Connection Over Control

Hello, Cadre. Happy Friday. How is everyone doing? It is your wellness coach and your personal trainer and your yogi. My name is Brianna Holfoth, and I am a contributor here on Cadre, and I am really. I've been reflecting on this month's theme, which is connection. It's been a great theme. I have really reflected on what has. Move this a little bit. It's a little. Not centered. There we go. Okay. Yeah, it's been a great theme about connecting with. With others, with. With nature, with technology.

Right. Like, we're all connected through this app. And my. My talk today is about how connection and control have. Have a hard time connect, coexisting. And as a recovering control freak, I can safe, safely say that control is a mask for fear. And when I started to get really curious about what I was afraid of or what was really driving this urge of control, I was really able to kind of loosen the grip of it. And once I did that, I was happier. I had better connections, I had better outlook on things, and I had a better time traveling.

When you just let go of the itinerary, sometimes you. You have a good time. That being said, like, you know, I. This obviously, control stems from childhood, like many of our adaptive behaviors do, and also just familial roles where we are raised in a certain way and there's a certain lineage, and you're just. This is the role that I play in this particular group of people. And mine was definitely one of the leader of the initiator and the controller. And so when I was in my 20s. Yeah, 25ish, 26ish, I was like, man, I'm like, kind of getting this weird, anxious feeling that I don't love.

And. And I attribute it to controlling the fact that I was worried. I was afraid that things would go wrong if I didn't control it or if things just didn't happen the way that I wanted them to, which is just like our ego running the show, essentially. And I started to replace my need to control with a need or with curiosity instead. And I realized that I had a lot of fear around being abandoned. A lot of fear about being wrong or looking stupid, a lot of fear about not being enough or not worthy of other people's attention, like friends or potential romantic partners.

Just didn't feel like I added up. And I finally got down to this curiosity lens. Rather than try, I let go of the grip a little bit, and I was able to. Instead of, you know, working at my next play or my next scheme, I let Go. I allowed myself to be curious and just genuinely interested in other people rather than having my monologue say this, that do, you know, plan for the next thing. And so I really encourage some curiosity when you notice that you're starting to get into some controlling behaviors.

The second thing I want to point out is that reality wins every single time. It never fails. We can't. We have to stop fighting it. Reality will always win. And that means we have to kind of let people be people. They're gonna do what they're gonna do. The situation is gonna be what it's gonna be. I mean, there's a million different scenarios happening all around the globe all the time, which we know nothing about. We have, like, a slice of it, right? So reality is not gonna bend in our favor. It is just universal law.

It's science. It's atoms, it's particles. It's happening. And so notice where you are with. With reality. Like, I used to resist reality all the time. I hated it. I hated work. I hate. Like, it was just like, why can't it be this way? And it's like, because it's gonna be the way the universe or reality is having it be. So we have to kind of. We had to surrender to it. It doesn't mean we like it. It doesn't mean that it's right or whatever's happening is the right thing that's happening. There's always been bad things happening throughout the entire history of time and humans since we've been here.

So, yes, it doesn't mean that we have to be okay with it, but it also means that we have to accept it and surrender and ground down so that we can hit these tough issues straight on with clarity. Right? We're not all disoriented with all of our inner gunk affecting how we're gonna play this out. Right? So surrender and acceptance doesn't mean that you agree. It doesn't mean that you're tolerating abuse, and it doesn't mean that, like, that you can't contribute to a new story that you most certainly can.

And so it just removes this, like, wow, I don't have to do it all. Wow. I don't have to, like, have the world on my shoulders. I see. Especially right now, everybody. It just seems like everyone's got their. The world on their shoulders. Everyone thinks they're right. Their way is the only way. And then if not, they just cut people off. And it's just that. That's not helpful. We have to have these conversations, right? So Allow reality to be as it is and accept it and work on the resistance you may have with it so that you can then be clear and make the next best step, not just a step moving forward.

I kind of touched on it about people just letting people be people. That's my third point is we have to let people be themselves. Even when it's uncomfortable, even, even when we don't like it, even when we don't agree, even when somebody is wrong. Like you are in your power and so sure of yourself and open and present. When you can let somebody be wrong and not say anything, like, have you ever been able to do that? It is because sometimes it's just not worth the fight, right? You have to let them do they, they're so strong hearted and you know, if you bring someone up, it's just gonna cause even more, more tension.

We have to let people be people. And like, it's just, it's uncomfortable, it's, it's a bummer sometimes, right? Because you're just like, man, like this connection has changed. I'm not really sure I can keep it. You know, we're, we're growing in separate paths, like, but that's where growth happens. It happens in friction, it happens in setting boundaries, it happens in the nuance. It happens with these crucial conversations that so many people aren't having because everyone just wants to dismiss, label, attack, cut off and like, cancel.

Culture is so huge right now. And I'm not saying that it's not warranted sometimes. I'm saying that it's easier to cancel and cut somebody off than it is to have a conversation about what's going to, going on and have a big picture zoom out a little bit. And so in your next conversation, try to focus on understanding. Try to focus on seeing their perspective and seeing how that relates or doesn't to your perspective. Focus on not wanting to win, right? Winning gets us in our ego and it's hard to listen to somebody when you have your own agenda, right?

So allow people to feel seen, Allow people to be heard by you and notice when you have that urge to like interrupt or fight or as soon as they say something and you feel this like emotion, this energetic shift inside, like that's your work, that's not their work. Because when we do, when we work in, most things in the external world will work out. And it's always a learning lesson for us to grow as humans. And you know, back to the first point, we got to stay curious, right? Walt Whitman. Gotta stay curious over being judgmental And I love Cadre for that reason.

Because I feel like everyone here is in a really good head space for practicing that and not just shutting down or overreacting or anything like that. And actually, Rachel had a really good Rachel's room. Her talk yesterday was on point, just about setting boundaries and working on. On working in, right? And so, like, we don't have to bring it all together. We don't have to just let everything go. Like, surrender does not mean, like, oh, just I'm gonna let this happen. Like, it's easy. No, it means that you can stay in your seat, in your power, in your presence, with clarity, with openness and curiosity, still be able to have difficult conversations without letting your mental movies or your rare activities or your triggers, ba ba da ba da ba, get in the way.

And so I encourage you in your next conversation with whoever it is, a friend, a family member, a partner, when it gets a little, like, you start to feel that stuff start to go in, can you stay curious? Can you accept that this is their reality? This is. And this is the reality, and this may be my reality. Can you accept that there's multiple realities in the world everybody's living in throughout their own reality? There is one true reality, but it's so we can barely see it because it's tiny little particles, right?

And three, can we allow them to be themselves? Even when it's, like, super uncomfortable for us, can we let them be themselves? So that's what I'll leave you with today. Stay curious friends and go outside. It's really nice here in Minnesota. I think it's gonna get to like, 40 something today. So connecting with nature has always helped me to see things clearer and to just kind of clear out the gunk, so to speak. But, yeah, I hope that these connection. This month of connection has been, you know, perspective shifting for you.

I know that I've learned a lot from other contributors and I have focused on my connections a lot, which is what I love about these monthly themes. So, you know, it's. It's gonna be a really, really solid, solid march coming up here. I'm excited for. For that theme as well, because it's. It's always fun to see what all the contributors come up with. And so I'll see you next month in March for our protecting capacity, which is something that I really have been learning more about and practicing myself.

So we'll talk about knowing your limits next week. But thanks for showing up, and I hope everybody has a great day. Great, great rest of their weekend. Move your body. Drink a lot of water. Spread kindness if you've got some.