfect at all times. We're never gonna be a hundred percent perfect throughout our lives, every day for the rest of our lives. It's not possible. It's not reality. And no one else is being that either. So isn't that amazing? I mean, think about that. Everyone else around you is completely imperfect. And they fuck up and they make mistakes and they wake up late and they forget their lines and they and they get and they go the wrong direction and they choose the wrong thing and they fall down, they get back up again. We're all doing it, babe. Get in on it, we're all doing it. So now you see it, now you don't. The illusion of control is just that an illusion. And sometimes we see it, and sometimes we don't, because sometimes we can create that illusion and sometimes we can't. Because in reality, we don't have it. And like Byron Cady says, let life have you. It has you already. It's like you're just saying, all right, I'll just enjoy it. I mean, we're all here for a reason to enjoy being here. Like, let's let's trust that. Because it feels delicious, doesn't it? Feels better than control. I think so. Control's exhausting. Don't you think? It's freaking exhausting. It's so tiring to try to control everybody. Controlling other motherfuckers is really exhausting. So let's let it go and try to just love ourselves all the way up. Oh my god, I love you so much. Thank you so much for um listening to my chitty chat, aka monologue about the illusion of control. I love you so motherfucking much. Anyways, this has been the Spiritual Shift Show Podcast. My name is Suzanne Sol. Thank you so ever loving much for listening, and I will see you on the next one. Roll it, you gorgeous thing you.