Locus of Control Series – Part 3: Taking Control of Your Life

We are resuming this newsletter from last month, continuing the Locus of Control discussion – Internal and External – and how that affects you.

For a quick overview, when you are operating from the Internal Locus, you are taking complete control of your life.  Note: this does not mean the life of anyone else!  This means you work with yourself only and don’t try to change others – have no rules for other people in relationships – just your own healthy boundaries.  You only control what is controllable – yourself, your emotions, your time, money, energy, your health (to a certain degree), etc.   And, you don’t waste your time or your energy in trying to control or change events outside of your influence.

To start taking responsibility for yourself and developing the Internal Locus of Control there are three necessary steps, which we covered last month:

1. Take Responsibility – Stop Blaming Others
2. Take Action – Stop Making Excuses
3. Frame Life Events as Constructive and Positive – you set your own conditions and definitions to the events of each day

This month we are moving our focus to:

1. The Difference Between Rules and Standards
2. Dominance and Control In Your Life

Rules vs. Standards

In the two previous newsletters I mentioned the importance of controlling ourselves and not others, and I want to expand on this now a bit more.  When we look at the concept of a rule, we discover that it is a regulation that comes from an external source.  A law is a great example of a rule.  For instance, the laws governing stop signs and traffic lights are external and directly govern our behavior for the good of all.  But many people are so comfortable with rules that they like to set all manner of rules for their friends, families, spouses, etc., to govern other people’s behavior, from an outside source – theirs.  I don’t advise creating rules for other adults to follow – that’s an ineffective strategy that will almost always result in your disappointment.

I can almost hear you now asking me the question – “but what about boundaries – healthy boundaries”?  You see, boundaries are not really about other people and they are not rules, they are standards – your standards about you and how you want to be treated.  They are your regulations that are sourced from you, internally!  Let’s say you are like me and value integrity.  So then it follows that you do not accept the behavior of someone who repeatedly doesn’t honor their word with you.

The significant difference between rules and standards is that rules govern us from the outside world and standards come from within each of us.  In personal relationships rules can and often do create incredible damage to peace and longevity.  Whereas healthy high standards will only improve your life and assist you in becoming the best possible version of yourself.  This is because healthy high standards align you with your core values, which ultimately produce joy and fulfillment for you and in your life.

To go back to our example of integrity and someone keeping their word, you cannot, nor should you, put any rules on anyone else.  And, using our example of integrity, because you have standards when it comes to integrity and the people around you, you would not have people close to you who do not honor their word with you, unless there is a very good reason – which would be the exception, nor the norm.

When someone doesn’t keep their word, it doesn’t mean you punish them in any way.  After you have clearly and kindly told them what your standards are, and they are aware of them, you simply remove yourself from the situation and the person who isn’t able to meet them.

When someone is not able to meet your standards, it means that you are simply not compatible.  Lowering your personal standards would mean that you deviate from your personal values, which in the end will not help you achieve true joy or fulfilment.

Dominance and Control In Your Life – Who’s In Charge?

This is a topic that I am approaching with extreme caution.  First let me say that as mature healthy adults, we are all meant to be dominant and in control of our own lives – not dominant of or in control of others.  Dominance and in control of yourself is the key to becoming actualized.  I know that dominance often has a less than constructive connotation.  But I want you to set that old paradigm aside and start considering what could happen for the good in your life if you become the positive dominant factor in your life – speaking up for yourself – respecting yourself – loving yourself – not giving up on yourself – honoring yourself….  Get the idea of what I am talking about?

I am using dominance here as a constructive, affirming energy in your life, that has nothing to do with hurting or controlling those around you nor with hurting yourself.  Instead, it is about creating trustworthiness – in trusting yourself so that others can trust in you.

When you are the dominant force in your own life, you feel good, strong, decisive, and trustworthy, which allows you to make excellent decisions and protect yourself.  You are in charge of yourself and your life, get your needs met in healthy and constructive ways (not at the expense of others), and you say “No” when situations require it.  Being self-dominant removes the influence from those who would take advantage of your time, money, or energy.

