Hard Times No More Relationship Podcast

The Control Freaks Dilemma- Ep. 23

November 26, 2023 • Allesanda Tolomei-Hard • Season 1 • Episode 23

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Today's episode could be a game-changer for you. It's packed with insights that can shift the way you perceive and handle control in your life.

In this episode, Mrs. Hard dives deep into key questions to ask when you're feeling stuck in the realms of control. It's not just about strategies but a profound exploration into the roots of control, addressing fears, red flags, and finding peace of mind amidst life's chaos.

Here's a sneak peek at what you'll discover:
>>> How to tap into the feminine divine energy and go with the flow.
>>> Unveiling where control is really coming from and overcoming it.
>>> Transforming chaos into serenity and unlocking the surprises the universe has in store.
>>> The power of asking yourself the right questions for personal and work life.
>>> The inside-out approach to life and why thinking differently about our problems is crucial.

But here's the twist: It's not just theory; Mrs. Hard prompts you to take action. She encourages listeners to explore questions like:
- Are you trying to control people, places, and things?
- What would your life look like in a place of acceptance instead of control?
- Are your fears driving the bus, or is it faith?
- Are your expectations setting you up for disappointment?

Listening to this episode could be a turning point, offering insights that may help you let go of control, find more strength, stability, and self-love.

So, if you've ever felt lost, overwhelmed, or caught in the web of control, this episode is tailor-made for you. Give it a listen and let me know what you think!

Say "Hi!" on Instagram: @MRS.Hard_TimesNo More
Or on Facebook Mrs. Hard

Website: Mrs-Hard.com

Don't let anxiety control you any longer. Take the first step towards a joyful life without fear. Sign up for my free 3-day coaching series—Stepping Off The Chaos Roller Coaster: 3 Simple Steps For Anxiety Relief

Speaker 1:

Hi, I'm Alessandra Tolome hard, aka Mrs Hard, and this is Hard Times no More, a podcast for people who are tired of struggling with boundaries, people pleasing and relationship problems. I have overcome some hard times. Within three years, I stopped drinking, my mom died of cancer and my house burnt down in a California wildfire, and those are just the highlights. I have a lot of reasons to be miserable, but I'm not. The truth is, life was more challenging before these events happened. If you are tired of waiting for your circumstances to change to find happiness and peace of mind, you are in the right place. Join me as I share the tools I use and love to transform challenges into assets and interview others about their relationship journeys. Together, let's learn how to have a happy life full of healthy, meaningful relationships and say goodbye to hard times for good. Hey everyone, welcome to the hard times no more relationship podcast.

Speaker 1:

I'm Alessandra Tolome hard, aka Mrs Hard, your host and relationship coach. Today we're going to be talking about our relationship with ourselves and control. Control has been coming up a lot for me in my life lately and it's been coming up in some of my clients' lives and the people I love have been going through some control stuff. So it felt like the universe was pointing me to make a podcast episode about control. So in the last couple of weeks I've been in one of those phases we all love where a lot of stuff happens. I've had some health challenges, some financial challenges and some family stuff happen. I'm so grateful for the tools I've learned over the past several years that has turned these mountains into speed bumps and allowed me to sit in a place of acceptance rather than needing to stay in a place of control and trying to fix, change or manipulate a situation so that I don't feel uncomfortable, because a lot of the time when we're trying to control something, it's because we're scared or feeling overwhelmed and our brain tells us if we do these things, then we'll feel better, and I've found that that's not always the case. Maybe the first thoughts that we have, the initial things we need to control, aren't really what we should be doing, and that's what we're going to explore today. So when things aren't going our way, when life happens, we look for control, right? So what does that look like?

Speaker 1:

Sometimes we blame someone in our life. Sometimes we become hyper focused on a certain area of our life or a certain task For some people, maybe they start deep cleaning their kitchen or their bathroom, scrubbing every corner with a toothbrush and I know cleaning is therapy for some people. After they have everything in place, it's like their insides feel more organized, as well as their outsides. But for some of us, cleaning becomes more of a distraction and we think, oh, once we get this task done, then we'll feel better. And if it isn't cleaning, maybe it's something else.

