Beyond the Illusion: Why Control Is Costing You Your Peace

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.

Chapters

• 2:00 Introduction to the Illusion of Control
• 4:15 Control in Politics and Fear
• 5:59 Control Poisons Relationships
• 7:24 Control in Business and Recovery
• 8:24 The Mirror of Control
• 11:20 Control vs Freedom
• 14:50 Substances, Pain and True Recovery
• 17:15 Surrendering the Uncontrollable

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:00

Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, corey Barrier, and today we're going to be talking about the illusion of control. What is control? Well, my story with control is that for years, control ruled my life. I tried to control people, outcomes, conversations, and the harder I gripped, the more things slipped away. You know, when I wasn't in recovery, the control I exhibited was disturbing, it was costly, it damaged my relationships. It left me completely and utterly drained. So let me upset.

Speaker 1: 1:57

Why do you think that is? Is it possible that you feel out of control? You know, control is an illusion. It feels real, but most of the time it's just an illusion. We think if we push hard enough, manipulate the right people or fight the right battles, we'll be safe. But in all reality it gives us anxiety Because we can't actually control much outside of ourselves. What does that tell you about where your peace comes from? So I'll give you a polarizing example Politics.

Speaker 1: 3:03

Politics is a perfect example and, regardless of your ideology or which side probably gets under your skin, what can you actually do about the political landscape? Who's in office, who's not in office? Who's in office, who's not in office? Well, you could vote, you can maybe volunteer, you can maybe donate money, but really, for the average person, what can you really do? Yet I've watched people explode with rage online page. Online, people get so upset about whether it's this person or that person in office. And why do you think that is? Well, it strikes a nerve, and that nerve is usually fear, fear of losing control or fear of losing something valuable. But here's the kicker Whether you get furious or whether you get thrilled, it doesn't really change the outcome.

Speaker 1: 4:14

All it changes is how you feel in the moment. You know, and that's the trap. Like feelings versus facts that's the trap. Like feelings versus facts that's the trap. Control is about feelings, and feelings are not facts. 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 the truth. They're just signals, and sometimes the signal's wrong. And so you've got to pay attention or you want to pay attention really to how control shows up in your life.

Speaker 1: 4:59

Is it control in relationships? Because in a relationship, control is poison, especially romantic relationships, parent relationships, your son, your daughter. You can't really control them. You can certainly try I used to try to control the people that I loved and what they did and how they thought and who they spent time with, what they did and how they thought and who they spent time with. And every time I did that relationship eroded, every single time. Because love without freedom isn't love, it's fear with a mask on. That's what it is.

Speaker 1: 5:36

Maybe you're thinking about controlling in your business. Well, I have to control my business for it to be successful. In business, control shows up as being a dickhead micromanager and not trusting your team, trying to own every single detail and, ironically, the tighter you grip, the worse people perform. You know this. Why do you think that is? Because control kills creativity and responsibility. Leaders who control lose. Leaders who trust their team grow.

Speaker 1: 6:22

Let's talk about control in recovery. In addiction, control is a lie. I thought I could control how much I drank. I thought I could control who noticed. I thought I could control the consequences, but the truth is, the addiction controlled me. The addiction controlled me and my recovery began the moment I admitted I'm not in control. That's a hard, hard pill to swallow for somebody like me.

Speaker 1: 7:04

So, when you think about the mirror of control, so here's a question why do certain people drive you crazy? Why does that one coworker or that one family member get under your skin, often because they're mirroring something inside of you. It's called a mirror for a reason. A mirror in sales is when you do the same thing that the other person's doing, so they like you. If there's something bothering you, then there's something inside of you that you're uncomfortable with. The arrogance reflects your own arrogance. If you think about the person that you think, oh, they're just such an arrogant SOB. Hmm, you may want to look in the mirror If that person that we're talking about, their control, reflects your control. If you see this, your boss or this person in your life, that's controlling and it just drives you insane. I've been there. It's probably something inside of you. So what if, instead you? What if, instead of you trying to change them, what if, instead of you trying to change them, you ask what is it that's showing up about me in this situation? That's a hard pill to do. That's a hard pill to swallow. That's something.

Speaker 1: 8:41

I've had to look inward a bunch of times and it's not easy to do. But being in recovery, you have to look at yourself. You have to look at what is your part, and I always have a part in everything, no matter how 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 costly, it's expensive, it costs you 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 started letting go, I felt lighter. I didn't lose power, in fact, I gained freedom. And you know, what can you actually control? You can't control politics, you can't control people, you can't really control outcomes. But you can always control your response. And when you focus there on your choices, your reactions, your responsibility, then you find real power.

Speaker 1: 10:03

And this is a tough one. You know when you're, you know when you're listen to this and you look at the things that you actually can control and can't control. That's not an illusion, that's just 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's just 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 they surrender to this, they surrender to this thing, that that's given up. But surrender is not given up. It's recognizing the what reality is. It's saying what reality is. It's saying this isn't mine to control, but I will own what is mine. And that shift changes everything. Relationships heal, stress drops and peace grows. So there's freedom beyond the control. So let me just say this Control, it's not a feeling, as I mentioned it's.

Speaker 1: 11:10

I'm sorry, control is a feeling but it's not a fact. You don't need to waste your life gripping at what you can't hold. Instead, maybe open your hand up a little bit, quit clenching your fist and own your part and let go of the rest. Because the moment you start, the moment you stop trying to control everything outside of you, is the moment that you're going to start feeling more free on the inside. And when I look back at drinking and drugs, you know that was my way of trying to control what I couldn't handle. I tried to control my pain in the present, try to control memories of the past. I tried to control fears about the future. The bottle was the steering wheel for me. The drugs were my protection, but but they weren't really control, they were escape. It was, you know, and the. The price that of escape was way higher than I ever imagined.

Speaker 1: 12:20

Think about it. Why do you reach for a pill or a drink or a hit or whatever it is you do it's because in that moment the world feels overwhelming. Then substances promise you control. It'll either dull that, that memory 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 erase anything, they just push pause. And when that pause ends the pain 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 you trying to control and what would it feel like if you stopped running from it?

Speaker 1: 13:18

You know so much of these things trace back to childhood trauma. When we're kids and we're powerless, we make silent agreements with ourselves, covert contracts. As some people say I'll never let anybody hurt me again and I'll stay in control. But as adults, those survival tactics 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.

Speaker 1: 14:00

And here's the paradox. Recovery isn't about controlling more, it's about surrendering. It's about surrendering the illusion that you can control pain with a substance, surrendering that lie that you can out-drink your past or out-snort your fear of the future, or out snort your fear of the future. Recovery starts when you stop gripping the wheel. That isn't even connected to anything and in that surrender you find the only control that matters control over your choices in the moment. So try to reframe that control. I mean, we try to reframe that control in recovery.

Speaker 1: 14:52

In recovery, you know, control looks different. You don't try to control other people, you control your honesty with that other person. You don't try to control the past, you control the willingness to face it. You don't control the future, you control the next right step. And that's real power, that's real freedom.

Speaker 1: 15:16

And the truth is, the more I tried to control with alcohol, the more control alcohol had over me. And the moment I surrendered I began to kind of reclaim myself, if you will. So if control is the thread running through addiction, politics, relationships, business, recovery, here's what I know for a fact that control is an illusion, recovery is reality. And freedom isn't found in gripping a tighter, it's found in letting go. So I'm going to leave you with this what's one place in your life where you're still trying to control the uncontrollable? And what would it feel like if you surrendered just for today, because the moment you stop trying to control your pain with substances is the moment healing can begin. Thank you guys for listening. Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and we'll see you next Friday.