I want to take a moment now to speak directly to the feminine energy in women.  As women, when we look at being the healthy self-dominant force in our lives, it does not mean we become less feminine.  In fact, we have to find and embrace the feminine energy flow within and use this strong receptive creative energy to be in control of our own lives.  The best analogy is on a flight, we must place the oxygen mask on ourself first.  We don’t do that because we are selfish…, or because we are self-serving…, or because we’ve earned it…, or because we deserve it…, or because we’re better than…, rather we do it so that we can be of the best possible service without compromise.  Even tho this example is taken from an emergency situation, really we should be following this protocol with everything in our lives.  It only becomes self-evident in a crisis situation that this is the necessary order of operation.

And here, I invite women to utilize their uniquely feminine energy to become healthfully self-dominant, taking care of ourselves first, in the way that only we can, for the appropriate reasons, and not emulating the masculine in accomplishing this.  Doing this effectively will have everything to do with the intuitive creative feminine energy and very little to do with the logical masculine approach.  Hope this makes sense.  We can explore this further if you would like on the live Zoom conversation.

To become truly self-dominant, you simply take hold of your reality, and control it as you see fit and then invite others into your reality.  Most people are quite unaware of the power their thoughts have and go about their life on “auto-pilot”, constantly being pulled into the reality of others.  This is where the Life Activation and Empower Thyself Class and Initiation can be so helpful, both in helping you to understand how the mind works, effectively setting new patterns, and using the energy of the Light to source the actualization of your life work.

Reality – whatever we believe as reality – actually exists in our own mind.  Our mind is so much more powerful than most of us are aware.  As such, it has a huge impact on our attitudes, opinions, perceptions, beliefs, behaviors, feelings, emotions, and most importantly on our actions.  Psychological research has validated this now for decades, and metaphysics has been teaching this for thousands of years – our lives are the result of our beliefs.

The programming starts from the moment we are born.  We are either directly or indirectly taught what we can and cannot do, say and even think.  What to like and not like, who and what to accept as well as who and what to be afraid of, who and how to love, etc.  And because of this, as we mature, we make choices and decisions based almost entirely on someone else’s dogmas, without ever genuinely questioning them.  And so much of these mindsets that we accept as truth/fact are actually misinformation, if not (although unintentionally) unproductive and downright harmful.  Some of us, as we mature, begin to realize that not everything is as we were led to believe, and the strategies, doctrines and teachings don’t work as promised.  In fact, many of them actually are holding us back in life.  They often sound like this:

• S/he is out of my league
• I can’t get that position
• I’m not smart/good enough
• I can’t do it or I could never _________
• Money is bad
• People can’t be trusted
• People like me don’t do that
• I don’t have a choice
• Life isn’t fair
• My father tried that and failed
• Etc.

It’s important to take a good hard look at the foundations you have based your life on to ensure that each of them truly supports you in actualizing your life purpose, and are not the result simply of the conclusions you’ve arrived at based on information that has been passed on to you by well-meaning but otherwise misinformed people.  In order to do this, though, you have to be constantly challenging, re-evaluating, and re-assessing your current personal beliefs and results.

As mature adults, we must give ourselves the permission to uncover and see the harmful, counterproductive, and negative belief structures, residing just below the surface of our consciousness, that are in control of our thoughts.  If we don’t do this, we will never be able to truly self-dominate and control our own reality and invite others into our reality.

This type of honesty happens one step at a time, and is never gained by being hard on ourselves or by making ourselves wrong.

Next month we will continue this conversation and cover:

1. Creating Your Reality
2. Living In Your Reality
3. Inviting Others Into Your Reality

In the meantime – if you are interested in a more in-depth/expanded conversation about Internal and External Locus of Control as covered in this newsletter series, specifically the Difference Between Rules and Standards and Taking Dominance and Control in Your Life, please join me for a live Zoom call next week Wednesday, October 6, 6:30-8pm.  We will review the key points of this newsletter and dive deeper into the conversation.

Register here.

And if there are specific questions you would like me to address, please send them to me at verlawade@gmail.com by Tuesday evening, October 5, 2021.

I am holding you in my heart.