What's your relationship with control?

Letters From The In-Between: What's Your Relationship With Control?

​Vanessa Santos

🎧 Listen for the live read of this letter + a reflection at the end: Spotify and Apple.

{{ subscriber.first_name }}, I wrote this while sitting in the ER with Elvis. He's okay now. He's home and doing what Frenchies do when they've scared the absolute life out of you, acting completely unbothered while I sit next to him trying to remember how to breathe normally.

We have no control of the moments that take our breath away, good or bad.

We have no control when we step out of our homes.

We barely have control inside them.

And I keep learning this lesson because I have spent most of my life creating a false sense of control because control felt like safety.

Raise your hand if you are still are trying to keep it all under control. 🙋🏽‍♀️

If I could plan for every outcome, manage every perception, anticipate every way something could go sideways, I could stay safe. I could keep the peace. I could protect the people I love and not need anything from anyone in return.

What I didn't understand then is that control isn't safety.

👉🏼 Control is fear with a to-do list. And I loved to-do lists.

And the Universe, God, Source, is clearly not done teaching me things, and has a very specific sense of humor about this. Because every time I grip tighter, something finds a way to make me open my hands… and my heart.

This week with Elvis, a small fortune in vet bills later, I am sitting here realizing that I could not think or control my way out of this one.

I could not plan for it, fix it, or force it into a different outcome. I just had to feel it. The spiral, the emotional crash out I had at the vet’s ER room, the helplessness. The specific terror of loving something that small and that dependent and not being able to do anything but trust someone else to help.

Here's the real side of control that we don’t talk enough about:

We don't try to control things because we're difficult. We try to control things because at some point being out of control was genuinely dangerous.

For some of us it was a home where small things became explosions and the only way to survive was to track every variable and manage every outcome before it could manage us.

For some of us it was loving people who were unpredictable.

For some of us it was being a body in the world that learned early it wasn't entirely safe.

Control was the adaptation to our survival. It worked and it kept us intact.

And then we grew up and carried it into everything. Our work, our relationships, our businesses, our view of ourselves and how others see us.

I was on the Beauty Manifest podcast (watch the episode here) with my brilliant friend Melinda recently and even in that conversation, with someone I trust completely, I felt it. The pull to manage. To not disappoint. To perform just enough presence that no one could see the part of me that still doesn't fully trust that being seen ends well.

How many times have you approached a situation with an open heart only to be emotionally manipulated or gaslit? And that makes you just a bit more cautious.

I said the things that make me cry every time. 🥹

Because we are no longer trying to live a life that pleases everyone else but ourselves. No, because if you are here, you are building a life that feels right to you.

And Melinda said something we should all remember: If we're doing this life thing right, we're not going to be the same person tomorrow.

You cannot become her while you are still gatekeeping the current version of yourself.

To be loyal to your future self, discomfort is required. Lack of control is required. The version of you that is coming, the one with the vision finally out in the world, the idea no longer living in your notes app, the life that actually fits the soul wearing it.

She was not built in the safe, controlled, predictable version of your story.

So, If you are here, these are the rules we live by:

No more gatekeeping yourself.

No more silencing yourself.

No more overcorrecting yourself before the world even gets the chance to respond.

Stop trying to control what people think of you when you know who you are.

Before I go back to hold my boys, I want to express a word for the women who showed up this month:

The ones who held me in Medellín without making it a performance. The ones who check in on a random Tuesday because they felt like I needed it. The ones who don't need me to be the version everyone expects. The ones who texted me prayers, asked if I’ve eaten, DM’d, lit a candle, sent Elvis love. The ones who send voice notes that could be entire podcast episodes. The ones who let me reply when I have the space. The ones who read my letters and shared truths of their own. Thank you.

That is what women do for each other when we stop performing.

Because women with more resources, more health, more access, more power, more inner peace, don't just change their own lives. They change everything around them.

That is the world I am building. A world where women stop performing, stop perpetuating perfection to be palatable, and instead are whole and helping other women get there too. I'm building it in real time. You're watching it happen.

💌 The next letter is about the hard knock lessons we learn in adulthood. What's yours? Reply and tell me, or click here - I'll include it in the next letter (anonymous, always).

Until the next letter.

Vanessa

UPDATES + LINKS: 🧘🏽‍♀️ 📹

→ Melinda and I talked about all of this on the Beauty Manifest podcast: control, gatekeeping, what it looks like to stop performing safety and start living free. Watch here.

→ If you're going to be in LA this Saturday, join Wellness For The People for an afternoon of healing, movement and connection. Get your ticket here.

→ Decision Sprints for April are now open. This is part soul excavation, life planning and business + career strategy in one session. This is for the bold ones.

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→ Our next Glow Up session is April 16th. My free monthly gathering for the most badass, courageous women, who are no longer playing small and are setting themselves free. Sign Up here.

→ I’m joining forces with a dear friend to curate an experience within a much larger, massive conference. I’ll make an announcement soon where you can get tickets and apply to be a vendor.

These letters are for women and allies who refuse to erase themselves on the way to success.

But if it is, welcome to the syndicate.