When my life started to wobble, my default would be control.
Where can I tighten my grip? What can I further assert my will onto? Recently, control has made a come back and it’s been staring me down 24/7.
Probably not in the way you imagined…
Behind the scenes, I’ve been deep in the early stages of my next short film, Picture Perfect.
The protagonist is a high-performing interior designer. On the surface, she’s polished, accomplished, composed. Her life looks curated and intentional. Everything has its place.
It’s picture perfect.
And then her husband asks for a separation, and the illusion starts to crack. Writing those moments has forced me to sit with how familiar that instinct to fix everything really is.
Because control often presents itself as reasonable. It sounds like preparedness. It looks like competence. It convinces you that if you plan well enough, anticipate every outcome, and manage every detail, you can stay safe. That nothing will hurt you. That you can keep life from surprising you in ways you’re not prepared for.
As I’ve been building her world, I’ve had to look at my own past behaviors and instincts with brutal honesty. The way I would tighten my grip when things felt uncertain. The comfort I found in planning, preparing, planning even more, bracing.
Control has been one of the most reliable tools in my toolbox for a long time. It helped me survive. It helped me stay steady when the ground felt shaky.
But I now know it comes at a steep cost.
It’s utterly exhausting to always be managing. It leaves you with little to no room to breathe when you’re holding every thread. Control can quietly turn into what feels like two full-time jobs that never actually deliver the safety they promise.
This letter comes from that reckoning. From understanding that what once kept me safe doesn’t have to be the thing I rely on forever.
There will be time to share more about Picture Perfect and what’s unfolding next with paid subscribers. But before any of that, I wanted to pause here.
If control has been your survival strategy too, this letter is for you.
Dear You,
Sometimes control feels like the only way to survive.
If you plan well enough, anticipate every outcome, and tighten your grip, maybe nothing can hurt you. Maybe you can keep life from surprising you, from wounding you. Control promises safety, but it’s a safety that is exhausting to maintain, and one that never truly satisfies.
Because life, in all its wildness, was never meant to be controlled.
The more you try to hold every thread, the less space you have to breathe. True safety isn’t found in the plan.
It’s found in trust.
In trusting that you are capable of facing whatever comes, even when it’s messy, and especially when it doesn’t go the way you expected.
You may have learned to rely on control because it once protected you.
It helped you stay steady. It helped you feel prepared. That doesn’t make you rigid or fearful. It makes you resourceful. But what once kept you safe doesn’t have to be what carries you forever. Read that line again.
It’s not easy to loosen your grip.
But once you do, you create space. Space for rest. Space for breath. Space for life to meet you in gentler ways, too.
Ask yourself:
What am I gripping so tightly that it’s wearing me down?
What would it mean to trust myself instead of the plan?
If you’re looking for ease, really sit with these questions.
You don’t need perfect control to be safe.
You already carry what you need within you.
With you in the loosening,
Kasim