Let’s Talk About… Loss of Control

By Jeremy Godwin

Why does it feel so confronting to deal with a loss of control? How can you get past control issues and manage the need for control? That’s what I’m talking about this week here on… Let’s Talk About Mental Health — the weekly podcast about looking after your wellbeing, with simple ideas you can put into practice immediately. So, get comfortable, and Let’s Talk About Mental Health…

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This podcast episode was originally released on 4 December, 2022.

Hello and welcome to Episode 158, and thanks so much for joining me as I talk about loss of control and mental health!

I’m Jeremy Godwin and I share simple ideas for better mental health. 

I spent most of the 2010’s dealing with severe anxiety and depression, after a breakdown in late 2011, which led me to want to learn more about my mental health… so I went back to school and studied psychology and sociology, and now I share simple mental health tips for how to improve your wellbeing, from someone who actually understands what it’s like to go through mental health challenges. 

Each week I look at how to improve one specific aspect of your mental health and wellbeing. In this episode I’ll be talking about what loss of control is (and what it isn’t), why approaching it thoughtfully matters, and how to manage a loss of control in a considered way. 

A quick reminder before we start that my new book Life Advice That Doesn’t Suck! is out now, where I share 365 simple ways to live a more satisfying life. It’s the perfect gift for yourself or for a loved one, and you can buy it in print from Amazon or buy the eBook on Amazon and Apple Books (and you’ll find it linked in the episode description or you can visit my website letstalkaboutmentalhealth.com.au). 

So, with that covered, let’s talk about loss of control!

Introduction

A few weeks ago I found myself spending an enormous time waiting in the second most-dreaded place on Earth, a doctor’s surgery (the first most-dreaded being, of course, the motor vehicle bureau, where any notion of customer service feels like a far-away fairy-land). 

As I stared at my phone and tried to keep myself occupied while minutes dragged on into over an hour of waiting (because apparently the idea of an ‘appointment’ is just a loose suggestion of time, and of course we all have nothing better to do than spend nearly an hour and a half waiting!), I realised that my blood was beginning to boil (figuratively-speaking; it didn’t actually boil) because nothing frustrates me more than a lack of efficiency (actually, plenty of stuff annoys me more, but clearly I’m saying that for dramatic effect here so just stick with me). 

Anyway, what was interesting was that by the time I finally got in to see the doctor it turned out that my blood pressure was so high that he had to settle me down and then do it again; proof positive that stress, anxiety and frustration all have a direct impact on our physical health as well as our mental health. While a lot of my stress and anxiety was due to the fact that I was there to talk about my stress and anxiety, which made me feel very stressed and anxious, a part of it was also related to feeling a total lack of control in that situation; I felt like I was at the mercy of the medical centre (which I basically was), and while it wasn’t really that big of a deal, in hindsight, my general feelings of not being in control of my stress and anxiety levels certainly didn’t make things any easier. And a quick side note: I’m now almost at two weeks of taking anti-anxiety meds again and I can say with absolute certainty that they’ve made a huge difference in the way I feel; I’m neither pro-medication nor anti-medication because we all have to make choices that are right for us, but I’m just sharing a bit about my journey and my choices because, well, that’s what I do here on this show!

I chose this week’s topic about six months ago, and I felt like it was an interesting and highly-relevant topic to explore given just how much of a general loss of control we’ve all had to deal with over these past few years with things like the pandemic and the seemingly-never-ending rising costs of living around the world, and yet interestingly there was a paper published in the December 2022 edition of the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry theorising that fears around loss of control may play a far larger role in psychological disorders than previously thought, so we’ll discuss that in a bit. 

First, however, let’s explore some definitions and let’s talk about… 

What loss of control is

And I think this is probably the simplest definition I’ve ever had the pleasure of sharing, simply because it means exactly what it says on the tin: it’s about being in a situation where you are not directly in control. That could be a situation at work, at home or in the wider world, and it could involve another person (or multiple people) or even no other people. Basically, it’s just a broad way of describing any time where you feel like you’re not in full control over what is or isn’t happening. 

Now you’ll notice that I said “where you feel like you’re not in full control” rather than “where you aren’t in control,” and I’ll tell you why I made a point of saying that (because I do tend to choose my words quite carefully and deliberately in this show); just because you feel like you aren’t in control, that doesn’t mean that you’re not actually in control. Oooh, philosophical right?!

Here’s why I say that: regardless of the external circumstances, you are always in full and total control of what you do and say, as well as what you don’t do and don’t say, and you also have full control over who has access to you and what that access looks and feels like… and, quite frankly, I think that’s more than sufficient to create a life for yourself that feels satisfying and meaningful!

It’s human nature to want to be able to feel like we’re in control of ourselves and our lives at all times (there are a bunch of different theories around why that may be the case; personally speaking, my money is on it being a self-protection mechanism for safety and security), and yet at the same time as all of this yearning to be in full control we seem to forget that this world is so chaotic and erratic that it’s completely and utterly impossible to be in control 100% of the time! 

That doesn’t mean you have to be a saint or that you should never become irritated or frustrated (or whatever) by a lack of control; in yet another example of the incredible irony of the way the universe operates, while I’m writing this episode (in mid-November) there are currently noisy roadworks going on next door to my house. Am I irritated? Yes! Do I understand that they’re important and urgent works to make sure the bridge near my house doesn’t collapse after it was damaged in a recent storm? Absolutely! But that doesn’t mean I have to like the noise or that I can’t be annoyed about the fact that I’ve had to reorganise my plans for the day to work around the noise. Two things can be true at the same time; I can be irritated and I can be accepting of the fact that it’s completely out of my control. Rather than beating myself up for the way I feel, I choose instead to remember that I’m only human and nobody is perfect.

It’s an unavoidable fact of life that there will always be circumstances beyond your control; this is doubly-true when it comes to other people, because people are unpredictable and driven by their own agendas and desires. But as soon as we start even contemplating the idea of having only limited control over our own life, our minds go into “what the hell?!” mode and begin doing an impression of that emoji with the exploding head (which just happens to be in my top five most-used emojis in my private life, and that probably tells you everything you need to know about me!) and one of the main reasons that happens is that it can make us feel powerless. 

So here’s my question for you: why do you want to or need to feel in control? I’m going to suggest it’s most likely because you want to feel safe and secure in the knowledge that you’re the one steering the ship of your life, and for the most part you are… so don’t stress too much about me telling you to be more pragmatic about control! But you have to also be realistic enough to recognise — and accept — that there will always be things that will happen that will disrupt even the best laid plans; I don’t know about you, but I had a very different set of plans for my life in 2020 and 2021 which did not involve sitting at home learning how to découpage!

And so that brings me to the next part of this topic, so now let’s talk about…

Why approaching loss of control thoughtfully matters

And it matters because ‘loss of control’ and ‘fear’ go hand-in-hand, which can do all sorts of damage to your self-esteem and general wellbeing. It can also often be connected with a number of different conditions or disorders such as panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or social anxiety.

In a recent paper titled The fear of losing control by Adam S. Radomsky (which is the one I mentioned in the introduction, and I’ll link it in the transcript; find it here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005791622000465?via=ihub), the author talks about how fears of loss of control are commonly associated with many mental health conditions and disorders: losing control over emotions or thoughts can be related to anxiety, PTSD or OCD; losing control over physiological or bodily sensations “are most likely related to panic disorder [or] social anxiety disorder”; losing control over belongings or other aspects of your surroundings “are likely to [relate] to hoarding disorder… and to symmetry, ordering and arranging compulsions”; and then “[people] experiencing family, work and/or relationship problems are likely to be concerned with beliefs related to controlling other people… [however] concerns about losing control [generally] will be important and meaningful to some, but not all individuals.”

So here’s the reason why I’m sharing all of this and it’s because of the following paragraph from the same article; the quote is:

“[Some people] may try to control things over which they have little to no influence (e.g., other people, the thoughts that spontaneously occur to them, whether or not something bad happens to a loved one). This is almost always likely to be counterproductive, as the absence of negative outcomes can lead to [a false] sense of control… and negative outcomes can be interpreted as a loss of control, rather than an unfortunate negative event… We all have control over many (but certainly not all) elements of our lives, but an open question remains about whether or not we are required to do anything to exercise that control beyond the natural pursuit of our goals. Engaging in unnecessary control-related behaviour is likely to be problematic…”

And, again, that article is linked in the transcript.

There’s an interesting question posed in this article (well, it’s ‘interesting’ if you’re a bit of a psychology and sociology nerd like I am!) which asks whether it’s truly possible for us to ever actually lose control; for example, when we’re recovering from a heavy night of drinking it may seem at first glance that we were out of control, however we were in control but just with impaired faculties and so likely to have been exercising poor judgement (which is why dancing on a table-top in a crowded bar seems like a brilliant idea when you’re drunk, and like the worst possible idea when you’re sober). 

Fears about losing control to our more basic instincts, like rage and debauchery, are nothing new; the 1886 story [The] Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde has been told and retold about 84,000 times by Hollywood and the entertainment industry at large, which speaks to our worries about succumbing to our darker side or our ‘shadow self’ and so that’s why being able to understand what the idea of ‘loss of control’ is actually bringing up matters, because that’s what allows you to be more thoughtful and considered so that you can respond mindfully rather than just reacting to the fear in an instinctive way.

The other reason why I raise this is because of something called overcontrol, where some people have such a strong fear of losing control that it can lead them to become rigid, hyper-critical of themselves and others, and highly-perfectionistic — all of which can lead to issues like stress, anxiety or depression (to name just a few).

I am currently in the middle of unpacking an entire lifetime of overcontrolling (especially in the sense of having an almost-compulsive need for structure and order, and having rigid standards and rules that I would apply to myself) and the thing is that being so controlling doesn’t actually give you any real control; it just gives you stress! Like I said back in Episode 48 about control, feeling like we’re at the mercy of events or other people can trigger insecurity, anxiety, helplessness and vulnerability, and a lot of that stuff comes back to fear and rejection; most of us just want to be loved and accepted, and so we can find ourselves dealing with control issues when we’re in triggering situations or where our needs aren’t being met (and I covered needs back in Episode 137). 

So how do you tackle all of that then? Well, let’s get into the how-to part of this episode and let’s talk about…

How to manage a loss of control in a considered way

And so I’m going to start with one I often finish with, which is get professional support — and by that I mean either through coaching, counselling or therapy depending on your needs and situation. Why I’m saying this first is that it can take a lot of work to dig into why control issues exist and it’s going to be far more effective if you do that with someone who is both impartial and objective; the people who are closest to you cannot be detached and impartial because they care about you, whereas a professional cares about helping you find the best way forward (even if that involves tough conversations and difficult work). OK, so now let’s look at things you can do yourself starting with…

Choosing to put things into context — because things are rarely ever as bad as what we think they’re going to be; our initial reactions towards challenging situations or relationship issues tend to be overinflated towards the negative, due in large part to the negativity bias where we might instinctively give more attention to the negative rather than the positive (which I discussed last week in Episode 157 about catastrophising). When you consider the situation in the context of the rest of your life, most of the time you’ll realise that it’s not as massive as what it might feel like (and let’s be honest, a fair bit of our reaction to things where we feel like we have no control stems from our emotions about the situation such as frustration or irritation or whatever). One way to help you put things into context is with my next point…

Focus on the present — because it’s so easy to become distracted by the past or the future, but neither of those times actually exist! The past has passed, so not only can you not change it but you also need to remember that the past is rarely ever as rosy as we remember it because we tend to filter out a lot of the negative after the fact (it’s weird what our minds can do, isn’t it?!). As for the future it is entirely unknown and unknowable, and so the issue is that we sometimes have this idea of an idealised future where everything will be perfect once we achieve X, Y and Z… only it never quite pans out like that, does it? Because when you achieve X, Y and Z you find yourself wondering, “what else?” or you begin chasing the next thing that you think will make you happy. The only true joy in life is to be found here, in this moment, and by consciously turning your attention to the present you can be much more realistic about what actually matters versus what doesn’t matter as much as you think it does (and I talked about being present in Episode 83 and joy in Episode 93). OK, next…

Set realistic standards and expectations for yourself — because we can often try to control every single aspect of our lives, including what we do with our time and the standards we expect from ourselves (like perfectionism, which I covered in Episode 98), but the fact is that the higher your expectations, the harder it’s going to be to feel like you’re in control. Take a step back and refocus on what really matters to you, and then review your standards and expectations accordingly. This is why I’ve taken a break from YouTube for several months, because I was putting unrealistic expectations on myself which was then sending everything else spiralling out of control and I felt overwhelmed (plus my anxiety was through the roof). OK, next… 

Look at what you can control — and I feel like this is almost too-obvious to include in this episode, however I know from my own experience that it’s worthwhile reminding yourself of this on a regular basis (even I forget sometimes and need a good reminder at least a couple of times a week!). You can only ever control what you do and say, as well as what you choose to do with your feelings, and so everything else is out of your control; you either resist that fact, and cause yourself suffering, or you embrace that fact, and find greater peace of mind. Using my recent visit to the doctor as an example, no amount of stressing on my part was going to have even the slightest impact on how fast (or slow) they went with their appointments; and, in hindsight, making an 11am appointment when I had a 1pm meeting might have been a touch too optimistic! Knowing that part of my stress was because of the upcoming meeting, what I can control in future is making appointments at a time where I have nothing else booked afterwards so that I don’t feel that sense of a ticking clock looming over me while I sit bored out of my brain in a waiting room. I talked about control in Episode 48 and it’s a good one to help you look at the topic more broadly. OK, next…

