how to slow down when you're a control freak
softening the edges of my life and business
Hello love,
I caught myself the other day, right in the middle of it.
That hyperactive, must-do-everything energy had crept back in, and I hadn’t even noticed. I was running through my to-do list, feeling the weight of homeschooling, going from one client call to the next, and life started pressing down on me.
I was moving fast, too fast, but slowing down felt impossible.
I know this pattern. I know it so well.
Almost three years ago, I burned out so completely that my body forced me to stop. I promised myself I wouldn’t let it get that bad again. And for the most part, I’ve kept that promise. But old habits die hard, especially when they’re woven into your belief system. You know, when productivity has been tied to worth for as long as you can remember.
Control has always felt like safety to me.
If I can just stay on top of everything, if I can plan, anticipate, do, then I won’t fall behind. Then I’ll be okay. But the truth is, control doesn’t protect me. It exhausts me. It keeps me running long past the point where I should have stopped to breathe.
Luckily, now I catch myself sooner. I recognise when I’ve slipped into overdrive, and I remind myself that I have another choice.
Because even if this masculine is helpful, I don’t want to live only in it. I don’t want to be all structure, all control, all pushing through. I want to balance it out with softness, spontaneity, and trust.
So when I noticed myself in this cycle again a few days ago, I stopped. I brought awareness onto what was pushing me to act this way so that I could intentionally slow down.
Why control feels necessary
“I’m a rising Virgo, so…” - that’s what I used to say to explain my tendency for over-planning and controlling.
The truth is, if you struggle to slow down, to let go, to not be in charge of every little detail.. It’s not just a personality quirk. It’s a survival strategy.
Control is a response to fear.
Fear of failure (If I don’t stay on top of my routine, I won’t have the results that I want, and my worst case scenario all of a sudden becomes very likely)
Fear of uncertainty (If I don’t plan ahead every detail of my days, things will unravel in ways I can’t predict, which means my worst case scenario all of a sudden becomes very likely).
Fear of not being enough (If I don’t prove my worth constantly, my skills and talents become questionable , which means my worst case scenario all of a sudden becomes very likely).
Add into the mix the deeply engrained beliefs we have been taught about our value being directly tied to our productivity, about rest being lazy and about success being a result of constant effort…
Of course, many of us feel that if we’re not always improving, pushing, striving, then we’re falling behind.
And when you believe that, how can you not feel the need to control everything?
I see it at home, especially in homeschooling my eldest who is 12 going 13 this year. Since she started her online program for middle school, we both feel a lot of pressure to see results, to measure progress, to prove (to whom exactly?) that we’re doing it right.
Even though I deeply believe in a different way of learning - one that is fluid, intuitive, and led by curiosity - there’s still that nagging voice in the back of my mind, the one conditioned by years of structured education, deadlines, and external validation.
I see it in business too. That same pull toward constant motion, needing proof that I’m moving forward, that I’m enough. Even when I know, logically, that slowing down doesn’t mean stopping, that rest is actually necessary for creativity and sustainability, there’s still resistance.
Because slowing down means surrendering. Trusting.
And trust feels risky when life has brought you pain, loss and grief.
Control feels like a much safer option, but we have to remind ourselves that control doesn’t actually create safety. It creates exhaustion.
The more tightly we grip onto everything, the less we allow flow, intuition, and ease to guide us.
Recognising the Go Go Go mode before it spirals
It happened so fast. One moment, I was handling things with a sense of balance, my days were smooth and gently fulfilling, and the next, I was in full-blown overdrive, juggling homeschooling, work, and life, filling every time slot of my days with something to manage, to do, to finish… all while convincing myself it was necessary because there’s no other way.
But there is.
The key is catching yourself before you hit exhaustion. And that starts with recognising the signs.
Here’s what control mode looks like for me
Everything feels urgent, even the things that can wait suddenly seem critical and need to be done “right now”.
I can no longer accurately predict how long things will take me so I plan way to much to be done in just a couple of hours. A time slot that was first dedicated just to draft a blog post became a time slot to write it and publish it and also write 3 sales emails. In this way, my to-do list is never done, rest feels unearned, impossible.
I struggle to take breaks. It’s not that I don’t want to rest, it’s that letting go feels unsafe. So even when I plan 5 minutes to breathe, I tend to feel to stressed to stop. My brain tells me that I will only feel better once I’ve made progress and handled my tasks, so I push through.
Spontaneity feels unproductive. “Can we take a moment to connect?” asked my husband, only to be met with my raised eyebrow and my stern answer : “Can’t, working.” The thought of doing something unplanned, even for 15 or 30 minutes makes me uneasy.
I can see it in others, but not in myself. I can easily tell when someone else is overworking or pushing themselves too hard. I coach people to create more sustainable lifefstyles and I teach mindfulness for christ sake! But when I’m in this control mode, I justify it: “Just this week until I catch up,” “Just this season until I’ve build the foundations of my business” “Just until I get thiiiiiis last thing done.”
Sound familiar?
The problem with this cycle is that it only ends if you consciously step out of it.
Life will always be full of unplanned things to manage. There will always be something else you could be doing.
The question is: At what cost?
And if control doesn’t actually create safety, but instead creates exhaustion, then what’s the alternative?
The answer isn’t to abandon responsibility or stop caring.
