The Book of Secrets - Deepak Chopra [36]
Control is forcing events and people into your way of doing things. Control is the great mask of insecurity. People who use this behavior are deathly afraid of letting others be who they are, so the controller is constantly making demands that keep others off balance. The underlying idea is “If they keep paying attention to me, they won’t run away.” When you find yourself making excuses for yourself and blaming others, or when you feel inside that no one is showing you enough gratitude or appreciation, the fault is not with them—you are exhibiting a need to control. The external signs of this behavior come from those you are trying to control: They are tense and resistant; they complain of not being listened to; they call you a perfectionist or a demanding boss. Control begins to end when you admit that your way isn’t automatically the right way. You can tune in to your need for control by catching yourself complaining, blaming, or insisting that no one is right but you, and coming up with one excuse after another to prove that you are without blame yourself. Once you stop controlling them, the people around you begin to breathe easy. They relax and laugh. They feel free to be who they are without looking to you for approval.
Denial is looking past the problem instead of facing it. Psychologists consider denial the most childish of the three behaviors because it is so intimately linked to vulnerability. The person in denial feels helpless to solve problems, the way a young child feels. Fear is linked to denial, and so is a childlike need for love in the face of insecurity. The underlying idea is “I don’t have to notice what I can’t change in the first place.” You can catch yourself going into denial when you experience lack of focus, forgetfulness, procrastination, refusing to confront those who hurt you, wishful thinking, false hope, and confusion. The main external sign is that others don’t depend on you or turn to you when a solution is needed. By pulling your attention out of focus, denial defends with blindness. How can you be accused of failing at something you don’t even see? You get past denial by facing up to painful truths. Honestly expressing how you feel is the first step. For someone in deep denial, any feeling that makes you think you are unsafe is generally one you have to face. Denial begins to end when you feel focused, alert, and ready to participate despite your fears.
Each of these behaviors tries to prove an impossibility. Manipulation tries to prove that anyone can be made to do what you want. Control tries to prove that no one can reject you unless you say so. Denial tries to prove that bad things will go away if you don’t look at them. The truth is that other people can refuse to do what you want, can walk out on you for no good reason, and can cause trouble whether you face it or not. There is no predicting how long any of us will stubbornly try to prove the opposite, but only when we admit the truth does the behavior completely end.
The next thing to know about samskaras is that they are not silent. These deep impressions in the mind have a voice; we hear their repeated messages as words in our heads. Is it possible to figure out which voices are true and which are false? This is an important question because it isn’t possible to think without hearing some words in your head.
Early in the nineteenth century, an obscure pastor in Denmark known as Magister Adler was fired from his church. He was convicted of disobeying church authorities by claiming that he had received direct revelation from God. While preaching from the pulpit, he began claiming that when he spoke in a high, squeaky voice he was speaking from revelation, whereas when he spoke with his own normal, low voice he was speaking only as himself.
This bizarre behavior led his congregation to think their pastor must be crazy, so they had no alternative but to fire him. As it happened, news of the case reached the great Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who asked the really crucial question: Is it ever possible to prove