If You’re a Control Freak, Then Try Controlling This

You want to be the CEO of your own life, and take charge of your destiny. That attitude can help you go far! But there are some things in life that we simply can’t control, and becoming too fixated on these areas can leave us feeling stressed and unhappy.

Although a healthy dose of self-management can help us stay focused on our goals, too many people are suffering because they’re trying to control the wrong things. In this eye-opening new video from IPEtv, Marc David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, shares a whole new perspective on control.

Tune in and learn why the urge to manage isn’t necessarily bad, but there’s only one thing that we can ever fully control – and that one thing will immeasurably improve the quality of our lives.

Here is a transcript of this week’s video:

Greetings, friends. I’m Marc David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. If you’re a control freak, I would love for you to consider to try to controlling this. And I’m going to tell you what this is in a moment.

But first let’s draw a circle around this thing that we do called controlling. Now, so many people are noticing the degree to which they like to control stuff. We want to be in charge. We want to tell universe what to do, how much money we make, the people that come our way, the romance, the love, all the goodies.

Now, some of us control more than others. And for the real control freaks, I think you know who you are. But we’ve all got that part of us. And it sounds like a great idea to control things. But here’s the challenge.

A lot of control freaks tend to get a little unhappy.

We get stressed. And oftentimes control freaks are uptight and not always fun to be around.

And this is especially true when it comes to controlling food and body. What do we try to control? We want to control our appetite. We want to control our weight perfectly. We want to get our body exactly what it is. And we have to make sure we don’t have the rice or the starch or the or the fat or the this or the that.

Here’s what I want to say. Control is not bad. Control helps us focus. But the problem is, too many of us, we’re trying to control the wrong thing. And what I want to suggest is there might only be one thing for you to ever try to fully get control of. Here it is: your mind, the conversation in your head. Get control of that. And your life is going to change in a huge way.

Now, think of the old fairytales that you used to hear when you were a kid. There’s always somebody cursing someone. And they fall asleep for years. So we can curse people in the fairytales. But you could also bless them. Now, we are constantly either blessing or cursing. You don’t even have to think of this in a religious way. The mind is talking to us.

We bless ourselves or we curse ourselves.

And a lot of people are stuck in self-cursing. And when you’re in your mind and you’re telling yourself, “I’m no good. I’m not good enough. This body is not good. The way I’m eating is not good,” we are in misery. And by the way, this is the whole premise of the ancient science of meditation and yoga. It’s about harnessing the mind. So when you hear the word meditation, cross it out and think, “Harness my mind.” That’s all you’re doing. The mind is a tool. When you’re not in control of it, it controls you. And it can say a lot of nonsense.

So it doesn’t mean you’re going to get full control of your mind. But this is a lifelong practice because when your mind is controlling you, it’s going to be a little bit of trouble. It’s going to be some pain. But the good news is you can practice this. You can begin to notice. You witness.

There’s a part of us that’s up here that witnesses who we are, what we’re doing. When you start to witness the conversation in your head and not let it be automatic, then you can start to gain power over it. And when you start to let go of all the negative conversations, when you harness your mind, especially when it comes to all the self-critical stuff around food and body, when you harness your mind in that way if you stop cursing your self, all of a sudden there’s this natural evolutionary power that comes through us and starts to heal us. It starts to bring up our true power.

And that, my friends, is the magic of the world.

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