Why You Can’t Control How People See You (And Why That’s the Key to Peace)

Have you ever caught yourself thinking:

“If they would just change, I could finally relax”

“If people saw me differently, I’d feel okay”

“If I could just get my life together, I could breathe”

In this episode, Anne explores why trying to control how other people think, feel, or perceive you keeps your nervous system locked in tension, and why peace doesn’t come from fixing yourself or getting everything just right.

Drawing from coaching work, nervous system regulation, and insights from Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön, Anne unpacks:

• Why outsourcing your safety to other people never works
• How perfectionism disguises itself as “self-improvement”
• What it actually means to stop arguing with reality
• Why peace comes from being with discomfort, not eliminating it

This episode is not about discipline, control, or becoming a better version of yourself.

It’s about learning how to stay with yourself, even when things feel uncertain, messy, or unresolved.

Nothing here is meant to push you or fix you.

Let it land. Let your body catch up.

Feeling capable, but still falling off when life gets loud?

This podcast is for the woman who knows what to do, but keeps disconnecting from herself under pressure.

Around here, we talk about staying with yourself when motivation fades, building real capacity instead of pushing harder, and creating a life that feels steady, regulated, and yours, even in chaotic seasons.

No hustle. No performative discipline. No starting over every Monday.

Start here:

• Free Guide: The High-Achiever's Guide to Losing Fat Without Obsessing Over Food or Workouts: [https://www.annejonescoaching.ca/free-guide-your-body-your-way]

• Deeper support + essays: Join my Substack: [https://annejonesfit.substack.com/]

Work with me:

• Website: [https://www.annejonescoaching.ca/]

Connect With Me:

• Instagram: [@annejonesfit]

• YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/@annejones]

