control is just fear in a prettier outfit- how to stop forcing + start flowing

i used to think that if i planned hard enough- got every detail in line, controlled every single piece of it- i could make life go exactly the way i wanted.

spoiler alert: that's not how it works. and trying got me burnt out and exhausted.

welcome to august, bestie. this is our monthly theme episode, and this month we're releasing control. i'm your control freak type-a big sister who has learned not to be a control freak anymore, and i want you to leave this episode ready to stop forcing and start flowing- not just for august, but all the way through the rest of the year.

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Transcript

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I used to think that if I planned hard enough, got every detail in line, controlled every single bit of something, of everything, that I could make life go exactly the way that I wanted it to. But unfortunately for me, spoiler alert, that's just not how it goes. That's just not how life works out. We cannot be in control of everything. As much as we try, as much as we want to, at the end of the day, we're only in control of very specific things, and most of the things that happen are not in our control. And truthfully, trying to be in control of everything has gotten me burnt out and absolutely exhausted. How about you? Are you also a control freak? I have definitely… I am definitely your control freak big sister who has learned to not be a control freak anymore. And I know time is just gonna fly by. It is the last full month of summer, and it's gonna fly by, and we're gonna go into the season of, like, the year again. I, I am still living on a high school, college year, by the way. Something about September just, like, kicks off this new year. Do you know what I mean? And this is kind of radical, but it feels like the right timing. It feels like we're kind of ahead of the game. But I'm asking you to release all control and to let go, to stop forcing things, and to just flow. And I know that that is usually what summer is about, but I'm asking you to take that so deeply with you throughout the month of August that we are going to continue to live our lives that way going into the rest of the year. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the Self Love Archives podcast. I'm your host, Julia Salvia, also known as your self-love bestie. And bestie, it's flow time. We're taking everything that we love about summer, that chill vibe, that soft summer flow, and we're, like, leaning into it this month. We're taking it with us into September again, the re- the remainder of the entire year. Because if there is one thing that I have learned being a control freak, control freak to control freak, is that you can't control everything. I wish we could. I wish I could wake up every morning and know exactly how the day is going to play out, but it's just, it's just not going to work like that. It's just… That's, that's life. I can't actually believe the weatherman when he says that it's going to rain today, because, um, it didn't. You know what I mean? Like, there are so many things that are just not in our control. By the end of this episode, I want you to stop forcing things, anything, relationships. I want you to stop forcing and start flowing. Start letting things fall into place the way that the universe is begging you to just let go and let it put things where they're supposed to go. It's like walking away from a puzzle that you've been trying so hard to figure out where all of the pieces go, but when you just take a step back And then you come back to it, you see things with new eyes. That feeling right there, that's how I want you to feel at the end of this episode. That's how I want you to feel throughout August. Okay, straight up, control is just fear wearing a prettier outfit. Hear me out. The need to control everything is fear like holding a planner in its hand being like, "This is how it's supposed to go. This is what I need to happen." And we grip it so hard in our hands because we don't want things to go a different way. I mean, our bodies, our psychology, our sociology, our whatever, whatever the right term is, like we're, we are uncomfortable with change. That is just a pure fact of like the human anatomy, the human body, human brain. Um, we're uncomfortable with change, so we're gripping onto this control because we want to know what to expect. We want to know what's going to happen. But what happens if you just let that go? What happens when you're just okay with if something doesn't go the right way? Like, what if you just loosen your grip and let the day pan out however it's going to go? Let the week go however it's going to go. Let the relationship go however it's going to go. What happens if you loosen your grip and let it flow? Control can feel safer. It can feel like safety. Put us in a box, wrap it up with a bow. We know what's going to happen because all we can see around us is that box. But what if- Something goes in a completely different, amazing direction. You're not gonna know,'cause you're sitting in that box with the bow on top. So as much as we think that control is keeping us safe, I think