Beyond the Illusion: Why Control Is Costing You Your Peace

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Freedom awaits beyond the grip of control. Drawing from raw personal experience, I explore how the desperate need to control our circumstances, relationships, and even our pain becomes the very prison that holds us captive.

Control is seductive because it promises safety in an uncertain world. We believe if we push hard enough, manipulate the right people, or fight the right battles, we'll secure what matters most. Yet this episode reveals the costly paradox at play: the tighter we grip, the more everything slips through our fingers. From politics to personal relationships, from business leadership to recovery journeys, controlling behavior consistently sabotages the very outcomes we seek.

My own story serves as both warning and hope. For years, control ruled my life as I micromanaged loved ones and used substances to control emotional pain. The breakthrough came not from controlling more effectively but from surrendering the illusion altogether. This surrender wasn't weakness—it was finally seeing reality clearly and claiming responsibility for the only thing truly within my power: my responses and choices in each moment.

The journey beyond control reveals surprising truths: that people who trigger us often mirror our own control issues; that leadership flourishes through trust rather than micromanagement; that recovery begins when we stop trying to control pain through substances. Most profoundly, we discover that love without freedom isn't really love at all—it's fear wearing a convincing disguise.

What might change if you loosened your grip on what you can't control and focused instead on what you can? Your journey toward freedom might begin with a simple question: what's one place in your life where surrendering control—just for today—might bring unexpected peace?

Share your thoughts in a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and join us next Friday as we continue exploring the path toward authentic living.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast.
I'm your host, corey Barrier,and today we're going to be
talking about the illusion ofcontrol.
What is control?
Well, my story with control isthat for years, control ruled my

(00:28):
life.
I tried to control people,outcomes, conversations, and the
harder I gripped, the morethings slipped away.
You know, when I wasn't inrecovery, the control I
exhibited was disturbing, it wascostly, it damaged my

(00:49):
relationships.
It left me completely andutterly drained.
So let me upset.
Why do you think that is?
Is it possible that you feelout of control?

(01:13):
You know, control is anillusion.
It feels real, but most of thetime it's just an illusion.
We think if we push hard enough, manipulate the right people or
fight the right battles, we'llbe safe.

(01:34):
But in all reality it gives usanxiety Because we can't
actually control much outside ofourselves.
What does that tell you aboutwhere your peace comes from?

(01:55):
So I'll give you a polarizingexample Politics.
Politics is a perfect exampleand, regardless of your ideology
or which side probably getsunder your skin, what can you

(02:16):
actually do about the politicallandscape?
Who's in office, who's not inoffice?
Who's in office, who's not inoffice?
Well, you could vote, you canmaybe volunteer, you can maybe
donate money, but really, forthe average person, what can you
really do?
Yet I've watched people explodewith rage online page.

(02:43):
Online, people get so upsetabout whether it's this person
or that person in office.
And why do you think that is?
Well, it strikes a nerve, andthat nerve is usually fear, fear
of losing control or fear oflosing something valuable.
But here's the kicker Whetheryou get furious or whether you

(03:08):
get thrilled, it doesn't reallychange the outcome.
All it changes is how you feelin the moment.
You know, and that's the trap.
Like feelings versus factsthat's the trap.
Like feelings versus factsthat's the trap.
Control is about feelings, andfeelings are not facts.

(03:31):
So when you feel in control,what happens?
Your shoulders drop, you relax.
When you feel out of control,you panic.
But feelings don't equal thetruth.
They're just signals, andsometimes the signal's wrong.
And so you've got to payattention or you want to pay

(03:55):
attention really to how controlshows up in your life.
Is it control in relationships?
Because in a relationship,control is poison, especially
romantic relationships, parentrelationships, your son, your
daughter.
You can't really control them.
You can certainly try I used totry to control the people that

(04:19):
I loved and what they did andhow they thought and who they
spent time with, what they didand how they thought and who
they spent time with.
And every time I did thatrelationship eroded, every
single time.
Because love without freedomisn't love, it's fear with a
mask on.
That's what it is.
Maybe you're thinking aboutcontrolling in your business.
Well, I have to control mybusiness for it to be successful

(04:46):
.
In business, control shows upas being a dickhead micromanager
and not trusting your team,trying to own every single
detail and, ironically, thetighter you grip, the worse
people perform.
You know this.
Why do you think that is?
Because control killscreativity and responsibility.

(05:09):
Leaders who control lose.
Leaders who trust their teamgrow.
Let's talk about control inrecovery.
In addiction, control is a lie.
I thought I could control howmuch I drank.

(05:31):
I thought I could control whonoticed.
I thought I could control theconsequences, but the truth is,
the addiction controlled me.
The addiction controlled me andmy recovery began the moment I
admitted I'm not in control.

(05:52):
That's a hard, hard pill toswallow for somebody like me.
So, when you think about themirror of control, so here's a
question why do certain peopledrive you crazy?

