Control Issues? Me too. Let’s chat.
I am no stranger to control.
You might relate.
Me and control go way back.
Control has worn many outfits in my life — perfectionism, over-responsibility, disordered eating patterns, needing to be right, and over-functioning to name a few.
There is deep relational context to it. I grew up in addiction, narcissism, and mental, emotional, and psychological instability. In that kind of environment, control becomes an intelligent strategy. Control becomes a way a young nervous system tries to create safety when safety is not consistently available. You might relate.
When love or attention is conditional, hyper-vigilance increases. When chaos is present, the body adapts by tightening and the psyche attempts to experience safety by exerting power-over tactics and by hyper-focusing on thoughts and behaviors it can repeatedly do.
What Is Control?
Control is an attempt to create safety, stability, and predictability by ensuring things go a certain way. Control is your power to direct, restrain, or influence people, things, and outcomes.
Somatically, control often looks like contraction and feels like tightness.
A tight, tense, or locked jaw.
A braced, heavy, or palpitating sensation in the chest.
A contraction of the diaphragm or belly.
A tight and tense upper back.
Healthy Control and Unhealthy Control
Control is when external factors, people or groups direct the behaviour of people and things. Control is not inherently bad or wrong. There is healthy control and unhealthy control.
Healthy control sets boundaries and limits that ensure safety and well-being.
If I’m driving a car, I need control of the steering wheel.
If I’m parenting, I need to set limits for my children.
If I’m holding space for a client, I need to be able to provide structure.
Unhealthy control is the attempt to manage outcomes, people, or circumstances so that we can feel okay inside.
Healthy control, rooted in ensuring wellness and safety, says: “Your bedtime is 8pm” because I know my 5-year-old needs their rest and needs me to set limits for them.
Unhealthy control, rooted in fear, unconsciously communicates: “You need to change your behavior so that I can feel safe.”
The line gets crossed when control shifts from safety to superiority — when I believe my way is the right way and yours must conform to mine. That’s not my regulated adult self speaking. That’s a younger part of me who once felt unsafe and is now trying to prevent that feeling at all costs.
What Control Prevents Us From Experiencing
There comes a point in our lives when we realize our old ways of controlling are really stunting our human experience and preventing us from experiencing the fullness of life. The strategy we developed to create safety is now blocking the very thing we most long for.
When I try to control your behavior — how you speak, how you feel, how you move, how you grow — I unintentionally block:
Connection
Spontaneity
Reciprocity
Intimacy
Creative flow
True co-created safety
Control often traces back to attachment wounds — environments where love felt conditional, unpredictable, or unsafe. To some of us, the idea of letting go of control feels very scary and very foreign. Because that young part of us that is trying to feel safe by controlling doesn’t know who she is / they are without control. It’s often existential in that way — an ego death of sorts.
The New Experience You’re Longing For
By releasing control, you are calling in a new experience rooted control’s complementary qualities:
Softening
Flexibility
Tolerance for discomfort
Allowing mess
Not knowing
Letting others be different
Trusting the natural order of things
These qualities require nervous system capacity. They require us to feel sensations we once avoided. They require us to grieve our old identities
How Do We Begin Releasing Control?
One of my mentors in graduate school always said to us, “Kind and gentle.” Releasing control is not an overnight process. We never want to go hard and fast with identity shifts. We want to go slow and steady.
If you have access to a therapist, I highly recommend doing Internal Family Systems’ parts work with this control part.
If control has been your ally, we do not exile it.
We get curious about it.
We ask:
What are you protecting me from?
What do you believe would happen if you loosened your grip?
A Practice for Releasing Control & Embracing Trust & Flexibility
1.) Be the neutral observer of your experience.
2.) When you notice yourself wanting to control, observe with curiosity and neutrality.
3.) Pray. Ask the Universe / Spirit for help (i.e. “Universe / Spirit, I am feeling so triggered by this persson’s way of living and I want them to change so that I can feel safe. I recognize this is controlling. I am willing to see this differently. Please help me to see this through your eyes.”).
4.) Ask yourself any of the following, depending on the situation:
What would flexibility look like in this moment?
What would releasing control look like in this moment?
Where is the middle ground here?
What is one small baby step that I can take in this moment?
What is one small act of trust I can practice right now?
If you’d like a daily practice, this guided body scan for grounding and inner safety is a fantastic one to support you with releasing control, because it steadily teaches the body safety:
Real-Life Examples of Releasing Control
For high-functioning, self-aware, spiritually attuned individuals like you, releasing control often looks like allowing. It’s subtler; quieter; bravery in small behind-the-scenes moments. Here are some examples:
Sending the text without perfecting it.
Letting your partner have a mood without managing it.
Saying, “When you’re ready, I’d love to talk,” instead of over-explaining your feelings to prevent misunderstanding.
Letting someone else do it their way instead of taking responsibility for their performance.
Letting your tears flow, instead of trying to analyze your feelings.
Sitting with uncertainty instead of trying to figure out why something is happening.
Not doing in an instance you would normally do the most.
Releasing decades-long patterns is a journey of steadily applying the nourishing qualities curiosity, compassion, care, and connection. Be kind and gentle with yourself.
Work With Me
If you’ve been quietly longing for a therapist who can hold both psychology and spirituality…who understands the nervous system and the soul…who sees symptoms as intelligent, not defective…and who integrates somatic therapy, nervous system regulation, and depth-oriented psychotherapy, I invite you to schedule a free consultation.
With care,
Heather