that it's also just keeping us rigid and full of anxiety, and it just blocks the good stuff that we aren't prepared for. So right now, where are you gripping on to fear? Where are you gripping so tight where, that you could, you could loosen it just a little bit? Let me share a story with you that I think might help you put this into perspective. So I had a friend who was in a relationship with this guy, and this guy had a very, very bad habit, and she kept trying to control this bad habit of his, like letting him know when he could do it and when he shouldn't do it, and getting judgy or mad when he would do it. If you haven't already guessed, the habit was something not so great, and in this case, it was smoking. And she really hated this habit. In her opinion, this was just disgusting and horrible, and just not something that she liked. So as she's sharing all of this with me and showing me text messages and giving me all the rhetoric that she's shared with him and just complaining about this issue, I said, "Let me provide you with a different perspective. Take a step back. My opinion aside, your opinion aside, you can't control what he does. But here's something really important to note. What are your boundaries when it comes to this, this thing?" Right? If you completely let go of all control, because again, you can't control what he does, this bad habit is completely in his control, but you can take a step back and ask yourself, is this bad habit affecting you? Or, and/or is this bad habit affecting your relationship together? For example, are you, you know, going out to dinner and he has to leave two to three times during dinner to go outside to smoke? Or is he smoking in the house and it's making everything, you know, smell bad and making the space that you both live in uncomfortable? So If we release all of control, all of the control because we know that this is something that we can't control, we can then start to ask ourselves the more important questions. Now, let's say that none… that this bad habit wasn't getting in the way of their relationship, and it wasn't affecting her directly. Then the question to ask is, is this something that you maybe don't value? Is it like a red flag? Is it something that you are just not open to or open to dealing with or handling? And if it, maybe it is, but only to a certain extent, like someone who drinks alcohol, let's say. Are you looking for a relationship with someone who drinks alcohol moderately or rarely ever? But if it gets out of hand, then maybe it's a question of, okay, this is something for me that I don't want in my relationship with a friend or a partner, whomever, that, or something that I just don't want to be around. So you're taking the whole control aspect out of it and looking at this point blank from not a selfish perspective, but just like a self perspective, a self-awareness perspective. Because in most cases, I think that this is what we're always trying to have control over, is trying to have control over something that someone else does because we're scared. I mean, in this case, like I, for, for this friend of mine, I would be scared, too. This person is smoking all of the time, and we know that's linked to extremely bad health, and that can be a really scary realization, so we're trying to take control of it because we feel as though the person that we care about isn't. But unfortunately, if we just release control, we can then start to ask ourselves the better questions to understand how to move forward while also being aware and validating to this fear of ours Flexibility is a superpower. It is a superpower that I, most days, I'm not gonna say all days, that I uphold. If I had a Girl Scout vest on, flexibility. Loves change. Open to anything, open to everything. It's a superpower because you have the ability to adapt if something were to happen. Whether something goes wrong, something deletes, or something goes amazingly right, or an opportunity comes your way, you have the ability to be flexible enough to look at it with such a clear head. With a clear head and a clear mind, ask yourself the right questions, and decide how you're going to move forward, or decide how you're going to pivot and adapt. A cute little example, 'cause we're in soft girl summer. The reason why palm trees can actually survive a storm, a hurricane, most times, is because they're able to be flexible, is because they are able to bend with the winds. But the more rigid ones, they snap, and they break, and they can't withstand the storm. But the ones that were and had the flexibility were prepared for anything to happen. What would happen if you were more flexible? What would happen if you weren't so rigid in your schedule or in your day-to-day? What would that look like for you? We can see this type of flow and flexibility as, like, surrendering and almost, like, failing to actually get shit done, and that's coming from someone who works so extraordinarily well on a rigid routine. Like, if my morning could be the exact same way every single day, chef's kiss. But instead of being unrealistic, because truthfully, that's unrealistic. It's unrealistic that I'm gonna wake up at the exact same time, the workout class I go to is gonna go the exact