What if we Connected rather than Controlled?
I see control absolutely everywhere. It is purposely weaved into our society. Into our souls.
It is weaved in like a barbed needle, it is weaved in due to fear.
A teacher friend describing the traffic light rewards system for behaviour in their class, the ableist loopholes to gain access to support by the various government systems, behaviourist therapists believing that "controlling appropriate emotions" is in anyway therapeutic and not harmful!? Compliance based practices in schools, workplaces, and even 'therapeutic' spaces. When you start to notice it, you see it everywhere. Control of society, control of individuals, massive control over children in the education system, control on what support we can get or how we can get it. As neurodivergent folk who perhaps don’t fit the ‘ideal’, that control and constriction is even more profound.
It is all driven by fear.
Often societal control is based on neuronormative ideals of what humans 'should' be like. How we 'should' behave, communicate, feel. How we ‘should’ work, learn, be.
Control is also a huge reason why we have such a pathologised view of differences.
The word "disorder" comes from the Latin ordinare. In the 15th century it was separated to ‘order’ and ‘disordain’, which means to throw into confusion or chaos.
The root of the word ‘disorder’, is fear-based. Fear of the disorderly = fear of chaos. Chaos = potential death. Further fear around the word ‘disorder’ was created around the fixated, rather bewildering elitist concept of ‘normal’ (Robert Chapman - Empire of Normality)
The fear and therefore control that was perpetuated was that there would be utter chaos if you are anything outside of that narrow frankly unachievable window of ‘normality’. Of course for our hierarchal society, chaos from the ‘disorderly’ could put into question the elite’s power, their control, their money, and ultimately their lives.
The idea of humans being "normal" or "disordered" are equally and completely flawed.
When I think of the idea of control in today’s society, it is still underpinned by that archaic idea of ‘normal’ and I immediately think of the word shame. I see it and hear it all the time from clients. How they were shamed, how their children were shamed, how their parents were shamed..all due to the ingrained fear and the need for ‘normal’, and with that need and that fear comes the behaviour and actions of control.
When I worked in HR years ago, I worked with an operations director who was just frankly a nasty bully (yes underneath it, is more complex, but he was a bully!) I had to carry out a lot of interviews with him. He would always start interviews, often with young people getting their first job with an aggressive tone "tell me about all the mistakes on your cv". He would say it in such a fearsome manner, it scared me, even though I wasn't on the receiving end. He made out that this technique was a good way to just see who was honest. It made some candidates freeze in silence, completely shutdown for the rest of the interview, highly embarrassing them, completely confused them, and even brought some to tears. I can’t imagine any left the interview really wanting to join the company.
I regrettably let his behaviour continue for longer than I feel comfortable thinking about, but one day at a works party and after too many alcoholic drinks I plucked up the courage and confronted him about it. I questioned his need to do it, especially to those who may never have had an interview before, who were vulnerable and already nervous. He said with a laugh "they need to know whose boss from the start".
His approach was not to see who was honest, or if it was, it was not the main objective. His approach was controlling, it was ultimately fear based. Maybe he was vulnerable, or had certainly felt vulnerable in his life, so much so he never wanted to feel it again. He needed to feel and show that he was powerful and to do that, he had to control, shame, and diminish others. He had a hierarchal view of the world, and he wanted to stay on top, in control. He used to fear as a way of controlling those who he felt were beneath him. He shamed them.
And that for me, is what control is all about, fear and shame.
It’s what we see with those class behavioural reward charts. It is controlling, it is shaming, certainly to the many children who will never fit into the tiny ‘normal’ box and not be rewarded. It is what we see with access support from the systems, those ableist forms, the judgemental views, the shaming that goes right through the heart of it all. The fear of the teacher, that if they don’t control, if the children are not fearful (they call it respect.. I call it fear) there will be chaos. If we don’t pathologise, segregate and diminish those who do not fit that ‘normality box’, there will be less control, there will be chaos?
But what if that operations director in the interview had used connection instead of control? What if he got into his own vulnerability, even shown some of it in the interview room, shown he was human, endeavoured to connect with the candidate..human to human, I bet he would have got more honesty from them thanusing fear and control.
What if the teacher were giving the support and capacity to meet behaviours with connection rather than forcing normative control or shaming. Would they understand that child better perhaps and understand that their behaviour is just communicating a distress? Would meeting them with connection and curiosity offer different perhaps more effective ways of meeting that childs wellbeing and educational needs?
And what about our control of ourselves? We are taught to control our emotions. We are taught to fear our emotions. Anxiety, anger, even joy. So many of us are taught to suppress, shutdown, push aside emotions which are completely natural ways of being. All this causes is fear and disconnect. What if we met our emotions with curiosity and connection? What if we took the time to look at them, validate them, hear them, and understand them? What if we connected with others and shared, and vice versa? Would we be able to meet our own needs a little better?
I wonder, a genuine wonder, what changing the narrative of control to connection would mean for us as inidividals, our culture and our society.
I talk a lot about connection in terms of recovery from overwhelm and burnout for the nervous system with my clients. When our nervous system feels unsafe/triggered it alerts our brain to go into survival mode or a trauma response (fight/flight/fawn). To get out of that survival space our nervous system often needs connection in order to feel safe again and to get out of survival mode (I am simplifying or my monotropic mind would take you down a very detailed nervous system tunnel!). There is such an abundance of evidence now that shows us that connection with ourselves, brings regulation. That authentic, validating connection with others brings us into a safer, calmer, regulated and more focused state.
Connection does not necessarily have to be person to person connection, having a safe validating person and co-regulation can be great, but not necessarily those of us who have been harmed by other people. We can connect to ourselves, we can be curious about how we feel, behave, think. We can connect with our pets, with nature, anything that gives us a state of calm and safety.
When we are safe, we are engaged, our mindbody is in a state to focus, to learn, to communicate, to connect further. When we are unsafe, when we are threatened or perceive there to be threat, such as when control and fear are used, our mindbody is inhibited, only focused on survival.
Because control is fear based, and fear drives fear. Not only is the person who is controlling in a threatened survival state, they are making the other person go into a threatened or survival state. When that operations director asked his ridiculous interview question, underlying it was his fear, and by using his power and control, he produced fear in others. Altogether, pretty unhelpful, and pretty harmful.
Control disconnects. I feel a lack of connection with anyone that tries to control me. My nervous system and survival state flares up, making me disconnected from my safe state, my mind can disconnect from my body.When we know we need connection to feel safe, whatever form that connection is, control is not the answer.
So I am intrigued. If we meet control and fear with connection and curiosity instead.. what is that like? It certainly feels like a better world for me.
Sigur Ros - Saeglopur - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiFgfPiJHyA
