Kelli’s Story: Eating Disorder is a Control Disorder

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Controlled not Controllers

Copy of 2 Corinthians 5-5 Why would anyone want to be an elder or a deacon? You have to give up several evenings a month, you have to take on extra responsibilities on Sundays, you’re involved in stressful situations, you have to take hard decisions, and you’re setting yourself up for criticism. At least pastors are paid for all that. But elders and deacons are not? So why would anyone want to be an elder or a deacon?

Sadly, some are motivated by control (1 Peter 5:2-3). They want to have power in the church. They want to advance their own agenda and have their own way. They want to have power over people’s lives and use controlling techniques such as lies, moodiness, unpredictability, and intimidation to achieve their ends. Controllers devastate those they control as victims suffer from chronic stress, fear, passivity, distrust of authority, and low self-worth.

Controllers themselves are often victims of insecurity and anxiety which drives them to try and exert maximum control over people and situations. They are controlled by insecurity and therefore try to control for their own security. Although we may not be full-blown controllers, yet most of us still have controlling tendencies and temptations that we need to be aware of and fight against.

Therefore, as our elders, deacons take up their new roles, and as Jordan is installed as a commissioned pastor, we want to ask: What should be our motivation as we take up roles and responsibilities in the church? Why do we serve? Paul answers in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15.

Sermon Notes
Kids Notes
Picture quotes

Our King Controls the Controllers

Daniel 11-6

Control freaks are common freaks. To put it another way, control freaks are not so freakish. ‘Freak’ usually means unusual, rare, exceptional. When therefore we say someone is a ‘control freak.’ we’re saying they have an unusual and extraordinary determination to control everyone and everything in every situation.

Some do this actively and some do it passively, but we all do it to some degree. We try to control or micromanage our environment, our emotions, our surroundings, our relationships, and it all eventually overwhelms and exhausts us. ‘Controlitis’ is rooted in the fear of the unpredictable or the fear of being at the mercy of unpredictable people. It’s often a reaction to the fear of losing control and can be related to a time in life when we suffered abuse, neglect, trauma, disruption, or chaos in childhood.

COVID-19 will only multiply controlitis because there’s never been a time when we’ve been so out of control. Work, school, sports, church, are all out of our control. It doesn’t help when Chinese rockets are falling out of the sky! Who is in control? (Daniel 11).

Sermon Notes on Daniel 11.

The Secret to Self-Control

“I have never seen someone consistently stick to positive habits in a negative environment.” James Clear, Atomic Habits, (94).

That’s pretty blunt isn’t it! He explains his conclusion in a chapter entitled, “The Secret to Self Control”:

“You can break a habit, but you’re unlikely to forget it. Once the mental grooves of habit have been carved into your brain, they are nearly impossible to remove entirely—even if they go unused for quite a while. And that means that simply resisting temptation is an ineffective strategy” (94).

That’s pretty hopeless isn’t it!

A Reason for Hope
But it’s not. First, because, even if it’s true that bad habit grooves are engraved in our minds, we can often change our negative environment. Clear highlights research into the people who appear to be the most self-disciplined and self-controlled. Their secret?

It turns out those individuals aren’t all that different from those who are struggling. Instead, “disciplined” people are better at structuring their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control. In other words, they spend less time in tempting situations” (92-3).

That gives us all hope doesn’t it?

“The people with the best self-control are typically the ones who need to use it the least. It’s easier to practice self-restraint when you don’t have to use it very often. So, yes, perseverance, grit, and willpower are essential to success, but the way to improve these qualities is not by wishing you were a more disciplined person, but by creating a more disciplined environment” (93).

The secret to self-control, says Clear is, “Make the cues of your good habits obvious and the cues of your bad habits invisible” (95). And the Christian does this, of course, in dependence upon God for guidance and decisiveness.

A Second Reason for Hope
But there’s a second reason for hope, and that is Romans 12v2: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

As other science has confirmed, our brains are remarkably “plastic” and can be re-wired, re-grooved, or renewed not only by psychological training but by spiritual training. And if anyone has reason to hope here, it’s Christians. After eleven chapters of filling the mind with the most sublime truths, the Apostle Paul says his great point is mind transformation and the great aim is proving, or demonstrating in practical ways, what God’s good will is for us in this world.

This doesn’t guarantee that God will eradicate all the old grooves of sinful habits. He may leave some traces of these to remind us of our past, to humble us, and to keep us dependent upon him for daily deliverance. But it does mean that as we absorb and imbibe God’s truth, we can expect not just internal but external transformation.

The secret to self-control, therefore, is truth-control.

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

The Seven Fears Controlling Controllers

Although controlling/authoritarian/obsessive people often seem intimidatingly strong and confident, at heart they are insecure people who are controlled by a number of fears.

Fear of things going wrong: Hyper-conscious of all that could go wrong in life, they are trying to protect themselves against every possible risk.

Fear of being found out: They put a protective skin around themselves, often shunning relational intimacy, because they are afraid that if people see more of them, they will see their inadequacy.

Fear of trusting: Trust entails risk and vulnerability. It means depending on other people and therefore the possibility of being let down, betrayed, exploited, etc.

Fear of needing someone else: The closer they get to someone, the more they come to need him or her, which unnerves them.

Fear of being exploited: Results in a tendency to be excessively guarded about giving, lending, or spending money.

Fear of uncertainty: The norm is excessively detailed long-term planning and a phobia toward changes.

Fear of not knowing: They tend to be obsessed about knowing every little detail about everything because the more they know the more they feel in control.

Alan Mallinger offers a few remedies for some of these fears in Too Perfect: When Being in Control Gets Out of ControlThey include:

  • Remind yourself that no one and nothing can be one-hundred-percent dependable.
  • Stop thinking in extremes. For example, just because it would be unwise to share every intimate detail of your life, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t share any. There is a middle ground
  • Practice letting down your guard in one or two small ways to gain confidence and begin to build the habit of releasing control.

However, these are fairly basic and limited remedies. At the root of most sinful controlling is lack of submission to God’s perfect control. The sovereignty of God has to be the foundation of any lasting deliverance from these fears. I can release control if God is in control.

God’s sovereignty means that even if things do go wrong, they are not out of control but under God’s control, and He will work it together for our good.

God’s sovereignty means that even if people find out I’m not what my public persona portrays, He can still provide me with friends and loved ones who care for the real me. Indeed, God’s sovereignty means I can stop pretending and start trusting Him with the real me.

God’s sovereignty means that He will never let us down, and even if others do, he can still overrule even the greatest betrayal for good.

God’s sovereignty means that we can depend upon him for the big things, and through that learn to depend upon others for smaller things.

God’s sovereignty means that even if we are exploited and conned, that he can make it up to us as the cattle on a thousand hills are his, as are the millions in Merril Lynch.

God’s sovereignty means that His plan is certain and that nothing is uncertain to God. We don’t need to make detailed long-term plans because God has made an every-hair-on-my-head plan that covers time and eternity.

God’s sovereignty means we don’t need to know everything, because He already does.

God’s sovereignty means we can abandon perfectionism and embrace His perfection.

God’s sovereignty means we can repent of authoritarianism and trust His authority.

God’s sovereignty means we can release control into God’s control.

Previous posts on Perfectionism and Control: Part 1Part 2Part 3,Part 4Part 5Part 6Part 7.

Am I a Controlling Person?

In Too Perfect: When Being in Control Gets out of ControlAllen Mallinger asserts that the central dynamic in the obsessive personality is that of control.

Most of us, obsessives included, would allow that life is fundamentally unpredictable. As hard as the best-intentioned, most conscientious person might try, it is impossible to control every aspect of one’s existence; we are vulnerable. Despite such lip service to these truths, however, somewhere near the center of their inner being, far from their conscious awareness, obsessives are trying to deny this reality. Their subtle but constant efforts to control everything in the world around them (and inside them) are an attempt to do the impossible: to guarantee security; to assure safe passage through the risks and uncertainties of living. (8)

The price of this attempt to control is an inability to show or share feelings, reluctance to trust anyone, loneliness, the stress of being perfect in everything, the fear of embarrassment, an over-sensitive conscience, a phobia about trying anything new, and an inability to relax and enjoy the moment.

In pages 10-12 of Too Perfect, Mallinger provides 25 self-test questions. The most piercing and telling in my view are:

2. Is it hard for you to let go of a work project until it’s just right—even if it takes much longer than it should?

4. Is it important to you that your child, spouse, or subordinates at work perform certain tasks in a certain specific manner?

9. Do you have a particularly strong conscience, or do you often feel guilty?

11. Are you especially wary of being controlled, manipulated, overpowered, or “steam-rollered” by others?

12. Is it important for you to get a “good deal” in your financial transactions, or are you often suspicious of being “taken”?

15. Is it hard for you to let yourself be dependent on others, rather than self-reliant? (For instance, are you uneasy about delegating tasks at work or hiring help with taxes or home repairs?)

17. In thinking about some future event, such as a vacation, a dinner party, or a job report, do you dwell upon the things that might go wrong?

18. Do you worry more than most people?

22. Do you feel guilty when you aren’t getting something done, even in your time off (no matter how hard you’ve worked all week)?

The number of “yes’s” is important, but even more so is the question: “Does this characteristic cause difficulties in relationships, work, or leisure activities, or does it interfere with your ability to enjoy life in general?”

To go back to the beginning though, at the root of all this, though often deeply buried in the psyche, is the irrational conviction, the myth, that perfect control can be achieved and can guarantee a safe and successful life. Dealing with that myth requires reason and revelation, but that will have to wait until next week now.