Given my reflection this morning and the fact that I began to elude to his in previous posts, maybe it’s time to start to talk about the difference between control and influence.
We live in a culture that begins shaping how we see ourselves and the world from the moment we enter it, and not always in helpful or healthy ways. One of the messages we begin receiving early on in life is that we are responsible for the reactions and actions of others. Start to listen around you and you will hear “he MADE me do it”, “if you wouldn’t have MADE me so angry”, “it’s HER FAULT that I did that”, etc. Which leads me to question, who is responsible for what?
I’m going to take you through a scenario… I want you to imagine that you walk outside (remember, we’re just imagining, please don’t try this ) and you punch some random person in the face and that person punches you back. It’s your fault you got punched right? You essentially made the person hit you because of your actions.
Okay, now imagine that you now walk up to 5 other people and punch them in the face as well. Will they all respond the same way as the first person? – They may, but they may also call the police, or run away, or scream for help, or if you’re me, perhaps start laughing simply because you can’t imagine why a random person just hit you. (If you know me, you know this more or less happened on a flight to me and I did in fact laugh because seriously what just happened?!).
Let me get back on track…here’s the thing, if we MADE the first person hit us, then wouldn’t we MAKE everyone respond the same way? But they don’t, why? Each of those people has their own story, their own values, their own past experiences, their own moods. Their reaction is based on their own stuff. At the end of the day, that person that punched you had a million and one other options and they chose to respond the way they did. Would they have punched you if you wouldn’t have punched them? No, probably not, so in that we influence others. However, we do not control them, they make their own choice.
We cannot make anyone do anything. We do influence others and that is our part to own. Thinking back to my reflection this morning, I could/should own that how I responded when I walked into the house was lousy and felt horrible to my husband – that doesn’t mean I would have to own his reaction. In the end, that was his choice, not mine.
We are all responsible for how we choose to handle situations and react, because in the end it is a choice. If you find that you are trying to control someone else’s reaction or blaming yourself for what they do, step back and consider whether you really have that power to MAKE them respond in that way. Unfortunately and fortunately, we don’t have that control…if we did, I’m sure we wouldn’t be in that situation in the first place, because we would MAKE them respond with kindness and compassion.
“Well you…”, “But you…”, “Because you…” is never justification for actions, simply a deflection from owning our choices. “When you did …, I felt …” is a perfect place to start, remembering that what you did with that feeling was yours, not theirs (or vice versa). Also, notice it is “I felt” not “you made me feel” because without my story being what it is, I may not have even had the feeling in response to that action. (On the plane I wasn’t angry like someone else may have been, I was confused.)
Influence and control are not the same thing. We can’t own what isn’t our choice to make.