Locust of Control
Yes, you read that right.
I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen a locust before. Thank goodness! With my massive fear of flying bugs (minus butterflies and moths), I would be screaming and running the other direction. If I came across a swarm of locusts, I would probably curl up into the fetal position and just give up. I happen to be a former bug catching kiddo. I used to be obsessed with all kinds of bugs, funny how far from that I have gone.
All that said, the punny side of my brain went straight to locust when I first heard about the Locus of Control. I am always up for a good pun, but what if it is more than a pun. Maybe a practical concept, so I decided to run with it.
The Locus of Control concept talks about how we perceive ourselves in relation to everything else in our life.
If we have an External Locust of Control, we are taking a more passive view on our lives. We are of the mindset that everything happens to us. Everything is a chance and nothing we do bears any difference on our life’s outcome. This is akin to being swarmed by locusts and saying, “Welp, guess this is what is happening today. (A locust starts to eat your shirt) Why does this always happen to me?” This mindset often leads to blaming others for what happens in our lives. This perspective takes no accountability or agency in their life. I think we can spot some problems with this perspective. I don’t know about you, but I am not about to just stand in the middle of a cloud of locusts if I don’t have to.
With the opposite concept of an Internal Locust of Control, we are taking an active view on our life. We are of the mindset that we are completely in control. We view our actions as directly impacting our reality. This can lead to taking accountability for everything, even things that we actually do not control such as the weather or who will win a game of the card game War (which I think we all played as kids). This is akin to being swarmed by locusts and your first thought is, “I didn’t realize my cologne was this attractive. They must be here because I smell so good.” I know that is a goofy example, but believing that you somehow had control over a swarm of locusts descending on your area is goofy as well.
So if neither an extreme external locust or extreme internal locust suits us, we must pull out a continuum! On one side we can write “Internal” and on the other side we can write “External.” This is where we can then envision what a healthy in-between may look like. This allows us to hold onto the healthy part of taking responsibility for our actions like with an internal locust of control and recognize the inherent chance built into some things that we have no control over.
In our example with the locusts, this is like noticing a swarm of locusts outside of your window. You do not think you caused them because you took agency over your choices, watched the news, and heard that it was that time again when the locusts wake up and start to swarm. Because you knew this, you chose to stay indoors. You realize that you have no control over the locusts swarming, but you do have control over the choice to leave your house.
Having this healthy perspective allows us to take strides to recover our health in ways we can and also drop a feeling of personal responsibility for events that happened to us that we had no control on. Hopefully this balance can bring us some closure and peace.
To help visualize this concept, I made a coloring page. Please feel free to share with anyone who may benefit from this resource. Feel free to use it in therapy. Please do not sell for personal profit. I am hoping this helps someone else feel a little more free as it has done for me. Sending this with love.
I also address the concept of the locus of control in this post along with another coloring page:
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