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Muscles and Mindset Revolution, the podcast for high achieving women who are done burning out in the name of discipline and ready to build strength, self-trust, and calm, consistency for life. I'm your host, Anne Jones, certified life coach and mentor, personal trainer and mindset expert after 15 plus years in the fitness industry. I know the real key to lasting change isn't just what you do, it's how you think. If you're ready to shift your mindset, build a lifestyle you love, and feel confident af, you're in the right place. Let's dive in. Hello, friend. I want to start with something that came up on a client call a couple Fridays ago. So I asked this client, I was on a one-on-one call with a client. I asked her a question that I ask frequently. so we're talking about a situation and basically to begin, what's the desired outcome? Like, if you go to any ideal outcome, what is it? And her answer wasn't about what she wanted or how she wanted to feel. it wasn't about how she wanted to show up. It wasn't about the kind of life she wanted to build. She said, I just want people to perceive me a specific way. I do not judge her for that.'cause I've had the same thought and most women I work with have said a similar thing, right? We want our partner to just finally like do this differently or have a different political opinion. We want our mother-in-law to soften and stop like doing this thing they do with our kids. We want our parents to change their views or this habit after decades of being exactly who they are. We want someone else. To do something differently or see us differently so we can finally exhale. And I wanna share the thing that gave me more freedom than almost anything I've learned in my adult life. You cannot control how other people think. You cannot control how they feel. You cannot control what they do. You cannot control how they interpret you or how they perceive you. You can only clean up your side of the street, and I know that sounds simple. Easier said than done. I also know people hate hearing that. Here's why it's so painful to hear. For one thing, it suggests that we, we don't have control over it and the don't humans going to human. When we're invested in changing someone else's behaviour or perception of us, we are. Outsourcing our happiness. We're outsourcing our nervous system regulation. We're saying, I'll feel safe when you change. I'll relax when you finally get it. I will feel successful when you decide that I'm successful. I'll be okay if you just behave differently. And the problem isn't that this desire is wrong, it's that it's impossible. Everyone's walking around with their own brain, right? Their own history, their own experiences, seeing all of this through their lens, their own history, their own projections, their own beliefs, their own unfinished business, right? Their own nervous systems, their own schemas. You are not being experienced objectively. You never have been. Nobody has, and when you try to keep managing how you're seen, you stay locked in tension. The goalpost is never stable. And in Buddhism, they would say you're creating your own suffering. the Saturday after I was walking on the beach in my neighborhood and I saw these, my neighbors have this sign on their fence, big sign that says, we cannot direct the winds. We can only adjust our sails. Perhaps you've heard that before. That's it. That's the whole thing. You can't control the weather of other people. You can't force the sea. You can't make the wind cooperate, but you can change how you orient yourself. You can decide and choose how you're going to experience it, but many of us were taught the opposite, right? We were taught if you just work harder, be better. Say it differently. Try again. Be persistent, explain more clearly, more assertively, more nicely. Ask more nicely. Manage it more carefully. Walk on eggshells. Then, then you'll have that thing as if peace is something that we earn by finally getting everything just right. Just perfect, in fact, and we don't even clue in that this is perfectionist thinking, but it indeed is. Here's why getting your shit together never works. This is where I wanna bring something in from my fave Buddhist nun, Pema Chödrön. I love her. I love basically everything she says, and this wrecked me in the best way. She talks about the concept. Please forgive me if I say this incorrectly. She talks about a concept called ye teng che, which loosely translates to totally fed up. Not dramatic fed up. Not burnout fed up, but the moment where you finally give up hope that there's a version of you who will one day have it all handled, have all your shit together, all your ducks in a row, and she says something radical, that real peace doesn't come from fixing insecurity or fixing pain, or fixing the other party. It comes from giving up hope that insecurity and pain can be eliminated. Let that land. It comes from giving up hope that insecurity and pain can be eliminated. This is the part most high functioning, high performing women resist because we love to control things. We think once I get my life together, I'll relax. Once I increase my confidence, then I'll rest once I have the body. Then I'll feel confident and then I can rest or then I'll be successful. Once I stop being messy or anxious or too emotional or reactive, then I'll be okay. Once all my coworkers like me, then I can sleep at night or I'll get a promotion or whatever. But the truth is actually the opposite. Relaxation and peace do not come after. They come when you stop waiting. Pema calls this moment, the beginning of the beginning, not because you have failed and you have to start over, but because you stop pretending that there's a place to hide, you stop believing there's a version of you who will finally be immune to discomfort. Just sit with that for a sec, even if you're like, I don't think that I know there's discomfort. Do you or do you think there's an eventual version of you who will do something differently? Has something you don't have that is immune to discomfort, and something wild happens when you stop trying to secure permanent ground. Your shoulders drop, your breath comes more easily. Your urgency softens. If you heard last week's episode about my story. This is what happened to me when I started working on my nervous system. The things that I didn't even know were related to anxiety or my nervous system, my insomnia, my self-protective behaviors, my constantly clenched jaw, which was like giving me headaches. They stopped not all at once, but eventually when I stopped trying to secure permanent ground, having it all figured out because those things happen you're no longer trying to hold duct tape your life together with white knuckles, you stop fighting impermanence. I also love the word, the idea of impermanence, which I also got from Pema Chödrön; impermanence. I will literally just say that word to myself when I'm resisting. Change impermanence. It's meant to be impermanent. You stop needing other people to be different or the same in order for you to be okay. That is not resignation. It's honesty. Mindfulness isn't control. So if your comment on mindfulness or meditation as just another effort to control or become perfect, spoiler, mindfulness doesn't mean being calm all the time. It's not controlling. It's perhaps controlling the breath, controlling the mind. Yes, it is not controlling outside of you. It doesn't mean being calm all the time. It doesn't mean eliminating discomfort or suffering, it means being with your experience. this is, again from Pema Chödrön when things fall apart, being present. When your hand touches the doorknob, when your phone rings, when irritation shows up, when grief shows up, when fear shows up. Not disassociating, not performing to sidestep it, not trying to manage it, just being right there. And when you're right here, just being right here and when you're right here, you don't need the world to cooperate in order to feel grounded. Here's the reframe I want you to sit with, you don't relax, and you won't relax because you finally got your shit together. You got the perfect planner. You relax when you realize there was never a moment where you were supposed to get your shit together. There is no final version of you. There is no arrival point. There is no stable ground. That stays still forever. And once you stop chasing that illusion, suffering loosens its grip, not because life gets easier or slows down, or your kids go back to school, but because you stopped arguing with reality. So if you're listening to this and thinking, if I could just fix myself, then I could finally breathe, maybe then I'd start meditating. I want you to hear this really clearly. The breath comes when you stop trying to fix yourself. When you let go of the fallacy that there's a perfect version of you, you cannot direct the winds, but you can adjust your, and that is more than enough. Before you go, I just wanna say this. If something in this episode landed in your body instead of just your head, that's not weird. That's recognition. Nothing here is meant to push you or feel like you need to be fixed. It's meant to help you understand yourself with more self-compassion and less blame. You don't need to do anything with this information right away. Just let it land. Let your body catch up. But if something did resonate, I would love to hear about it. Please DM me on Instagram@annejonesfit That is where I love to hang out and I will read every message and reply. And when you're ready, I will be right here. Thank you for listening.