Edwin Friedman, who was an ordained rabbi and family therapist, weaves a fabulous fable about how little control we have over the way we attempt to control others. Here’s a summary of the fable: A woman wakes up one morning to find that her husband has turned into a caterpillar, and is curled up in the corner of the room on the floor next to a floor lamp. Often we will take drastic steps to become something we are not in order to resist being controlled. She prods the caterpillar, tries to reason with it to inquire about its needs, and decides to prepare a cardboard box with grass and leaves to ensure its safety when she would not be there to protect him. The caterpillar just turns into a ball of fur and refuses to talk or straighten out. Even though we have good intentions, sometimes a person just won’t cooperate or agree with our demands. Frustrated with his lack of responsiveness to her good intentions, the woman places the box on a high shelf in the closet and goes to visit a friend for a few days. Even though we try our best to take care of the needs of others, sometimes we need a break from all the responsibility of the relationship. During the woman’s stay at her friends home for three days she stops thinking about her husband, and all the work and responsibilities she must shoulder. She’s both relieved and ashamed of her having forgotten about him, but after tending to her own happiness, she returns home. Even though we may attempt to control others, it’s difficult to continually do so. The woman returns home after three days, greeted at the door by her husband in the flesh who says, “My God, where have you been? I thought I’d lost you!”
Sometimes others attempt to control our transformation, but it’s not their journey. We are however always in relationship to everything else in the universe. The desire to know who we are sometimes requires that we give up the notion that we are our bodies. Regardless of how we appear in this life, we are one spirit. When we give up the need to control, we see “others” as who they really are and are transformed by that awareness.