Speaker 1:

Maybe you have a household project, like you're wanting to all of a sudden remodel your bathroom, but really it's because you're experiencing grief or a lack of control in some area of your life and you really want to change that emotion and you decide to project it onto something else. It's worth looking at, you know, when we focus on needing to do certain tasks, checking in with ourselves and considering do we really need to do this thing? Or is this focus, this obsession with this other task, actually bringing more stress into your life and making your life more unmanageable instead of really helping you? And, for example, with health stuff that's come up, I've tried to control what I'm eating, in the sense of trying to eat a certain way to manage certain health symptoms I have, and what has been happening recently is, the more that I try to control and manage what I'm eating, the worse my symptoms have been getting, and so the universe, I feel like, is telling me that that is not the right action for me. And maybe you have tried to do this too, where you focus on something, but it creates more chaos instead of relief, because control isn't truly helpful. It's just what our mind does to make us feel better, like we are doing something about the problem. But these feelings can be false, and sometimes the universe is calling us to let go of doing and instead to hang out in a place of receiving, of allowing, of acceptance. This place of acceptance can feel really uncomfortable or even backwards, and if it does, that can be a good sign that you are doing the real right thing, that you're allowing yourself to feel your emotions, to sit with discomfort instead of trying to change your situation.

Speaker 1:

When I feel out of control, I write about it, and I write about it in a very specific way. I do not rant right anymore. I used to rant right for a long time. What do I mean by rant right? When I used to journal, I would just journal about the things that were happening to me the things that weren't going well, the things that I didn't like about life. It was just this like dump of emotions and thoughts, and I believe that that can only take you so far. It is only productive to a certain point. It's good to let it out, but it's like what are you gonna do with all of that stuff? And so I focus on what I call constructive journaling. Over the years, I've learned a very specific process to walk with and move through instability and uncomfortable situations that cause me stress, anger, anxiety and grief, and through asking myself the right questions and journaling about them, I moved from stress to peace. So we're not gonna go through that whole process today. I do that with one-on-one clients over a period of time, because you have to write some and then digest it, and we usually focus on a topic or a couple of topics that are very specific to them and what they're going through. But I'm gonna give you some food for thought today to help you move through control and to start to create more peace in your life. So let's get into some of those constructive journaling questions.

Speaker 1:

First, are you trying to control people, places or things in your life? Because awareness is key. You can't change what you're not aware of. For example, do you believe if only your significant other would take you on a date, clean the house, fix your car, whatever it is, then things would be better? Because we project our stuff under the people who are closest to us. So our significant other, our family members, will get the Brent of our control stuff. Is this control you're creating truly serving you, or is it adding more stress to your life? Do you have any expectations? Expectations are the precursor to resentment and disappointment, so it's very important to assess if you're harboring any expectations. Are you expecting very specific results in your life so that once you have these results happen, then you can feel better? Doing these things subconsciously really pigeonholes you into a trap, because it's not an open-minded place. It's a very closed-minded place, whereas having more trust, faith and acceptance creates so much more room for possibilities for the universe to surprise us. So these are all doing energies. This is all very masculine. This is all very action-oriented. Now we're going to check in with the feminine side, the receiving side, the acceptance, the allowing side.

Speaker 1:

I want you to write about what would your life look like if you were in a place of acceptance instead of control, allowing things to just be the way they are, even if they're messy. What would that look like? What are your fears? Are your fears that you would completely fall apart, that things wouldn't work out the way you want them to, that someone else would become hurt or yourself would become hurt? What are your fears? And then I want you to consider are you just focusing on the worst-case scenario? Are there other things that could happen? Or can you just have an open mind to the fact that maybe the universe, your higher power, god, whatever it is, has a different plan for you and it might even get you to a place that's way better than where you think you want to be, because I have seen that happen in my life over and over and over again.

Speaker 1:

The control shows up. It comes from a place of fear. I really want a specific outcome and I keep on hitting a wall over and over and over again, until I decide it's time to do something different, and that something different is to go within and to kind of reorganize and clear the internal feelings I have. And cleaning up those internal feelings puts me back in alignment with the flow of life. I stop swimming upstream and I'm able to just be in acceptance, be in that more feminine, receiving, allowing and flowing energy, and then the stream of the universe takes me to where I need to go. Usually, there's a couple of life lessons included with that flow, and sometimes I end up either with the result I wanted, but I didn't get there the way I thought I would, or at least the feelings I'm left with are positive and full of serenity, instead of forcing chaos and needing to control and manage everything, because that just makes our lives more and more stressful.

