Moving from Control and Discipline to Acceptance and Support

Source: Source: ID 91129847 Kevin Carden/Dreamstime

Some parents and managers revel in the power they have over their children or employees. They might view their job as important to keep someone in line, or to discipline them so they learn right from wrong, or to control their actions so they do what they are supposed to do.

The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t work. Rather than instill confidence, build capabilities, and encourage someone to participate and learn, it shuts a person down – leaving them often feeling badly about themselves and sometimes unable to cope.

The desire to exert this sort of discipline or pressure on someone is not because the person who “needs” the discipline is bad, but because the person meting out the discipline is insecure and needs to show they are “the boss." It’s a lose-lose situation all around.

Unfortunately, many people who need to have this level of control over another human being aren’t always open to self-reflection or feedback on their behavior. They will dig their heels in and say they are right no matter what the evidence might be to the contrary.

If you grew up with a parent like this, or work in an environment with a boss like this, you might wonder if the problem is you. The constant barrage of orders can leave you feeling like you don’t have a mind of your own and can’t take steps to emerge as your own person with your capabilities and even your foibles.

What do you do when you need to move from living with continual emotional control and discipline to creating the acceptance and support you may have to give to yourself? You can make this shift, but it takes effort and a belief there is a better place (emotionally) you could be.

1. Recognize the emotional abuse is not about you. The person who cannot say a kind word, doesn’t know how to identify your strengths and build on them, and will not give you the benefit of the doubt and, would prefer to emotionally beat on you, has a problem within themselves. It seems like you, it feels like it is you, but you could be anyone on the other end of their wrath. When someone is so insecure as to take a position of power and wield it over someone, they are acting from a place of weakness and pain. Gaining control over you might temporarily make them feel in charge, so your first step is to understand why this is happening. Most people who have been emotionally abused start to believe it is them. It is not. The person who can maintain their control and stay open to learn is always the most powerful.
2. Identify your strengths on your own. There have been times you have done things very right. You have succeeded, pulled through, overcome, learned, taught and supported someone else. Everyone has snippets of this somewhere in their lives. Identify these, however small they might be, in your life and write them down. When someone is pointing out your weaknesses and your need to change, remind yourself you are perfectly okay just where you are. Life is a learning journey and even if you have areas to work on — as we all do — you have areas of strength, too.
3. Learn to be intellectually curious about the person or people who try to direct and control you. What makes them so harsh? What are they really trying to accomplish? What drives their forceful behavior? Sometimes if you can step back and be clinical – which is very difficult to do – you can look at them as an experiment and their behavior as giving you clues to what’s really going on. This can allow you to separate yourself from the emotional response and view them as separate from you.
4. Seek out other people to support you. When you are constantly told you are not good enough and you need to do better, or change, or stop doing what you are doing, it can be isolating and depressing. Find friends, family members close or extended, co-workers present or past, or even a good therapist to help you to remember that you are a work in progress, just like everyone else, but you are doing many things right. When the burden of being the person someone else needs to emotionally direct in order to feel important becomes too much, you can find solace and support in someone who sees what’s going on and helps you to step back and be more objective.

These ideas do not apply to physical abuse. If you are on the receiving end of controlling and abusive behavior that is physical in nature, there is nothing to do except leave and get help to work with the situation. Do not put yourself in danger while you try and navigate the situation. These ideas are for those people who have a parent or boss who enjoys exerting their control, and who find themselves feeling like they are less as a result.

You are not emotionally stuck – you can take steps to try and bring healing over time.