It’s somewhat anomalous in the current climate to be championing the importance of control. Nowadays it is much more common to emphasise letting go of control or giving up control. It is decidedly unhip to describe yourself as a control freak. Yet, when you understand the control process, it is easy to appreciate that giving up control is one example of control in action.
Control involves perceiving the state of something, having an expectation of what the state of that something should be, and making sure the current state matches the expected state. It’s this process that keeps our cars where we want them to be on the road, that keeps our relationships as friendly, as distant, or as intimate as we’d like them to be, and that keeps our body temperature at 37.0⁰ Celsius.
Ironically, it’s the same process that helps us “give up” control. Let’s see how people go about giving up control. I don’t mean identifying the particular strategies they might use but, rather, the process that must occur for a “given up control” state of mind to be achieved.
For Jack to give up control he must have an idea of what the state of given up control is, he must have an idea of the state his mind is in now, and he must to be able to do things to move the state his mind is in now towards the “given up” state. If he can’t do any of these things he won’t be able to “give up” control. So, giving up control requires control.
Mindfulness has become increasingly popular in our modern Western world. A swift perusal of any online book store will reveal that mindfulness is applied to a wide range of contexts including mindful dieting, mindful parenting, mindful birthing, mindful work, and mindful discipline.
It’s often stated that mindfulness involves letting go of control. At mrsmindfulness.com for example it is explained that “When practicing mindfulness we’re not aiming to control or suppress or stop our thoughts.” We will see, however, that mindfulness does, indeed, involve control.
Mindfulness involves directing attention to focus on the present moment and paying attention to experiences as they arise without judging them or labelling them in anyway (http://mrsmindfulness.com/what-is-mindfulness/). Whenever you see a word like “directing” it’s a sure sign that a control process is lurking nearby.
If mindfulness requires directing attention, there must be a specification of where attention should be directed to (the present moment), there must be the ability to detect where attention is at any point in time (in the past, in the future, or in the present), and there must be the means available to bring attention back from the past or the future or to keep it in the present if it is already there.
In other words, if Meg wants to adopt a mindful attitude she has to do what she can to keep her attention in the present moment. To do this, Meg will keep the difference between where she wants her attention to be and where her attention is at any point in time as small as possible. When she notices that her mind is not in the present she will do whatever she can to achieve once again her desired present moment focus.
And if mindfulness involves paying attention to thoughts without judging them as good or bad, people must have an idea of the nonjudgmental way they want to respond to their thoughts, they must be able to sense when they are not responding the way they would like, and they must be able to change their responding to be more like the way they want to respond. That is, they must be able to affect their responding so that, whenever they recognise that they are thinking about thoughts as good or bad, they are able to move their thinking back to the nonjudgmental perspective they seek.
Understanding mindfulness as a control process can help people get better at being mindful. Perceptual Control Theory (PCT; www.iapct.org; www.pctweb.org) is a rigorous and robust explanation of control. PCT explains that control only ever happens in the “right now”. Even if people are dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, they are dwelling and worrying right now. Remembering, imagining, and planning are all activities that happen in the right now of our beingness. Recognising that we only ever exist in the right now of our controllingness might help people slip more smoothly into a present mind perspective.
PCT also explains that what we control are our perceptions of the world not the world itself. The idea of psychological relativity can help people understand that notions of good and bad or naughty and nice are internally created by the way in which our perceptions of the world measure up to the ideas we have about who we are and the life we want to be living.
If you want to live a more mindful life or any kind of life at all, do what you can to understand the process of control. Control is the process of living. Knowing your own basic nature more thoroughly will help you live more of the life you would wish for yourself. Check out Controlling People: The paradoxical nature of being human (http://tinyurl.com/hby9gjk) for an explanation of the way in which control affects the relationships in your life.
