Blog 1: When the Need to Control in Relationships is Really About Feeling Safe
A gentle reflection on understanding control, emotional safety, and self-awareness in relationships.
Perhaps you know the feeling.
Something your partner says or does creates a tightening inside you. Suddenly your mind is busy — trying to make sense of what is happening, wanting to correct it, fix it, or regain some sense of control. Underneath that reaction there is often something very human: a wish to feel safe.
In my work with clients, and in my own long-term relationship, I have seen how common this experience can be. People of all ages, genders and backgrounds speak about this same moment — when the urge to control appears as a way of protecting ourselves. Through my own experience, and in my work, I often wonder how these difficult moments might actually become opportunities to grow more fully into who we are.
When the need to control arises, it often comes with a feeling of contraction inside us. Rather than pushing that feeling away, it can sometimes help to gently turn towards it.
Here are three simple reflections that may support that process.
1. Holding yourself at the centre
When we feel triggered, our attention often moves quickly toward the other person — what they did, what they meant, and why they should change.
At the same time, our mind can become busy with stories about the situation. Instead of clarity, it can feel like an endless buzz.
This might be a moment to slow down and return to yourself.
What might it feel like to pause and come back inside, almost like arriving home after being out all day?
From that place, you might gently wonder:
What does this need for control give me?
What belief might be underneath it?
Your attention may drift back toward your partner’s behaviour. That’s natural. When it does, simply notice and bring your curiosity back to yourself. This isn’t about fixing anything — only about meeting yourself with openness and interest.
2. Noticing which part of you is speaking
We often think of ourselves as a single voice inside, but many psychological and therapeutic approaches recognise that we are made up of different parts.
Some parts of us feel confident and calm. Others carry fear, protection, or past experiences.
The urge to control often comes from one of these parts being activated. Something our partner says or does can awaken it quickly.
Rather than judging this reaction, it can be helpful to become curious about it and spend some time here.
You might pause, take a breath, and quietly ask yourself:
“Hello… what do you want to tell me?”
And then simply listen.
3. Feeling the empowerment
In Buddhism, the idea that everything is impermanent — that change is a natural part of life — sits at the heart of the teaching.
Similarly, Gandhi famously said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
When we try to change another person so that we can feel safe, we often end up feeling powerless. Their behaviour sits outside our control.
But our own responses are something we can return to.
This might look like gently asking yourself:
· I notice a contraction in me — what is happening here?
· What am I telling myself about this situation?
· What do I need in this moment?
· Do I need to express something, or take a little space?
Returning our attention to ourselves can be a deeply empowering place to begin.
Relationships have a way of revealing the places within us that are still asking for care and attention, so when the urge to control appears, it may not be a failure or a problem to eliminate, but an invitation to become curious about what is happening inside us.
So perhaps the invitation is simply this: take it slow.
You might begin with one small step — a moment of curiosity, a breath, a pause — and see what unfolds from there.
Blog 2: The Smallest Just Right Step
Have you ever had the feeling of not being seen, of people reading you wrong, of your intentions not landing.
The internal sensation that’s like a quiet whispering or a persistent niggle. One that you get very good at pushing into a cupboard because it feels uncomfortable to feel. You can sense it in the pit of your stomach, like a fluttering of butterfly wings but in the humdrum of life it becomes easy to discount. It gets pushed aside with ideas like “Maybe I’m making too much of this, it’s not important, others have it much worse” or the opposite, “others have it all worked out”.
It’s the thing that in quiet moments your mind continually goes back to. It has the feeling of something that is waiting in the wings, waiting for you to see it and offer it a moment of your precious attention.
The urgency to fix this unknown sensation has us keeping busy, trying to stay two steps ahead. The inner voice that tells us that it’s too messy to sort out. It’s like the imaginary monster under the bed, or the snake you believe you see in the corner. Like it’s too monumental a task to even stop for a moment and turn around to take a look. This feeling is very common, we might even say very human!
And in this hurry, in this urgency, we forget that Rome wasn’t built in a day and that everything starts with the first step. This step, which is so hard to take, when inside we are frightened to even try.
Writing this, I wonder when life became so serious and scary that having a go seems like putting it all on the red of a roulette wheel!
So I wonder what a small step might look like. Taking the Goldilocks analogy, a step that is not too big, not too small, but just right. I think the “just right’ is different for each and every one of us and it is this ‘just right’ that we might need to spend time with. With a spirit of curiosity, with a dash of interest and with an attitude of ‘for me, not for anyone else’, and the possibility that the whisper isn’t a threat but an invitation.
But being human and a social creature it’s understandable that we like to take these steps with the support of our tribe. For ourselves indeed, but not on our own.
Perhaps the “just right” step is allowing someone to walk alongside you as you turn toward that whisper. Therapy offers a space where you don’t have to keep pushing things into the cupboard or pretending the monster under the bed isn’t there. It is a place of steady curiosity, where what feels too big can be approached gently and at your pace. If something in you recognises that quiet nudge, you don’t have to face it alone. Reaching out could be the first small, courageous step.
If that quiet whisper is asking for your attention, you’re welcome to reach out. We can begin by simply noticing it together.
Blog 3: Pulling Out of My Lane
I recently heard Esther Perel talk about the one piece of advice she would offer to couples: stay in your lane.
It’s a simple idea, but it lingered with me. Not just in the context of romantic relationships, but in almost every interaction. We are constantly relating to others, and in those moments, it’s surprisingly easy to drift out of our own lane and into someone else’s.
I started to wonder what that looks like in practice. More specifically, what it looks like in me.
So I turned my attention inward. Instead of analysing others, I began noticing the patterns that seemed to repeat in my own life—the moments where I quietly, almost automatically, crossed that invisible line.
What stood out first were the triggers.
They’re not always obvious, but they tend to show up across the body, the mind, and the emotions. For example, my partner might begin sharing something difficult from his day. On the surface, it’s just a conversation. But when I slow things down, I can feel something else happening.
There’s often a subtle physical contraction—a kind of tightening. Alongside that comes a sense of urgency, quickly followed by a familiar internal instruction: fix it.
And before I’ve really registered what’s happening, I’m no longer listening. I’m intervening. Offering solutions, reframing the situation, trying to make it better. In other words, I’ve left my lane entirely.
It doesn’t tend to land well. My attempts to help are often met with resistance, and I’m left feeling confused, sometimes hurt, sometimes frustrated.
Looking at it more closely, I began to ask myself what might happen if I didn’t act on that impulse. If I noticed the urge to fix, but didn’t follow it.
It’s not as easy as it sounds. There’s a strong conditioning toward doing—toward stepping in, solving, improving. The pause required to simply be with someone can feel unfamiliar, even uncomfortable.
At times, it has meant quietly holding myself back—almost physically at first. A kind of internal reminder: this isn’t yours to fix. Not as a reprimand, but as a gentle boundary.
What I’m beginning to see is that truly listening to another person is a generous act, but it also asks something of the listener. It requires the ability to stay with your own internal responses—the thoughts, the sensations, the emotional shifts—without letting them take over.
Some days that capacity is there. Other days it isn’t. And part of staying in my lane seems to involve recognising that honestly, rather than pushing past it.
This is still very much a work in progress. But as I’ve paid attention, something has started to shift. The weight of taking responsibility for other people’s experiences feels a little lighter. There’s less urgency to step in.
And interestingly, there’s more space for my own experience to come into focus.
The part of me that has long identified as “the fixer” doesn’t have to work quite so hard. It can step back occasionally. And when it does, other parts—quieter, less certain, but perhaps more present—have room to emerge.