Good morning everyone.
I’m so happy to be back recording.
I realized that talking is my happy space.
I was trying to do a lot of different things in terms of how to bring content and share value. And before I get sidetracked, I was doing a lot of different things that weren’t in alignment with who I am.
And what I’m realizing more and more is that when it feels easy and free, that’s me.
When it feels forced and there’s just a lot of resistance, that’s not me.
And easy doesn’t always look favorable, especially when you’re listening to a lot of noise. But I have to stay true to me.
And this feels good to me.
This feels good in my body.
Just talking and sharing what I’m learning.
So today I want to talk about the language of control.
Probably part one, because there’s lots of different ways that I have come to realize that I am really controlling.
And that’s a hard thing to admit.
Like really, really hard.
I would say that I called it love.
Or I called it responsibility.
Or loyalty.
Or I was being protective.
Or more so it was like, “Yeah, I’m just trying to help.”
But what I’m realizing is, a lot of the time, it’s just another way that control likes to show up.
So I want to talk about the four types of controlling behaviors that we do, that we don’t even realize we’re doing, and how they quietly rob us of peace.
Because my whole goal with doing this content is talking about the ways that we can get to levels of peace.
And peace looks different for all of us.
But that’s my goal.
Peace is one of those words where it’s like, we all want it, but it just looks so different.
If I can help highlight and show how we are robbing ourselves of it, maybe we can make the shift that way.
So the first way, and I call these the four M’s, like the letter M, is martyrdom.
Martyrdom is really control through suffering.
It looks very noble.
It sounds generous.
It often gets praise.
But underneath it, a lot of the time, it’s really resentment.
It’s over-responsibility.
It’s an identity that we tend to build around being the one who carries everything.
Martyrdom can sound like, “I do everything around here.”
It can also sound like refusing help and then complaining that no one helps.
You know when you walk around and say, “No, no, no, it’s fine. I got it. I got it. Thanks.”
Yeah.
That’s refusing help and then complaining no one helps. Passive aggressively.
It’s saving the day so you stay needed.
It’s saying, “If I don’t do it, it won’t get done.”
It’s suffering loudly instead of setting boundaries.
It’s keeping score.
I know I did that a lot.
I would say things like, “After all I’ve done for you.”
It’s staying in situations that drain you so you can say you tried.
It’s saying, “I’m the only one who ever really shows up around here.”
It’s calling self-abandonment love.
“Oh, I can rest later. They really need me. They need me to show up. Don’t worry about me. I can do it for them.”
That’s martyrdom.
It looks really holy.
But it’s just control in religious slash spiritual attire.
The second M is managing.
Managing is really control through monitoring and fixing.
It’s the one that likes the calendar.
It likes a plan.
It likes a backup plan for the backup plan.
That’s managing.
It can look like overplanning everybody else’s life.
You walk around and say, “Okay, here’s what you need to do. You need to do this, you need to do that, you need to do this.”
It’s constantly checking on people.
“I just want to make sure you did what you said you were gonna do.”
It’s directing conversations toward the outcome that you want.
“Okay, okay, let’s not overcomplicate this. Let’s just do it like this.”
It’s preventing messes nobody asked you to prevent.
Somebody comes to you, and you’re like, “I already handled it. I took care of it.”
Why?
Nobody asked you to.
It’s believing your way is the responsible way.
“Well, I’m just being realistic.”
Really?
You are?
Okay.
It’s carrying responsibility that’s not yours to carry.
“Did you call them?”
“Did you fill it out?”
“Did you remember to?”
It’s fixing to calm yourself down.
Like, it’s really doing things so that you can manage your anxiety.
Let’s just call it what it is.
It’s when you say, “I just needed to get this handled.”
Why?
Why did you just need to get it handled?
Again, to manage your anxiety.
That’s managing.
The third one is manipulating.
Yeah.
And manipulating is control through indirect pressure.
This is where people tend to get very defensive because nobody likes the word manipulating.
So manipulation can look like guilt.
“Well, I would do it for you.”
“Must be nice not to care.”
Ooh.
That brought me back.
That brought me back.
Yeah, that’s manipulating.
It can look like silence.
“I’m fine.”
“I’m fine.”
Really?
