Loosen Your Grip

Welcome to this MAD Coaching Habit from Difference Makers by John Michael.Differencemakers.substack.comHolding on too tightly isn’t strength—it’s fear disguised as control.This is Mel’s StoryIntroduction: The Breaking PointThey say you can’t pour from an empty cup, but lately, it felt like my cup had cracked at the base. Life had become an exhausting cycle: rushing Ellie to primary school, dropping Jack off at Kindergarten, juggling my job, and trying to manage the house while Simon traveled for work.I was up late again, staring at the baby monitor’s faint glow. Jack had been sick that day, and my mother-in-law’s voice still echoed in my mind: “A mother’s job is to look after her children, not chase some career.”Normally, I’d brush it off, but tonight it stung. I was trying so hard to be everything—perfect mum, supportive wife, competent professional. But the harder I worked, the less it seemed to matter. I was exhausted, resentful, and honestly, scared. Scared that if I loosened my grip on anything, it would all fall apart.I sighed, whispering into the silence, “Lord, I can’t do this anymore. Help me.”The Tight Grip Trap: When Control Becomes a CageThe next morning, I was running on fumes. Jack was still sick, Simon was calling from an airport somewhere in Europe, and Ellie couldn’t find her PE shoes. By the time I got everyone where they needed to be and logged into work, I was frazzled.At lunch, I vented to my friend Maria. “I feel like if I let go of even one thing, everything will collapse. I just can’t relax, even for a moment.”Maria looked at me thoughtfully. “You remind me of my golf game.”I blinked. “Your what? I don’t have time for golf. These days, I barley have time for…” Maria held up a placating hand and laughed.“When I was learning to golf, I used to grip the club so tightly because I thought that’s what it took to control the ball. But the tighter I held on, the worse my shots were. Remember that golf pro? He showed me how to loosen my grip and trust the club to do what it’s designed to do.” She smiled at the memory, “Turns out he was so right on the money. My tee shots starting going further than Dave’s, and straighter. He wasn’t so happy about it.” She smirked at that memory.Her words stayed with me all day. I realised I’d been gripping my life the same way Maria had gripped her golf club. The harder I held on, the more things seemed to spiral.That evening, as I sat in the, for once, quiet apartment, I felt God nudging me. “Trust Me,” the whisper seemed to say. Proverbs 3:5-6 came to mind: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.”I knew I wasn’t trusting Him. I wasn’t trusting the team. I was trusting me. And it wasn’t working.Unlearning Control: Understanding the ProblemLater that week, I stumbled upon a podcast while folding laundry. The speaker was talking about something called the “locus of control.” He explained that people with an internal locus believe their actions influence outcomes, while those with an external locus blame outside forces for their circumstances.“That’s me,” I thought. “I believe I have to control everything. If something goes wrong, it’s my fault. If something goes right, it’s only because I worked myself to exhaustion.”The speaker went deeper. “But here’s the trap: believing everything depends on you creates stress. It overworks your brain’s prefrontal cortex, the part that handles decision-making, until you’re burned out. When that happens, your amygdala—the brain’s fear centre—takes over, and you spiral into anxiety.”I felt seen. Every crisis, big or small, felt like an emergency I had to solve alone.The speaker ended with a powerful thought: “Your job is to take the next step, but trust God to light your path and the outcomes.”I paused the podcast, tears welling up. For so long, I’d been trying to control everything, but maybe God was asking me to let go and let Him take over.Isaiah 41:10 echoed in my mind: “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.” I realised I didn’t have to do this alone.Letting Go, Leading Strong: Practicing TrustThe next day, I decided to experiment. When my mother-in-law called to check on Jack, I took a deep breath and asked her for help. “Could you pick him up from Kindergarten tomorrow? I need a little time to catch up on work.”There was a pause—I braced myself for a lecture—but she said, “Of course.”It wasn’t perfect. I spent the afternoon second-guessing myself. But when I picked Jack up later, he was happy, and I’d had one of my most productive workdays in weeks.At work, I tried something similar. I de