"Controlled Chaos" is an Oxymoron, but...

Hi Front Porch friends!! I was chatting on Facebook with someone who referred to having controlled chaos" in their lives. This ol' fart couldn't help but point out that would be oxy-moronish. Thus began a further discussion, starting at the political level tehn going to the personal level.

Politically, Collectivists depend on chaos to create a demand for order, that order to be provided under their Statist boot. Time and time again, the strategy has worked and is now being implemented in our own backyard. I noted that Mises titled a tight little book PLANNED CHAOS which was about how collectivist regimes and would-be regimes actually created chaos so that they could take over' and restore 'order'---the opposite of chaos.

My only trivial distinction I wanted to make was that this chaos would be created, but not controlled. The order demanded by the beleauguered citizenry is the absence of chaos.

Then the subject turned to a personal observation. My friend said she experienced 'controlled chaos' in her own life. Then she made the mistake of inviting me to suggest a remedy. Prob'ly won't do that again!!

Here's what I said:


D***a, I understand firsthand. I'm no psychiatric counselor, but I do know many folks, perhaps including me, create their own chaos because that's when they are most comfortable. The lack of chaos is unfamiliar and frightening at a deep level.

This is a learned practice from childhood when we were powerless to deal with aspects of reality that clarity would require adddressing. To be comfortable with the chaos around us, we developed techniques to embrace it.

Prob is, as adults, we've internalized the process so that certain situations trigger this now sub-conscious response, For capable and responsible adults, it's an unnecessary, ineffective, even counter-productive, means of self protection and successful life navigation. It's a form of reality avoidance. It takes on many faces, the example of which closest to me in my life is hoarding. The subject 'knows' its destructive, but is compelled by deep-seeded childhood fears and non-adult coping methods to continue in spite thereof. It's a faux control mechanism. It's self-inflicted, though not 'controlled', chaos!

You asked for a remedy. Assuming you find this explanation plausible for yourself, counseling in this area is available. As with any other professions, there are good ocounselors, medioce counselors, and downight incompetent counselors.

Your first homework would be to do your due diligence on finding the right one for you. If you're like me, that was always 'too much work' and, besides, I was suspicious of a profession whose bread and butter seemd to consist of telling me I'm wonderful and that anything that's wrong with me is either my parents' or 'society's' fault. It took a brush with complete desperation, about 25 years ago, to spur me to action. I got very lucky.

25 years ago my relationship with my business partner, which had been incredibly successful , was crumbling. As was my relationship with my significant other of 17 years, and there was this new person I was totally in love with. And there were 2 children involved. Recipe for total dissolution. I was careening out of control with anxiety, depression, and actual fear that I'd be tempted to take my own life.

What I did not know, and previously would have laughed at, is that the groundwork for hitting the wall had been laid and forgotten WAY BACK when I was a very young child. I would learn that only when so desperate I made a call to a psychologist for help.

I vividly remember our first meeting. He greeted me at the elevator with a kind, boyish smile (no, I'm hetero...). We went into his office and he asked me maybe 2 or 3 questions. We couldn't have been more than 5 minutes before he said to me, "How long have you hated your parents?" I almost slugged him. I was in a great relationship with my parents and in fact when I would take time off from work we'd get together for wonderful, memorable times.

We quickly moved on from there. Later in the sessions, I recalled long forgotten, or blocked out, parental abuse which needed to be processed and forgiven.

Into the session, he used what later I would learn is Ericksonian hypnotherapy. Apparently, and gratefully, I'm a good subject for this method.

The theory behind Ericksonian hyponotherapy, as I later learned, was that the subconscious thinks in its own language, in particular, metaphors. It also serves to filter out the information coming in that would be counter to settled beliefs. Since the subconscious thinks in its own language, merely addressing it normally has little or no effect on its day to day decision processes. It is literally the gate-keeper to our most fundamnetal precepts and beliefs, and won't let contradictory 'information' in!

Otherwise, we'd have information overload. This explains 'blind spots', scatomas, and why two people can hear and see the same incident and take away contradictory information. In many ways, it explains why liberals seem so irrational, crazy, and impervious to reason.

Ericksonian hypnotherapy employs hypnosis to quiet the the noise, and metaphors to speak in the subconcscious' own language. Regardless of the accuracy of the explanation, for me, it worked starting immediately. My anxiety level went way down, and I was able to function normally in the weeks between sessions.

I had immediate results and my psychologist literally kicked me out of counseling after 10 weeks, saying I'm 'done' and he wouldn't take money from me for no reason. I was actually a little disappointed!!

Much of the message to the subconscious via metaphorical stories addresses the mind's tendency to keep and hoard old, useless, even dangerous stuff. A story might tell about a grandmother, who, upon passing, when her descendants went to her home to clear things away, found she had stored every grocery bag she ever had. Bundle after bundle, in her home. Even though such a collection was useless, consumed space and was a fire hazard.

The story message to the subconscious was "You're protecting stuff of which you should let go. You're running from childhood ghosts long since gone. Time to clean things up and make room for new and more useful information that you as an adult can use productively."

Mental junk manifests in life many ways. One of which is the creation of chaos when there is no need. Many folks, carrying these unidentified childhood practices into adulthood, are "lost" WITHOUT chaos. It can be liberating beyond imagination to get the help to rid one's self of these manifestations (not that your house will ever be immaculately clear of decades old residue.)

To repeat. I'm no expert. No professional. I may be simply lucky by coincidence that this method worked so well for me. Not eveyone's a good subject for hypnosis. There are many variables individually. However, somewhere within here may be a seed that you can plant to grow your own mental sanity and growth.

As I said, I got lucky---I got a really good counselor. It was by referral from another patient with a different problem they were addressing, and I had seen it 'work' for them.

If you would like to experience Ericksonian hypnotherapy on the cheap, at home, I subsequently discovered a tape series that I've used successfully from time to time with tangible results. It's author, and a gentleman I ultimately had the pleasure to meet and have speak at self- empowerment seminars our company used to have, is Dr. Lloyd Glauberman.

He employs a more fun, sophisticated approach in his recordings, which he calls hypno-peripheral processing. This is where he talks metaphorically to the subconscious with two different sets of delightful imagery, one in each ear (one of the nice things about this method is that there's no way to consciously pay attention. You tend to simply fall into light, rejuvenating sleeping until the end, when he gently awakens you.) Much fun, and those tapes literally prepped me on an occasion to deal with what would have otherwise been another crushing career moment... The tapes are reasonably priced, available through many sources including himself. GOOGLE if interested.


"Jack, this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do..." and I laughed! Talk about being in control!!