Yesterday I wrote about controlling behavior in relationships.  Today I'd like to share what it has looked like for me to change that behavior.  Let me just say it is a process.  I am in no way done but I do feel like progress has been made because I am experiencing healthy relationships and restoration in my life now.
 

My controlling behavior wasn't easily seen by me.  In fact, many years ago, when my counselor pointed it out to me, I denied it.  I told her I flat out disagree that I behave in such a way.  However, I could not get her words out of my head.  I thought about them for the next 2 weeks, until my next appointment.  It was during those two weeks that God began to soften my heart and open my eyes to the wounds I had caused in others and the timing was perfect.  You see, my counselor and I had already walked down the very, very difficult path of me discovering just how wounded I was from behaviors of abuse from my parents when I was a child.  In order to survive I disconnected from the feelings, from the pain.  No one told me how to do that, I just did it.  I believe it was one way God helped me to survive it.
 
I began to review my behavior in relationships.  It started with my husband and then with my siblings.  I have to tell you, once I discovered that I was causing pain in their lives, I was so very humbled and broken.  It didn't matter to me the severity.  I realized there wasn't any way for me to judge the severity without listening to the one I had wounded.  I began the process of restoration with them.  What that specifically looked like and continues to look like to this day is:
 
1.  I asked God for fogiveness.  I realized I had caused hurt to one of His children and I needed His grace.  Of course, He gladly extended it to me. :)
 
2.  I took action and arranged conversation to take place with those I had wounded and hurt by my controlling behavior.  This was a much more difficult step.  I know the mercy, grace, and unconditional love of God and I know He will extend it to me each and every time I ask.  Other people, on the other hand, that can be a huge unknown.  While we may strive to carry those same characteristics of God in our hearts, our humanness can get in the way of responding with those characteristics.  This step felt and can still feel very risky and uncertain.  However, I found as I humbly went to those I had wounded, they accepted me and even began to search their own hearts and began to apologize for the way they had wounded me.  It was amazing!
 
Now I'd like to share an element to this process that I have experienced and am trying to learn from.  When someone comes to me and tells me that I have wounded them, I have learned that it is vital that I respond in humility and take full responsibility for my behavior.  This is not always easy.  My first instinct is to defend myself.  I want to tell this person that they are being too sensitive.  When one of my sisters or my husband would try to come to me and tell me I had hurt them my first thought was, "I did not intend to hurt you, I would never intend that."  I remember saying numerous times that I just wish people could see my heart.  Then I connected with my own hurt which gave me empathy for their hurt.  I can not stress enough how important it is to grow in empathy for others!  I also had a passage of scripture come alive to me at this point; Jeremiah 17:9 & 10; "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?  I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings."(KJV).  The Message version of the Bible says this; "The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, a puzzle that no one can figure out.  But I, God, search the heart and examine the mind.  I get to the heart of the human.  I get to the root of things.  I treat them as they really are, not as they pretend to be." Then it clicked!  I can't even know my own heart, how can I expect others to know it.  Only God knows the heart.  This completely transformed my thinking!  I dropped expectations of others to just know that I didn't intend to hurt them.  I realized it doesn't matter whether or not I intended to hurt them.  The fact is my behavior, things I did and said, hurt them.  I learned and am still learning that when someone comes to me and tells me I have hurt them, this is an opportunity for us to grow our relationship.  I realized in the past, I saw this as a threat to the relationship and that's why I would get defensive.  I was so afraid of losing the relationship I didn't see how I was the one choking the life out it.
 
I will tell you that I have had others say the same to me.  "It is not my intent to hurt you".  If I apply that to anyone who has hurt me, then I am doing myself a huge disservice.  It really struck me on a whole new level when I applied that to my father.  I imagined him saying to me when I confronted him about molesting me, "Karen, I did not intend to hurt you.  Just keep in mind that my heart is for you and is to love you."  It just doesn't work.  What he might as well say is, "Your feelings don't matter.  I didn't intend to hurt you therefore you are overreacting and in the future, when I behave in abusive, controlling ways in our relationship, just remember that I don't intend to hurt you."  Can you imagine?  While I have not ever behaved as my father has to me, nor has anyone else behaved specifically to me as he did, the principle is the same.  If we hurt someone, we can not minimize their feelings.  Telling them to look at my heart or telling me to look at your heart minimizes feelings and healing and restoration can not happen.
 
I am learning how to be content in relationships and to let go.  Things are going to happen.  We are going to hurt each other.  Depending on the emotional state and maturity, it may mean losing the relationship.  I have learned that I do not have the right to try to control that.  All I can do is my best to behave in healthy and humble ways.  No matter how much I may not understand the hurt feelings I caused another, I have purposed to not minimize them.  I found this creates the environment for healing, restoration and growth.  It really is as easy as saying, "I am sorry I hurt you.  Please forgive me."  No justifications, no explainations; just sincere apology.