What we can learn about control from a rubber band

If you think of your family/household as a “system” of interdependence, you’ll recognize that when one part of the system changes, the rest of it will be forced to change in response. A good metaphor for this is if you picture a group of people in a circle holding onto a large taut rubber band. As everyone leans back, the tension in the band increases. Even if one person lets go of the tension that binds everyone together, the others will inevitably have to rebalance their relationship to one another and to the rubber band (the “system.”)

We may not be able to demand that others change, but we can change ourselves. It’s not easy to relinquish a power struggle or “take the high road” towards reconciliation when in conflict with someone who is unwilling to bend, but you may be surprised at how powerful a change in how you speak or react to others can be in shifting the dynamics among you.

~Susan Epstein, The Woolfer

There you are. Quarantined with the person who broke your heart. Trapped in so many ways. Fighting to breathe through the brain. If betrayal is excruciating, betrayal while forced to remain in your home is exponentially harder. And yet...there you are. 

Let me begin by simply saying, I see you. I see your pain and I see your desperation and I know well the shattering you're experiencing. 

I, of course, had access to a therapist, to my mother, to the day-to-day routine that can give shape to our lives in the midst of an explosion within them. You likely don't. Instead, you are unable to visit parents or adult siblings or friends who might be able to offer comfort. You are unable to seek distraction in work outside your home (unless you aren essential worker, which, right now, only adds more stress to your lives no matter how grateful the rest of us are for your service).

If you are a anything like I, you feel helpless and suffocated by pain at a time when you are being called on to support your children through their own stress, to find meaning in long days and longer nights, to imagine a time when this will be a memory.

Which is why I took note of what therapist Susan Epstein wrote. The entire article is worth your time (and includes links to online group therapy supports and access to domestic violence helpline, though you have to subscribe to read it) but, in particular, Epstein reminds us that we have more power than we might recognize. 

It's a theme we return to on this site, again and again. You cannot control anyone else. But you can control you. That's what Epstein is telling us with her rubber band analogy. If we stop leaning back, the tension in the rubber band shifts.

What does that look like in real life? Maybe it looks like you refusing to be silenced when he says "aren't you ever going to get over this?" Maybe it looks like you walking away when he picks a fight instead of taking the bait. Or maybe it has way less to do with responding to him and a whole lot more to do with your own healing, with transforming how you show up in the world. 

Because – let's say it again – that's really all any of us can control in this world.

And maybe that's the lesson held in this time of quarantine. That so much of the control we think we have is an illusion. That something minute and invisible to the naked eye can alter our world. It's a lesson delivered on D-Day. It's a lesson that shows up in so many parts of our lives and yet the vast majority of us resist it, refuse it. 

But here's what's also important to note: What we can control – ourselves – come sometimes be enough to generate change around us. Not by demanding it or forcing it, but by our own shift, which ripples out to others. 

It's something I've noticed in my own quarantined family of five. When I take steps to manage my own emotions, those around me seem better able to manage their own. When I refuse to participate in drama, the drama tends to fizzle out. To put it another way, it takes two to tango and I can either put on my dancing shoes or sit it out. 

So yeah, it sucks to be confined to our homes. It sucks that we can't see friends, therapists, our favorite barista. And it absolutely sucks to be betrayed. But while we're in forced confinement with the person who hurt us most, we can begin our own healing, which starts with acknowledging that all we can control is ourselves. And that will be enough.