This week David and I are giving a party. Our son Eric turns forty, and thirty people, family and friends, are coming to fill our home. There will be food on every counter, chairs pulled from the basement, a table stretched with the leaves we use only twice a year, and candles lit before anyone arrives. Eric will walk in not knowing the half of what went into it, which is exactly how it should be. It is the kind of gathering I love most. It is also exactly the kind of event that calls my oldest patterns out of hiding.
My fearful mind went straight to logistics. There is so much to manage; how will this even work? My performing mind went somewhere else. How do I look my best, stay relaxed, not disappear into my own head? Left unchecked, that second voice will send me clear over the edge.
Sitting with it this week, I saw something clearly for the first time. Control and performance are not cousins- they are siblings. Practically twins. One shows up as fear disguised as planning. The other shows up as fear disguised as poise. Both want the same thing from me: to disappear into managing everything so I never truly arrive.
The fearful part of me tends to show up when life slows down, which is exactly why this summer has caught so much of it. The slowing down has been intentional. I have been asking my most tender parts to appear so I can finally take notice of them and not let them rule. This summer, at this pivotal point in my life, I have decided to trust that amplification rather than brace against it. To trust that whatever gets turned up loud enough to hear is exactly what needed my attention in the first place.
So I sat. I watched the lessons surface. Control and performance were the first to introduce themselves.
Left to their own devices, they will run the whole show. But given room to speak before I am standing in the middle of the party trying to hold it together, they turn out to be good information rather than bad company. So I let them talk. I let the fearful mind list every worry. I let the performing mind ask its anxious questions. And when they finished, a quieter voice came in underneath.
What if all your concerns could be wiped away by trust?
What if the most important thing you bring to this celebration is showing up clean, clear, performance-free? Take a moment, Sarah. Feel that, in your body, your mind, your spirit. Tell me how it feels.
Everything shifted, like my mind had been quietly reframed while I was not looking.
I used this again not long ago, with a text message from a family member that landed sharp and hurtful. My old habit is to avoid, to retreat, to let the hurt fester in silence, my own quiet version of performance. Instead, I asked, what if I did not take this personally? The anxiety loosened its grip almost immediately. I responded with kindness instead of distance. They met me there, kindly too.
I have a treasure inside me. We all do. This summer I have guarded mine closely, not because I am precious about it, but because I want it to glow bright enough to heal me from the inside out.
I will be honest, this has not always been the popular choice. We all carry some resistance to boundaries, even the healthy ones, even when we are the ones setting them. But I have held my ground anyway.
So that is what this summer has been. A season of deposits into my own treasured self, choosing trust over control and presence over performance. Not silencing the fear and the pressure to perform, but letting them speak first, so they can hand me something truer once they are done.
Control and performance will always be siblings, always close. But they do not have to run the house. On Saturday, thirty people will walk through my door, and I intend to greet every one of them exactly as I am. Not managed. Not polished. Just here, trusting that showing up is the only performance that was ever required of me.
The party will end. The house will empty. And the trust I practiced to get there will stay mine long after the last car pulls out of the driveway.