Create moments of conscious structure and control for yourself — and this is probably aimed more towards those of us who like or need a bit of structure so that we feel in control (myself included); I find it helpful to take a few minutes each morning to plan out what I need to achieve at a high level, and I also take 10 to 15 minutes at the start of each week to map out what needs to be achieved by the end of the week (and set any reminders for things over the coming weeks). For me, this is very much about feeling like I’m in control and that I’m on-track with all the things I need to finish (and I juggle a lot of different roles and responsibilities throughout the week, as I’m sure many of you do); I try to find balance in all things, so I don’t have every minute of every day planned out (I used to do that, and it was both tedious and not terribly effective!) but I have a rough idea of what I’m focusing on each morning or afternoon in order to deliver what needs to be done each day and week. I would definitely encourage you here to allow room for flexibility — I only ever really plan about two-thirds of my time, because the rest of the time is inevitably going to be used to deal with all the things that just ‘pop up’ throughout the week (and that way I feel far less stressed if and when that happens), and I covered planning in Episode 113. Alright, so my next point is… 

Confront rather than avoid — and I’m saying this because procrastination is a common behaviour when things feel uncontrollable (something I covered in Episode 129 about procrastination) or when you feel overwhelmed (which was the topic of Episode 147), however all avoidance does is make things worse! When you put off dealing with problems and issues they tend to become bigger in your mind; instead, just rip that Band Aid off and get it over and done with! That allows you to feel much more in control and it helps you to create a greater sense of order for yourself as well as agency, in the respect of feeling like you’re able to move things forward for yourself (which you are!). OK, next…

Find balance — because it isn’t an all-or-nothing choice between ‘control everything’ versus ‘give up entirely’! Neither choice is realistic, and they’ll both very likely lead to a range of issues, and so peace of mind is to be found in the middle… as it is with most things! I talked about the importance of finding balance (and how to do it) in Episode 49 so check that out for more. OK, next…

Recognise that you don’t have to control everything — because you don’t; sometimes, you can just let things happen! I know that’s a bitter pill to swallow, especially if you’re even remotely a bit of control freak (or a total one, like me!), but you don’t need to be in control of everything and you don’t need to get involved in everything. It’s OK to let go (and I discussed how to do that in Episode 32 about letting go). OK, next… 

Avoid comparisons — and you might be wondering why I’m saying this in an episode about loss of control, but hear me out! Often we might look at other people’s lives and it might seem like they’ve got their stuff together, but I guarantee you that we’re all just making it up as we go along — myself included — and the person you’re feeling envious of is just as likely to be barely holding it together! When you compare yourself to others you’re putting unnecessary pressure on yourself, which can lead you to feel out of control, so instead choose to practice greater self compassion (which I covered in Episode 153) and be a lot nicer to yourself.

Summary and Close-Out

Because when it comes to loss of control and mental health, what it all boils down to is this: When it feels like things are out of control, the one thing you can always control is your own internal world; in other words your thoughts, attitude and mindset. Nothing and nobody can ever change that without your permission. It may not always feel like you’re in full control, especially when there’s so much going on around you and in the wider world, but you are always in full control of what you choose to do and say… and those are the two most powerful tools in the world.

The choice is yours, as it is with all things related to your wellbeing… so, what choice will YOU make today? 

Each week I like to finish up by sharing a quote about the week’s topic, and I encourage you to take a few moments to really reflect on it and consider what it means to you.

This week’s quote is by an unknown author, and it is:

“We cannot control the wind, but we can direct the sail.”

Unknown

Alright… that’s nearly it for this week.

Next time I’ll be talking about money. I’ve had plenty to say over the past three years I’ve been doing this podcast about the sordid topic of coin (and yes, that is a quote from Death Becomes Her, one of my favourite films of all time!), and I felt like it was time to have a deeper conversation about how our relationship with money — and what we do to get it — has a direct impact on your mental health and wellbeing. So, next time I’ll be talking about what money is (and what it isn’t), why approaching money more thoughtfully matters, and how to manage your relationship with money in a considered way.

I hope you’ll join me for that episode which will be released on Sunday the 11th of December, 2022. 

You’ll find many more practical tips in my new book Life Advice That Doesn’t Suck!, and in my recent book, Let’s Talk About Mental Health (Volume One), which are both available from Amazon and Apple Books, and visit my website at letstalkaboutmentalhealth.com.au to sign up for my free newsletter Thursday Thoughts for a weekly dose of inspiration.

Become a supporter on Patreon for exclusive extra benefits, including early access to podcast episodes, and follow my podcast on Instagram @ltamentalhealth plus check out my other account, @jeremygodwinofficial [Edit: account is now @itsjeremygodwin], where I post daily tips sharing Life Advice That Doesn’t Suck — and those are all linked in the episode description on your podcast service.

Thank you very much for joining me today — look after yourself and make a conscious effort to share positivity and kindness in the world, because you get back what you put out. Take care and talk to you next time!

Jeremy 🙂

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Let’s Talk About Mental Health.
Simple ideas for better mental health.

Let’s Talk About Mental Health. © 2022 Jeremy Godwin.

The information provided in this episode is for general awareness on the topic and does not constitute advice. You should consult a doctor and/or a mental health professional if you are struggling with your mental health and wellbeing. You’ll find additional information on the Resources page of this website.