same way, that my schedule for the rest of the day is going to be the exact same way, and let's not even get started about my hormones, my cycle. That changes, so sometimes I have more energy than other times. But when I started to lock in my routines, like my morning routine, but still leave room for flexibility… For example, today. Today I came home, and I, I was leaving the gym, and as I'm sitting at a traffic light, I was thinking about what I have for breakfast, and we're out of a yogurt that I've been eating. And I was trying to go through all the different things that I had to eat when I got home, and I was like, "There's nothing. There's nothing. Can I just take 20 minutes? The grocery store's right here. Can I just run in? My mindset is just breakfast. I will just grab a couple of things, and I will make this." And honestly, I had a great breakfast this morning. But in that small way, I was allowing myself to be flexible rather than rigid on… Rather than letting it completely ruin my whole day that I didn't have the same meal that I've been eating for the past, like, week for breakfast in my refrigerator, I allowed it to be a little more fun. And instead of a little yogurt parfait this morning, I had an avocado toast, and it was so good. And sometimes it's just those small things that you approach calmly without getting so worried about,"Oh, this is gonna fuck up my day," or, "Oh my God, this is gonna ruin everything," or, "Oh my God, this is this, that, the other thing." When we can just approach a situation calmly without the fear of everything breaking down, everything going wrong- I really believe that we can find the way forward. Whether it's as simple as just switching up your breakfast for the morning or changing your route towards something, changing your goal towards something, changing your visual, pivoting, whatever it may be, it allows you to move forward with flow, with ease. And when it comes to the bigger picture, you can be so devoted and focused on your dreams, on all of your goals, while also being flexible about how and what and where the path leads to actually get there. You're still gonna get there. You're still gonna reach your goals. You're still gonna have everything you could've ever imagined. But if you can just let go of control, release control, and be more flexible about what it takes to get there, the timing, the work, the details, the people, it's going to be so much easier to get there. It can be really difficult to actually practice being in flow and letting go of control, especially when it comes to our relationships, especially when it comes to things that we really care about. So I have an idea. What I want you to do is I want you, one of these days coming up this month, I want you to completely block out the whole schedule for it to just be a day. I want this day to be a we'll figure it out day. And I want you to be able to trust yourself with whatever comes your way on this day. As always, during our monthly theme episodes, I give you some journal prompts that you can work with throughout the month to, in this case, release and let go of control. Are you ready? The first one, where in my life am I gripping the tightest right now, and is it control that I'm feeling or fear that I'm avoiding? Number two, when have I let go of a plan before and had things work out differently, even better than you imagined? What did that teach you about trust, especially trust within yourself? And number three, what's one area where I could practice never force, always allow this month? And what would loosen my grip there actually look like? What would loosening my grip there actually look like? Okay. That's everything that I have for you today. Thank you so much for hanging out with me and for going with the flow. Cheers to going with the flow. I really, really hope that you can find at least one day to let it be a we'll figure it out day or find multiple days for a we'll figure it out day. I love doing a day like that where you have a couple of things in mind that you wanna do. You pick, like, two, and you don't have any specific times, nothing specific about it. You're just like, "We'll figure it out." And I feel like sometimes those are the best days, and you find the coolest experiences or the… You have just the most fun. So I hope you get a lot of those days this month, and I hope you take everything that I provided to you in this August theme episode, and you keep it with you until the end of the year. As always, make sure to leave your questions, comments, reviews in the description down below. There's a link you can actually tap, and you can leave anything. If you want advice on something, if you wanna be featured in an episode, give us everything and anything. We also have this thing called… we're calling the Self Love Hotline, so if you leave us something that you need advice on, we will actually give it to you through the Self Love Hotline. Ring, ring. Really excited for that to roll out as we go into the rest of the summer and 2026. But I'm so excited for August, and I am so excited for you to be in flow with life. I will see you next time. Same place, same time, same day, 12 o'clock Eastern Time, Sunday. I love you, and I'll see you then. Bye.