In the modern relationships what can be classed as love is simply control. The desire to control another individual and their behavior then becomes more significant than it is to appreciate and honor the other person.
Love vs Control
The question is: what would make someone wish to control another? If they truly loved them would not they need them to be free and to do what was best for them?
The love I am talking about here is exactly what one conveys to family and friends for example. Although it can be determined by a sexual attraction to another individual, it doesn’t need to be. I’d describe it as a respect for another’s boundaries, needs and desires.
This involves honouring another person up to one would honor themselves and to recognise that they’re separate.
Control on the other hand is all about using another individual to match ones needs. Having other folks fulfil ones needs isn’t dysfunctional per se; it is part of life. What is dysfunctional is having another individual fulfil ones desires in a manner that compromises the other person and goes against their wishes.
It follows that the other person isn’t in agreement with what’s happening and they’re being taken advantage of. The other individual is then being mistreated.
Where Does This Come From?
As we look at these situations, we can see it is a dysfunctional way of being. However, this behavior does not just happen, it needed to be learnt from somewhere and somebody.
This takes our focus back to the youth environment. What occurs during this period goes a long way to defining how one will perceive love and their level of emotional health.
Needs
When we are growing up most of us have needs that will need to be cared for. Included in these demands include: food, shelter, clothes and nurturing. Some individuals will have their physical needs taken care of and wont have there psychological needs met. While others are going to have their emotional needs met, but will not have their physical needs met. And not many people will have these two aspects taken care of.
These two are important to ones development and survival. These psychological needs are important in forming a functional human being.
What Are These Needs?
What constitutes these demands is: endorsement, mirroring, validation and attention. Through having these need fulfilled the child then learns it is important and has value. Additionally, it enables the child to develop a relationship with their needs and feelings; that occurs because their caregivers have mirrored these back to them.
Without this mirroring the kid would not know it exists, in addition, it wouldn’t have the ability to reevaluate its own feelings and needs. They’d be foreign to the child and the child would be completely out of touch with their inner life.
And as this occurs the child has an understanding of its needs, through the practice of its health professionals mirroring and supporting the child. The child can then grow into an adult that can recognise and fulfil these demands; either themselves or by asking another.
The child will also have the capacity to psychological regulate and to sooth itself as an adult. This is possible through having the caregivers doing so to the child, the child can then internalise these skill’s.
When This Doesn’t Happen
The thing is that this process doesn’t always occur and the child is then not mirrored or affirmed or it may receive these inconsistently. What then happens is that the child is invalidated and isn’t given the mirroring it ought to form a feeling of self.
A feeling of self can only be formed when the child is brought up with the ideal mirroring and validation. This permits the child to understand it’s self as a individual and as being worthy of existence.
If the child is subjected to health professionals that may not provide these things, its needs will be disregarded and it is going to wind up being disconnected from its own feelings and needs.
The child will then grow up to be an adult who has difficulty psychological soothing and regulating itself. This is probably because the caregivers had no means of doing such things themselves and therefore couldn’t offer this to the kid.
Growing Up
As the child grows up it will have trouble understanding what its needs are as well as what it’s feeling. It would be natural for them to feel like a stranger to themselves.
So in addition to creating anger and frustration at feeling this disconnection, an individual will also feel incredibly needy and dependent upon others. This is because one is coming from a place of emptiness.
One may look like and adult on the outside, but they are a kid; using their emotions being suspended at a certain age due to injury.
How Does This Lead To Control?
When one hasn’t had their needs taken care of they will be reliant on another to do this for them. And when a person has no way of psychological regulating themselves of self indulgent, they’ll also be dependent on others.
This will play out will depend on how aware the man or woman is. If their awareness is powerful they’ll have the ability to find help with becoming more self reliant and to look after their needs in more practical ways. This might be via a friend or therapist for example.
If they have little to understand awareness they’ll have no option but to utilize and take advantage of another to their particular needs. And these demands will be so powerful, it will not be easy for them to control them.
Unconscious Behaviour
There behavior will then be respectful and reactive. The ability to be aware and to be aware won’t be possible. What is going to be in their mind is caring for these, and no matter what effect it’ll have on another.
A child can only consider itself, it’s impossible for this kid to do much without the support of a caregiver. And if one regresses back to the needy child the last thing you will be considering is if another person has been compromised.
So it might be said that the act of controlling another isn’t conscious. And that it may only occur while one is unconscious and oblivious.
Ending Control
I feel the best way to not control another or to avoid being controlled by another would be to care for our own needs and to emotionally regulate and self indulgent ourselves.
As one gets back in touch with their needs, they’ll have the ability to form relationships which are more functional. Relationships will be formed where ones needs are being met from choice rather than obligation or fear. And where you can help fulfil another’s needs from choice rather than force.
One will become aware of what needs can be fulfilled by another and what needs can only be fulfilled on your own.
Body and Heart
These needs have the body and are linked to ones survival. And so as to love and to honor another person ones consciousness has to incorporate the heart.
And if one has not taken good care of these basic needs there will always be the pull of the human body and this will make it more or less impossible to always state the heart. However, as both of these intelligences start to merge, ones relationships with oneself and others will also change and reflect this internal harmony.
To the body all that matters are the demands that it’s. When it comes to the heart; it is a very different experience.
