"Control"- the power to influence, direct, or command something or someone. The act of restraining, managing, or operating. As a noun, it’s authority. As a verb, it’s to regulate, to hold back, to keep something in place.
Feeling out of control has affected all of us in one way or another. Some of us more deeply, more often, or more visibly than others. Control can show up as comfort or as a cage. It can protect us, or quietly exhaust us. Sometimes we cling to it out of fear. Sometimes we chase it because it feels like the only thing keeping us afloat.
My anxiety tends to surface when life feels out of my control and the future becomes uncertain. Sometimes it’s about the next five minutes, sometimes the next year, or even five years from now. In those moments, I remind myself to come back to what is within my reach, small anchors that pull me back into my body and the present moment.
What I can control: how I speak to myself, what I put into my body, my breathing, my calm, my focus, who I surround myself with, and how I choose to spend my time. And then there’s what I can’t control: the weather, other people’s actions, the past, the future, and how others perceive me.
When I separate the two, something shifts. The weight eases. I stop wasting energy fighting currents I was never meant to overpower and instead, I begin to move with them. Much like the ocean. We can never control the swell, the waves, or the sea. We can only learn how to surf, how to swim, and how to stay afloat. (cheesy, sorry lol.) The ocean has taught me that even in its roughest, most uncertain conditions, there is always calm somewhere beneath the surface. It reminds me that we don’t need to control what’s happening around us we just need to be present with it.
The moment I stop fighting for control is the moment my body softens. My breath deepens. My mind quiets. And I let go. Control and letting go go hand in hand. When we choose to let go, we give up the need to control and trust the sea, or life itself, to take care of us.
The ocean teaches trust. Not blind trust, but embodied trust. Trust in timing. Trust in rhythm. Trust that even when things feel chaotic on the surface, there is a deeper order beneath it all. Do I still feel out of control some days? Yes, and I’ve learned that it’s okay. On those days, I ground myself and focus on what I can control in the moment. I tend to navigate to the ocean. When I'm in the water, I remember: I don’t have to control the ocean to be safe within it.
And maybe life works the same way.
