The Unshackled Voice
The Unshackled Voice
What If the Unknown Isn’t the Enemy?
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What If the Unknown Isn’t the Enemy?

Finding Certainty in Your Own Capacity, Not the Plan
3
‘Surrender’, Imagined and Created by Carolina Migliaccio

There was a time when control felt like safety.

Like certainty in a chaotic world.
Like clarity in the fog.
Like a map I could hold tightly in my hands — as long as I knew what was next, I could prepare.
As long as I could prepare, I could succeed.
And if I could succeed, I wouldn’t have to feel the weight of uncertainty.

Everything was in its place.

But here's what I’ve come to learn:

Control isn’t clarity.
It’s just busy work dressed up as protection.

Most of us don’t crave control for its own sake.
We crave understanding.
We want to feel anchored, prepared, and in the know — not because we’re neurotic, but because we’re wired for meaning.
But somewhere along the way, our desire to understand got hijacked by the compulsion to manage.

We started thinking:

  • If I just know all the details, I can relax.

  • If I anticipate every possible outcome, I’ll be okay.

  • If I plan ahead, I won’t be caught off guard.

But what happens when all the details change?
What happens when your perfect plan gets interrupted — not because you did something wrong, but because life moved?

You realize:

Control doesn’t protect you from chaos. It just delays your ability to respond to it.

There’s a difference between being prepared and being rigid.
Between using your insight to navigate change and using it to try and outsmart the unknown.

And the truth?
The unknown will come.
Not as punishment, but as invitation.
To trust what’s not yet visible.
To practice flexibility without fear.
To meet life as it is — not as we hoped it would be.

The work now is surrender.
Not as passivity. But as partnership.
Because surrender isn’t giving up — it’s giving in to something wiser than your plans.

You don’t need to know everything in order to be okay.
You don’t need to control everything to be safe.

What you need is faith in your capacity to meet whatever arises — and grow through it.

And when you do?
That’s not chaos.
That’s alignment.

Author’s Note:

I wrote this as a gentle confrontation with the version of me who still clings to clarity as a form of control. If you’re someone who plans, asks all the right questions, double-checks the details — I see you. That’s not wrong. But just know that real peace doesn’t come from having all the answers — it comes from knowing you’ll be okay, even when the answers change.

I’d love to know if this struck a chord with you. And if it did, hit reply and let me know what did. It will help me know what’s connecting and how I can expand and deepen this work.

— Carolina


If this spoke to you, consider sharing or gifting it to someone else with someone else who’s ready to hear their own voice again — or give it a restack to ripple it wider.

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