(06:14):
Why does that one coworker orthat one family member get under
your skin, often becausethey're mirroring something
inside of you.
It's called a mirror for areason.
A mirror in sales is when youdo the same thing that the other
person's doing, so they likeyou.
If there's something botheringyou, then there's something

(06:35):
inside of you that you'reuncomfortable with.
The arrogance reflects your ownarrogance.
If you think about the personthat you think, oh, they're just
such an arrogant SOB.
Hmm, you may want to look inthe mirror If that person that

(07:00):
we're talking about, theircontrol, reflects your control.
If you see this, your boss orthis person in your life, that's
controlling and it just drivesyou insane.
I've been there.
It's probably something insideof you.
So what if, instead you?
What if, instead of you tryingto change them, what if, instead

(07:21):
of you trying to change them,you ask what is it that's
showing up about me in thissituation?
That's a hard pill to do.
That's a hard pill to swallow.
That's something.
I've had to look inward a bunchof times and it's not easy to do

(07:43):
.
But being in recovery, you haveto look at yourself.
You have to look at what isyour part, and I always have a
part in everything, no matterhow it may look on the outside,
I have a part in everything.
So I had to let go of control,because being in control is

(08:08):
costly, it's expensive, it costsyou your peace, your trust,
your energy.
The more I tried to control,the more exhausted I became.
Can you identify with that?
And yet, the moment I startedletting go, I felt lighter.

(08:32):
I didn't lose power, in fact, Igained freedom.
And you know, what can youactually control?
You can't control politics, youcan't control people, you can't
really control outcomes.
But you can always control yourresponse.
And when you focus there onyour choices, your reactions,

(08:52):
your responsibility, then youfind real power.
And this is a tough one.
You know when you're, you knowwhen you're listen to this and

(09:16):
you look at the things that youactually can control and can't
control.
That's not an illusion, that'sjust the reality of the truth.
So a lot of people think, well,I have to control, control and
can't control.
That's not an illusion, that'sjust the reality of the truth.
So a lot of people think, well,I have to control this thing
because they don't feel like.
They feel like like, if theysurrender to this, they
surrender to this thing, thatthat's given up.

(09:37):
But surrender is not given up.
It's recognizing the whatreality is.
It's saying what reality is.
It's saying this isn't mine tocontrol, but I will own what is
mine.
And that shift changeseverything.

(09:58):
Relationships heal, stressdrops and peace grows.
So there's freedom beyond thecontrol.
So let me just say this Control, it's not a feeling, as I
mentioned it's.
I'm sorry, control is a feelingbut it's not a fact.
You don't need to waste yourlife gripping at what you can't

(10:19):
hold.
Instead, maybe open your handup a little bit, quit clenching
your fist and own your part andlet go of the rest.
Because the moment you start,the moment you stop trying to
control everything outside ofyou, is the moment that you're
going to start feeling more freeon the inside.
And when I look back atdrinking and drugs, you know

(10:47):
that was my way of trying tocontrol what I couldn't handle.
I tried to control my pain inthe present, try to control
memories of the past.
I tried to control fears aboutthe future.
The bottle was the steeringwheel for me.
The drugs were my protection,but but they weren't really

(11:08):
control, they were escape.
It was, you know, and the.
The price that of escape wasway higher than I ever imagined.
Think about it.
Why do you reach for a pill ora drink or a hit or whatever it
is you do it's because in thatmoment the world feels

(11:31):
overwhelming.
Then substances promise youcontrol.
It'll either dull that, thatmemory of the past, it'll soften
what's coming up in the future,or it silences what's in the
present.
But here's the lie.
Those substances don't eraseanything, they just push pause.

(11:55):
And when that pause ends thepain is still there.
It's heavier than ever actually, because now you've added a
level of shame and regret.
So I wonder what pain are youtrying to control and what would
it feel like if you stoppedrunning from it?

(12:17):
You know so much of these thingstrace back to childhood trauma.
When we're kids and we'repowerless, we make silent
agreements with ourselves,covert contracts.
As some people say I'll neverlet anybody hurt me again and
I'll stay in control.

(12:37):
But as adults, those survivaltactics backfire.
The drink becomes your new mask, the drug becomes a way to
control.
It's like a lever of control,and the whole time we're running
from the same wound.

(12:59):
And here's the paradox.
Recovery isn't aboutcontrolling more, it's about
surrendering.
It's about surrendering theillusion that you can control
pain with a substance,surrendering that lie that you
can out-drink your past orout-snort your fear of the

(13:21):
future, or out snort your fearof the future.
Recovery starts when you stopgripping the wheel.
That isn't even connected toanything and in that surrender
you find the only control thatmatters control over your

(13:44):
choices in the moment.
So try to reframe that control.
I mean, we try to reframe thatcontrol in recovery.
In recovery, you know, controllooks different.
You don't try to control otherpeople, you control your honesty
with that other person.
You don't try to control thepast, you control the

(14:05):
willingness to face it.
You don't control the future,you control the next right step.
And that's real power, that'sreal freedom.
And the truth is, the more Itried to control with alcohol,
the more control alcohol hadover me.
And the moment I surrendered Ibegan to kind of reclaim myself,

(14:26):
if you will.
So if control is the threadrunning through addiction,
politics, relationships,business, recovery, here's what
I know for a fact that controlis an illusion, recovery is

(14:50):
reality.
And freedom isn't found ingripping a tighter, it's found
in letting go.
So I'm going to leave you withthis what's one place in your
life where you're still tryingto control the uncontrollable?
And what would it feel like ifyou surrendered just for today,

(15:17):
because the moment you stoptrying to control your pain with
substances is the momenthealing can begin.
Thank you guys for listening.
Please leave us a review onApple Podcasts or Spotify and
we'll see you next Friday.