September 2025 - Control Loves to Masquerade as Care
There’s a grief in realizing how tightly we’ve been gripping onto control in an attempt to “perfect” life for us. But control is just another illusion that separates us from connection.
Perfection doesn’t equate to presence, nor does control equate to care. Perfectionism is an excuse our ego loves to pull out when we don’t want to release the desire to control. So what happens when you do?
In this lunar cycle, in this eclipse season, we’re asked to consider this:
The safety we think we’re building by asserting control and searching for perfection in everything is a false safety. When we release the pull to control, to perfect, to solidify an outcome, we release the need to be seen as perfect and can actually be our authentic selves.
As we move through the next month, evaluate your boundaries and ask yourself where you’re forcing control as a way to stay safe but are actually avoiding risking connection. We’re not meant to be rigid in our boundaries unless we are genuinely going to be harmed without it in place; we are meant to be flexible with them, especially when we are in relationship with someone we care about (romantically or platonically).
If we keep avoiding the risk of emotional connection, of vulnerability, of relational responsibility, we lose the intimacy of being present with what is and we lose out on the opportunities that help us grow. If you keep clinging to an ideal of what something is “supposed” to look like, you’ll never be able to accept what it looks like right now.
The paradox is that control feels safe, but it keeps us small. Perfectionism, at its core, is a fear of being seen as we are. But real safety, the kind that nurtures trust and creates space for vulnerability, comes from softening into our imperfect, alive, changing selves.
The somatic path teaches us that release is an embodied practice.
To truly let go of control, we must feel where it lives in us so we can expand to meet it at this very moment and show yourself that there is space to see both control AND flow.
Release comes not from thinking about surrender but from practicing it, through the body, through movement, through risk. It’s the trembling exhale when you decide you don’t have to hold it all anymore and you can feel it in all its might.
Stop trying to control your emotional expression or trying to just “let it go” or be “fine” with it. Stop convincing yourself that detachment is an excuse to suppress your emotions, because that’s simply not what actually detachment is. Stop telling yourself that you’re “mature” because you cut someone off who challenged your ego and made them the villain for being brave enough to speak up.
Stop controlling conversations, situations, and relationships to fit your ideal outcome, to prevent yourself from experiencing any level of discomfort from things not going your way. You have to face discomfort at some point. The more you avoid it, the more the discomfort amplifies in the mind as being unsurmountable. That is false. Either you willingly face discomfort and build up your capacity for it, or life forces you to face it and throws you into the deep end with no skills to handle it. It’s incredibly important to let yourself release the desire to control all things in your life, for many things are simply not within your control and you need to build capacity to handle uncomfortable things.
Let yourself be sad, be mad, be frustrated, be rageful, be exhausted in its fullness. Let the emotional expression BE the release you need to move forward. You deserve to express yourself.
Stop suppressing the emotions you feel as a way to be “more spiritual”, because you’re only casting judgement on yourself by not letting yourself feel what needs to be felt.
Stop judging yourself for being a human with emotions and let yourself FEEL.
Dance it out, journal it, cry it out in the shower and let the water wash it all away. Punch some pillows, throw them around, scream into one with all your might, write it onto a piece of paper and burn it, watching the embers as you take in the moment with reverence.
Presence leads to safety, which leads to embodiment. Release the emotions that you’re keeping trapped within you by trying to control everything and appearing to be perfect. Release what’s weighing you down. Release the need to know every little thing and find satisfaction in the unknown.
Your memory may try to keep you from risking a new adventure, relaying all the anxiety about moments repeating themselves, but the opportunity for possibility is there all the same.
Possibility may hold risk, but it’s always going to be a risk worth taking, otherwise the possibility would never be there in the first place.
Somatic Reflection Prompt:
Tonight, instead of asking yourself what you need to fix, ask what you’re ready to release.
Place your hand on the part of your body that feels most tense or constricted. Stay there until you can soften, even just a little. Notice the difference between controlling the release and allowing it to happen in its own time. This is where trust begins: in your body, in the moment, in yourself.
This eclipse isn’t asking you to do more. It’s asking you to un-do. To release the illusion that safety comes from control, and to discover the deeper current that carries you when you soften. Safety isn’t in perfection, it’s in presence.
With love,
Zofia
