The Need to Control Everything: First Steps Out of the Reactive State

The need to control everything is not strength but a sign that a person is stuck in a tense, reactive state. They cannot stop their "reactive thinking," they are sucked into a whirlpool of thoughts, and they try at any cost to avoid the scenarios in their head, "padding every corner." But reality is open and free—it cannot be controlled. The first step is to look inside yourself and stop trying to keep life under surveillance.

Control Is Always Fear and Reaction

Control points to the past or the future: "it should be this way, it should be that way." It is a chain of complaints, dissatisfaction and criticism. A person in a reactive state is easy to recognize: they constantly voice reproaches but offer no sensible solution and don't see the real situation. The more you live in spite of their control, forecasts and supervision, the more it "blows them up."

How It Sounds in Real Life

Patients often notice it themselves: "I'm becoming too dependent on my partner, I call too often, I check on them." "Why aren't you texting? Why don't you pick up? Where are you? I'm worried." Behind these words is a cry for help: the reactive system is strained and running at full capacity. The same happens between parents and grown children: parents don't realize they are projecting their own anxiety and mistake it for care for a child "who may already be 30, 40, 50 years old."

Control or Interaction

Trying to control reality is like trying to control the music in a dance or a wave in the ocean: it is impossible and means "obvious death." You must not react, but interact. Yet without love there is no trust, and without trust there is no interaction. So the first step is to leave the reactive state and catch what we call flow, "gourmanstvo": you are simply in the moment, free of "what will they think of me."

Letting Go Means Valuing Another's Space

When you come into harmony with yourself, the urge to control fades. You begin to value another person's personal space, and complaints no longer even come to mind. A person, like a horse, "can be driven by force, but you can't make them drink at the watering hole." Between overprotection and total indifference there is a middle: children must be let go in time, or a raised-voice argument ends in silence for years.

Discipline Comes on Its Own

Discipline is a consequence, not a cause. "If you have mental health problems, what discipline—it's mockery." First you must reach the state of flow, and order will build itself. The compass becomes the level of pleasure of each day—not a rigid plan, but a direction.

Practice: First Steps Out of Control

1. Notice the reaction. Catch your marker phrases: "why aren't you answering," "where are you," "it should be this way." This signals your reactive system is strained.
2. Accept that control is impossible. Reality is open; you don't steer the "wave"—you interact with it.
3. Return to the moment. Catch the state of flow: you are here, in fact, free of "what will they think of me."
4. Value another's space. Before calling to "check in," ask yourself: is this care for a loved one—or my own anxiety?
5. Make pleasure of the day your compass. Act from what brings lightness today, and discipline will follow on its own.