There are two loci of control in each of our lives – internal and external. The challenge is to evolve from an external locus of control to an internal one. Unfortunately, this kind of growth is the exception and not the rule. Most people find themselves stuck with an external locus of control their entire lives, because the pervasive cultural voices of ‘parents, teachers and preachers’ that control the first 18 years of life, infiltrate until they inform our very own thinking, feeling and behaving. As a result, we falsely believe we are living our own lives, but in fact we are just repeating the patterns of those before us, like a monotonous record stuck in an external locus of control.
I am now 58 and have only just shifted to an internal locus of control. This took something of a prison break, as portrayed in the brilliant movie ‘The Shawshank Redemption’. Prior to this, I was a typically institutionalized citizen – working hard, living by faith, and trusting that life would reward me for good and obedient service, not dissimilar to the prisoners awaiting parole. But all I was doing was letting time slip through my fingers and routine rob me of life. The crisis I needed to jolt me from my hypnotic slumber was prostate cancer and clinical depression.
It reminds me of a scene in the movie where the main character Andy, gets access to a gramophone player in the chief warden’s plush office, plugs it into the outdoor speakers, and plays a piece of classical music to the entire prison. To see these hardened, numbed and desensitized men, stopped in their robotic tracks and moved to tears by the sublime sound of music, was profound. And what moves in them is what moves in me and you and all of us – our hearts. My heart revealed that for my entire life, I had been living to please others, based on an external locus of control. As a result, I was sick and tired, and I knew escape from the prison of my own conditioned self was essential.
There is a lovely saying that ‘when the student is ready, the teacher arrives’. Fuck was I ready!?! And so, queue in Martha Beck, the author of ‘The Way of Integrity’, who completely blew my mind and my prison cell wide open. I started to fundamentally question everything I previously believed. At the same time, I reached out to people I sensed could help me reconnect with my true self and internal locus of control. I called the process, ‘nurturing my nature’, and amazingly and wonderfully, it worked! Now I feel a bit like Andy, liberated on a beach in Mexico running towards Red, his prison-mate who followed the trail Andy left, as they reunite in a wild embrace. I believe there is a way out for all of us and would love to show you how. If you are ready and need a soul guide for your great escape, please contact me – psychologist in Fourways.