Do you have control issues?

I don't think I know anyone (especially myself) who doesn't have control issues.

Last week I wrote about some of the ways my nervous system tries to create certainty and safety. It's easy for me to slip into those old habits and patterns - thinking that if I'm more productive, do things the "right" way, or have a plan for exactly how things will unfold, that will somehow make me better, more successful, more fulfilled, more...

How do you find certainty in an uncertain world?

• doing everything yourself?

• micromanaging others?

• deciding who's right and who's wrong?

• having a low tolerance for when plans change, or things don't happen as you think they should?

Now, before you start judging yourself, I want to remind you that you didn't just wake up one day and decide to have control issues.

And you didn't consciously choose your default reactions to stress and feeling out of control.

You learned them from someone.

What behaviours were modelled to you by your parents, or the people you spent the most time with when you were a child? How did they react to stress? What behaviours did they inherit from their parents?

When I was learning to drive, I remember my father telling me, "Don't start the car until you know the route you're going to take." (This of course was in the days long before GPS). His intent (I believe) was to keep me safe by making sure I had a plan - solid advice for a new driver. Having that plan in my head helped me stay on course through the distractions of top 40 radio and teenage friends as I manoeuvred a giant Oldsmobile through the city streets.

I'm sure having my route mapped out ahead of time has made me a safer driver. In a landscape of multiple variables and unknowns, it was one thing I could be certain about.

But my nervous system created a relationship between having a plan and being safe - and each time I mapped out a route in my head, it hard-wired the neural pathway of "need to know where I am" in my brain. Taking a detour, just to see where a road might lead, became uncomfortable to me. And being lost, not knowing exactly where I was, where I wanted to be and how to get there? Almost intolerable.

This hard-wiring makes me an excellent navigator, but it is a control issue that has made me less resilient than I'd like to be around coping with the unknown, with new situations and people.

I look with admiration and envy at people who are spontaneous and able to adapt easily when plans change.

The safety around planning is still a deeply hard-wired neural pathway - it's never going to go away - but that doesn't mean I have to hate it for the ways it gets in my way.

I have the tools to calm my nervous system when I'm in an unfamiliar place or situations; I get to thank my nervous system for keeping me safe, and then create a wider safety net - one that becomes a springboard for seeking out new people and experiences because of all the ways I know they feed me.

• What are the ways you create safety for yourself?

• How do they help you? How do they limit you?

• What helps you when you're feeling stressed, unsafe or out of control?

• What would it feel like to thank your nervous system for keeping you safe? (even especially if that's something you'd like to change about how you react to stress)

I've said it before, but it bears repeating:

Experiencing stress doesn't mean you're broken.

It's a sign your nervous system is doing what it's supposed to do to keep you safe. And you can change the way you respond to stress - not from your head, but from your body.

Curious to learn more? Book yourself in for a 30-minute conversation. I'd love to hear how stress shows up in your life.