Episode Guide

You can rehearse the conversation, plan for every outcome, check the message again, and try to keep everyone happy. But at some point, preparation becomes gripping, and the tighter you hold, the less peace you actually have.

In this episode, Michael Perry and Justin Gates explore the paradox of control through psychology, Stoicism, Taoism, and the Path of Ashla. They look at why control often disguises itself as responsibility, love, high standards, or preparedness, and why fear and distrust can quietly sit underneath all of them.

The goal is not to stop caring, stop planning, or become passive. It is to recognize what is actually yours to influence, act fully where your power exists, and release the outcomes that were never yours to command.

In this episode:
• Why control can look like responsibility, preparedness, discipline, or love
• How fear and uncertainty can drive the need to manage outcomes
• Rehearsing conversations, checking messages, tracking packages, and other subtle forms of gripping
• The difference between control, influence, and responsibility
• Why managing how other people see you can become another form of control
• The Stoic practice of separating what belongs to you from what does not
• Taoist wu wei, effortless action and effort without force
• Trading prediction for presence
• Why surrender does not mean passivity
• How releasing external control can strengthen self-trust and personal agency
• Justin’s Axioms of Light on acceptance, influence, power, and surrender

Key takeaways:
• Trying to control what was never yours to control can create the anxiety and exhaustion you were trying to prevent.
• Your actions, effort, responses, character, and integrity belong to you. Other people, outcomes, reactions, and timing do not.
• Surrender is not giving up. You can act fully while releasing your demand for a particular outcome.
• Learning to tolerate uncertainty gives you more room to respond to reality instead of constantly trying to predict it.
• When you stop managing every possible future, you recover energy, honesty, presence, and trust in your ability to meet what comes.

Try this:
Choose one situation currently creating stress in your life and draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper. On one side, write everything that is actually within your control: your actions, words, effort, boundaries, and choices. On the other, write what is outside your control: the outcome, other people’s reactions, their choices, and the timing.

When you are finished, look at the side containing what you cannot control. Take a breath and cross the entire column out. Then choose one thing from the side you can control, act on it fully, and when it is done, let it be done.

Affirmations:
• I control my effort, not my outcomes.
• I act fully and release completely.
• Uncertainty is not a threat. It is where my life happens.
• I trust myself to meet whatever comes.
• My grip does not keep me safe. My presence does.

Journal prompts:
• What am I holding so tightly that my hands are too full to receive anything else?
• Whose approval, outcome, or timeline am I trying to control right now, and what am I afraid happens if I stop?
• Write about a time something slipped completely out of your control and turned out to be a doorway. What does that memory ask you to trust now?

This episode also includes an announcement about Justin’s upcoming podcast, The Light Within with Justin V Gates, a deeper exploration of spiritual philosophy, sacred wisdom, and the Way of Ashla.

Keywords: control and anxiety, letting go of control, surrender, Stoicism, Taoism, wu wei, uncertainty, self trust, personal growth, emotional regulation, presence, fear and control, acceptance, self mastery, New Ashla

Connect: Michael Perry | Justin Gates
Follow: TikTok | New Ashla

Episode Companion here!

Why You Crash Your Own Success and What It’s Trying to Keep Safe

Why do we procrastinate, shrink, pick fights, or retreat just when life begins moving in the direction we wanted?

In this episode of The New Ashla Podcast, Michael and Justin explore self-sabotage as a protective response rather than a character flaw. They discuss why unfamiliar success can feel threatening, how old coping mechanisms disguise themselves as reasonable thoughts, and why understanding a pattern is not the same as changing it.

Through personal stories involving procrastination, addiction, social anxiety, health, and rebuilding self-trust, they offer a more compassionate path forward: recognize the protection, understand the need beneath it, and take a step small enough for your nervous system to learn that growth is safe.

TOPICS COVERED

• Why self-sabotage belongs in the “safety column”

• How unfamiliar success can register as danger

• The difference between insight and integration

• Procrastination disguised as preparation

• Imposter syndrome and shrinking your accomplishments

• The upper-limit crash that can follow progress

• Negotiation and all-or-nothing thinking in addiction

• Meeting the need beneath a protective behavior

• Rebuilding self-trust through manageable actions

• Grieving unmet needs and former versions of yourself

• Outgrowing old protection without shaming yourself

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Self-sabotage is often a protection strategy, not proof that something is wrong with you.

• The nervous system frequently reaches for what is familiar before what is healthy.

• “What am I protecting?” creates more useful information than “What is wrong with me?”

• Sabotaging thoughts can sound reasonable because they are trying to create immediate safety.

• Self-trust grows when you consciously choose your next step instead of letting the pattern choose for you.

• You do not have to defeat the protective version of yourself. You can appreciate what it did and gradually outgrow it.

LISTENER EXERCISE

The next time you feel the pull to delay, withdraw, pick a fight, or make yourself smaller:

• Stop and place one hand on your chest.

• Take one slow breath.

• Say: “This is protection, not truth. I’m safe, and this is just new.”

• Choose the smallest honest step forward—or intentionally decide to step back.

Both choices are allowed. The important part is that you make the choice consciously instead of allowing the pattern to make it for you.

AFFIRMATIONS

• I am safe in my own success.

• My growth does not require my punishment.

• I can honor my need for safety and still move forward.

• Familiar is not the same as good.

• I am becoming someone my success can trust.

JOURNALING PROMPTS

• Where in my life do I reach the edge of what I want, and what do I consistently do next?

• What is my sabotage trying to protect me from feeling, and when did I first learn to fear that feeling?

• If success were completely safe, who would I let myself become?

REFERENCES

• The Mountain Is You by Brianna Wiest

• The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

• Twelve-step recovery principles

• The Path of Ashla and the Axioms of Light

Keywords: self-sabotage, self-protection, nervous system regulation, self-trust, procrastination, imposter syndrome, fear of success, addiction recovery, emotional healing, trauma-informed growth, comfort zone, personal development, grief, shadow work, Path of Ashla

Connect: Michael Perry | Justin Gates

Follow: TikTok | New Ashla