That everyday language. “I’m fine.”
What’s really underneath it?
It can look like when people use sex or affection as leverage.
That’s a form of manipulation.
It can look like pressure.
An everyday version could be, “So when are you gonna do it? You said you would. Well, I’m just asking.”
You’re trying to force movement because trust probably feels too risky.
So you’re trying to force it.
That’s pressure.
Manipulating can look like withdrawal.
“Don’t worry about it. Do what you want.”
Oh, I did that.
That has my name all over it.
Manipulation can look like tears.
And let’s keep it real, crying can be real.
But sometimes your tears can be a way to derail accountability.
It can look like playing victim.
It can look like strategic niceness.
“I was only trying to help.”
Yeah.
That’s manipulation.
It can look like intimidation.
The tone.
The stare.
The posture.
It can look like triangulation, when you’re bringing other people into the issue just to build that pressure.
It can look like selective helplessness, acting like you can’t do something so others will step in.
Yeah, that’s all manipulation.
And when I would do it, because hello, let’s just be honest, I would do it because I wanted control, but I didn’t want to tell the truth about what I wanted.
Yeah.
And then the last one is mothering.
This one tends to fool a lot of people because it looks so loving on the surface.
But mothering is really just control through over-caretaking.
It can look like overnurturing.
“Are you okay?”
“Are you sure?”
“Do you need me to do that for you?”
It can look like over-advising.
“What you need to do is this.”
It can look like overprotecting.
“I just don’t want them to go through anything hard. I just want to make sure they don’t go through what I went through.”
It can look like overteaching.
“No, no, no, no, no. Let me show you the right way.”
It can look like treating adults like children.
“Did you make sure?”
“Did you remember to?”
It’s confusing love with caretaking.
It’s just trying to take care of everybody and basically not letting people own their own life.
And again, it sounds like, “I just want the best for them.”
Like I said, I call this the language of control.
The underlying thread with all of these is:
I don’t feel safe unless I am emotionally involved in running something that belongs to someone else.
That’s really what it is.
So I want you to take a look at how you’ve been showing up.
Or just try to take accountability.
Do you do any of these things?
And I’m sure 90% of you do.
Because a lot of these things are on autopilot.
A lot of these behaviors are just ways that, especially if you had a really rough upbringing and you didn’t have a lot of control in your life, you tend to want to control your outcome.
It’s a natural way that the body, the brain, the mind wants to keep you protected.
Yeah.
I think about this a lot because it doesn’t get me to a place of peace.
When I’m controlling, it doesn’t create freedom.
It doesn’t create serenity.
It creates obsession and exhaustion.
It definitely doesn’t create intimacy.
It creates tension, resentment, and a sense of false responsibility.
It feels powerful for a moment, but it steals peace over time.
It doesn’t give you the comfort that you think you get from being this way.
So the goal is to do the opposite of all of this.
Instead of martyrdom, you choose boundaries instead of resentment.
Instead of managing, you choose trust instead of monitoring other people.
Instead of manipulation, you choose directness instead of emotional strategy.
And instead of mothering, you choose respect instead of over-caretaking.
It’s guiding when you’re invited.
Don’t be intrusive.
It’s offering support without taking over.
And it’s basically letting adults be adults.
Focus on your truth.
Your boundaries.
Your healing.
The ways that you can surrender and get more into a state of acceptance.
Focus on your growth and your responsibility.
Take care of your side of the street.
Stop looking at what everybody else’s street looks like.
Take care of yours.
I give this to you with love and more love and more love.
I am feeling so good.
And so grateful.
And I just plan to have a lot more of these honest reflections because this is really coming from me.
To keep it 100, these are the things that I have come to realize that I do.
And I wondered why a lot of the things that I was trying to manifest into my life were taking the long road to come to me.
And it’s because I was really trying to manipulate people.
Manipulate life.
And it takes a lot to get there.
You may not see yourself there now, but if you really take a step back and you look at some of your behaviors and your actions, there’s control there.
And you just have to ask yourself:
Why am I doing this?
What am I getting out of this?
Who said I have to do this?
Why do I have this mistaken sense of responsibility?
And my gosh, what a relief if I didn’t have it.
I think peace comes right after that.
