2 ways to feel more in control of your mind and your life

Do you know what makes it possible to feel more in control? De-mystifying what we don’t understand about ourselves so that we can think clearly and behave in a way that actually serves us, rather than being at the mercy of what our parents or society taught us to think or stuck in patterns of fear, doubt and shame that we may not even know are influencing how we behave and what we think. This process of getting clarity is what resilience coaching is all about. It’s impossible to be resilient if you don’t really understand how you function - and why you do what you do.

There are two big steps you can take to help you feel more in control: acceptance and working with your nervous system.

1. Acceptance

Acceptance often feels like a controversial word. I hear people say "I am not going to accept it because I don’t like it and I don’t want it to be my life." And I get that. But acceptance isn’t about giving in or settling or giving up. Acceptance is just the moment when you see your life clearly and stop fighting what already exists. Because if you want anything to change, you have to meet the circumstances of your life as they are right now. Face up to them. Accept them. If you don’t do this then nothing else will change and you will never really have any control because you’re starting from a place of not being honest about your reality.

Why is acceptance so tricky?

The main reason acceptance feels hard is often because we are telling ourselves a story about what it means if something has happened. We might tell ourselves being rejected means no one will ever love us again. So, we refuse to accept the rejection has happened and keep trying to win someone back. Or we are running with the story that being passed over for promotion means we are a failure who will never progress. So, we refuse to recognise this has happened and instead pretend we are fine while the real feelings leak out in other ways like passive aggression and resentment.

Acceptance creates control

Because you let go of the stories - and the pain and struggle they create.

You can see how this works very easily. Next time something happens that you’re not happy about, instead of resisting it or getting defensive just say to yourself, "OK I accept that this has happened. Now what can I do about it?" It’s a starting point, not an ending. And it’s the opposite of giving up. It will give you control because it stops all the negative stories and just focuses on the facts and next steps.

2. Working with the nervous system

I have to caveat this by saying you don’t need to be an expert on the way your body functions to be able to start working with your nervous system. The ability to regulate your nervous system is vital for resilience. Because there is nothing that will make it impossible to be consistent, tenacious and to bounce back as much as being in fight, flight, freeze (when your sympathetic nervous system/threat response is activated). But doing this is not rocket science - in fact, it's really simple. I help my clients develop a nervous system toolkit they can use to return to a state of calm when they have been pushed into fight/flight/freeze.

Doing this will give you more control because when the body is in survival mode all its resources are pushed to what we need to run or fight (e.g. muscles in the arms and legs) and drawn away from the problem-solving and perspective parts of the brain, as well as many other bodily functions. That’s why we can’t think clearly, feel overwhelmed, anxious and catastrophise when we are in that state - many of the things that make us feel less in control.

There are so many different ways to approach regulating your nervous system

If you don’t get on with breathwork, for example (this is just one of the many tools that will help you with it), there are plenty of other options. Because the nervous system is something we can’t see, I often find it helpful to take a physical approach to it with clients, using tools that give you very tangible results.

You might want to try putting your wrists in a bowl of iced water. Or using any one of the techniques for stimulating the vagus nerve through the ear (for example, pulling down on the ear lobe). I like these because they can introduce a feeling of calm into your body even if you can’t find that in your mind. And once the body is calm, the mind will follow. It’s almost like gently bullying the upset out of your system so that you can reach that place of calm and control again. 

The idea of being in control is something that I think we need to take with a pinch of salt. Because complete control isn’t possible. What is possible is feeling more in control than you do right now. And, actually, even though sometimes it might feel impossible, it’s actually not that difficult. In fact, it could be just a few new habits - or a coaching session - away.