It’s to find a different way, one where you don’t have to burn yourself out to feel like you’re doing enough.
That’s where softness comes in.
The softness reset: loosen your grip and slow down
If control is a survival strategy, then softness is an act of trust.
Not trust as in “I hope it still goes the way I planned - suspicious-frown-on-your-forehead” and also not blind, reckless trust.
Rather a quiet and intentional trust: the kind that reminds you that you don’t have to hold everything together alone. That you are still worthy, still safe, still moving forward, even when you slow down.
When I finally allow myself to soften, everything flows better.
I make better decisions. I enjoy my work more. I become more present for my family. Life doesn’t unravel: it expands.
So, how do you begin?
Softness, in Practice
Here’s what slowing down actually looks like for me when I catch myself gripping too tightly:
✔ Pausing before the spiral pulls me in. Instead of pushing through the tension, I stop and ask myself: What am I afraid will happen if I slow down? Just witnessing what comes up is already so helpful, because I can already see how to shift my thoughts, from what I’m scared of, what I’m running away from, to what I actually want, so what I can move towards.
✔ Moving intuitively. Not as a workout, not as a structured practice but trusting the body, letting it take the lead and moving in ways that feel good. I’ve recently discovered this practice through my first life coach, Elodie Leclercq, and that has been liberating in ways that I hadn’t foreseen. If you speak French, you can check it out here.
✔ Swapping coffee for herbal tea because my nervous system doesn’t need caffeine when my mind is already racing. Yet, when I choose tea, I feel warmth, nourishment, and grounding.
✔ Using AI to help me prioritise. When I’m in go-go-go mode, everything feels equally urgent. That’s when I ask ChatGPT to help me sort through my tasks. I don’t always follow its advice, but its down-to-earth approach brings me instant clarity as to what to focus on and what to let go.
✔ Ditching the plan, just because. This is radical but so helpful. Instead of trying to cross things off my to-do list, last Thursday, I threw my plan in the bin, ditched homeschooling and just got out of the house without a goal. I treated us to a pastel de nata, a cappuccino, some skincare. I also booked the babysitter for extra hours this week-end, not for work, but so my husband and I can have a slow, intentional dinner instead of reverting to our usual Netflix mode.
✔ Reminding myself that trust is a muscle. It’s ok if I forget again from time to time, it’s ok if the old patterns come back, they’re all part of my self-protective behaviour and I can be gentle with myself. Letting go of control doesn’t happen in one big, dramatic moment. It happens in the micro-decisions: the moments when I choose to pause, to breathe, to release the urgency and believe that nothing will collapse if I take a break.
Structure and flow: and endless equilibrium
Softness doesn’t mean abandoning your responsibilities. It’s not about rejecting structure or pretending we don’t need plans, goals, or effort.
It means creating a rhythm that allows for both structure and fluidity, both masculine and feminine energy, both doing and being.
Because balance isn’t something you achieve once and then hold onto forever. It’s not a final destination. If we move away from the ideal of constant productivity, constant improvement, constant certainty, then we must also release the idea that balance is something we can lock in place.
Balance is a dance.
A little left, a little right. Tensing, releasing. Pushing, letting go.
There are seasons when we lean into action and momentum, and seasons where we need to soften, rest, and receive. We need to remember that this dance is not a solo, but a co-creation with life. Therefore we myst allow life and its natural rhythms to lead, to guide us. And trust that when we veer too far in one direction, we can always shift back.
You too, will again slip into overdrive. Time and again, you will find yourself gripping too tightly. But also you’ll notice that after a while, instead of staying there for weeks or months, you’ll catch yourself sooner.
And you’ll choose, again and again, to come back to softness, to loosen your grip and let trust carry you.
Last words
If you ever feel like you’re constantly holding everything together, like slowing down is a luxury you can’t afford, I want you to know that you’re not alone.
If you too have felt the weight of doing it all, of keeping every plate spinning, of trying to create a life and business that nourishes you, and still you sometimes find yourself running on empty, I see you.
And I want to remind us both: We don’t have to earn rest. We don’t have to prove our worth by doing more.
There is a way to build, create, and grow, without the burnout.
A way to step into ease without losing momentum. A way to hold structure without suffocating under it.
This is why a few months ago I created Flow Into Balance, a masterclass to give you the tools, clarity, and the gentle push to shift out of the endless hustle and into a way of working that feels truly aligned.
Inside this pre-recorded , on-demand masterclass, you’ll learn
How to replace rigid routines with supportive rhythms that work for you
How to set loving boundaries so you can focus on what truly matters
How to ground yourself in joyful productivity, even if you have ADHD
A clear organization system to bring more ease into your days
What’s inside? A 2-hour in-depth training + an actionable workbook for holistic time management so you can start making shifts immediately.
If you want to learn (or re-learn!) how to lead your business with ease, and not exhaustion, this is the masterclass for you.
I know I’ll definitely rewatch my own masterclass this week-end and tweak my current organisation.
Because we deserve to build a life and business that don’t just look good from the outside, but feels good to live every day.
I’d love to hear from you
What’s one practice that helps you slow down when you feel yourself slipping into overdrive? Do you have a ritual, a mindset shift, or something simple that brings you back to center? Tell me in the comments, I’d love to learn from you, too.