Speaker 1:

For example, a very big example was that when my house burned down in 2017, I felt an incredible amount of instability, like I've talked about before. What happened was I became really close with my in-laws. They became my family during that time and, in the long run, I found more stability in my life after the most destabilizing event that's ever happened to me, one of the most destabilizing. Losing my mom was pretty destabilizing too, and I would have never expected that to come from such a devastating event, and what I had to do was be really open to the process and ask myself the right questions, to ask for support and help, because I definitely did not get to where I wanted to be alone, because when I'm stuck with just my brain, it isn't always a wonderful place to be, and that's why we have each other and that's why connection is so important in our lives. You know, we can get a different perspective from other humans. We can hear what we need to hear from people at the right time and it can change our life and our perspective in an amazing way, as long as we're open to doing something different than what we've been trying to do in letting go of control, letting go of those expectations, letting go of the anger, the fear, the resentment, all of those things.

Speaker 1:

And, like when I was starting my own business as a massage therapist before I was a wellness coach I really wanted to grow my practice but I was running into a ton of blocks and I was super drained, I was overworking. And one of my dear friends, dr Debbie, who's been on this podcast she told me if you start taking better care of yourself, if you start getting more body work, your practice will thrive. And that was the best thing I ever did for my business was to receive more body work myself, because it made me way more in tune to my clients and it was an act of receiving and then I understood what it was like for them to be receiving. I was able to be more present and it fed my energy and I was able to show up with a lot more positivity and I think that attracted people to my practice. And, like I said, that was an act of receiving.

Speaker 1:

Before that, I would maybe get one massage a year because I was so focused on doing so, focused on results, so focused on saying yes to everyone, not having boundaries, people pleasing because I thought if I bent over backwards then I would get what I wanted and if I kept working hard and doing then I would get what I wanted. But the opposite was true. When I let go, when I received, when I did emotional work because I definitely did a lot of writing and emotional work with guidance of others through that time, I ended up receiving what I wanted to receive. I ended up with a weightless practice, which I'm very, very grateful for, and I also changed my relationship with my business, which has become a very supportive relationship instead of a stressful relationship, and that work was really from the inside out and that feels very backwards, like when I was signing up to receive massages. I would pay a therapist who charged more than me to help me develop more self-worth for myself, and I would have that voice show up that would tell me you know, you don't have enough time for this. And I'd have to ignore that voice and make the time, because I valued it and I knew that the work from the inside out is really how we get lasting change, the results we want.

Speaker 1:

So take some really intentional time to dive into those questions. If you feel like you're swimming upstream, if you're trying to control people, places and things and it's not working, you're overwhelmed. Maybe you feel like you've tried everything and you're just lost. This is a great time to ride it out and do some constructive journaling. So, once again, consider if you're trying to control people, places and things. Is this control truly serving you? Do you have any expectations?

Speaker 1:

Write about what your life would look like if you were in a place of acceptance instead of control. What would it look like if you allowed things to be as they are, even if they're really messy? Because, remember, healing is messy, life is messy, it's not perfect. And what are your fears? Are you focusing on the worst case scenario? Is that what's driving the bus instead of faith, trust, acceptance, open-mindedness and, finally, is your mind closed off to the universe's plan for you. How can you tap back into that? How can you find that faith, that trust, that peace? And if you actually sit down and do this writing, those things will present themselves. Because I think something magical happens when we write. When we take that time and constructively put pen to paper, our perspective can change. We can start to think differently about our problems and sometimes it seems like the universe, god, a certain energy is starting to write through us and offer solutions that we didn't know were available, or we can realize a certain pattern that we're doing that isn't serving us and just creating more stress in our life. All right, I know that was a very flowy episode today and that's just what felt right, and so I hope that you feel less alone in your struggles and that you can use these tools to get back into alignment.

Speaker 1:

If you're interested in one-on-one coaching, I have a couple of slots available. You can schedule a free 30-minute call with me to see if we're a good match and I can tell you what I can help you with. You can find a link to that at MrsHardcom. That's MRS-HARDcom, and I'll put a link to that in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

You can also find me on Facebook, instagram I'll put those links down there as well and I just want to encourage you to not give up when life is rough and to know that we all experience hard times and that there are opportunities in our challenges for us to find more faith, more stability, more internal strength, more self-love. I believe that's why we continue to experience challenges on this planet so that we can evolve as a human, become more compassionate and more connected with others. And that happens when we do the internal work, when we sort out our insides instead of focusing on trying to control our outsides. That's all I've got for today, and I look forward to hanging out with you next week. Thanks for spending time with me today. Take care.