Control

Sometimes when you start a live stream here, just a little behind the scenes, it says unstable and I go, I feel like an attack. How dare you? And I know they're talking about the Internet, but still, how dare they? How dare they? Hi, I'm Brittany. I am Brittany Hagan. I like to give my credentials. I am an alcoholic Army veteran. Divorcee, single mom, and today I would like to talk about control. Um, it's kind of funny because I am not type A. I'm not type A at all. And like anyone who knows me knows I'm not type A.

So this need for control in my life lately has come from a place that things have been a little bit, oh hey speak wonder, have been out of control and mommy don't like. sorry, I have some notes here. So if I look over here, it's because I'm looking at this giant computer behind me. And like there's this like fine line between being an alcoholic and being a veteran and being all these things where you have to control so many things, right? Like even just being a mom, I go, I have so many things I have to control and be in charge of.

But the truth is a lot of things that happened around me, to me, near me, to my kid, I have no control over. And holy buckets, that will mess you up. A big part of being a veteran is controlling everything you can. And so when we find ourselves in going to therapy and going to rehabs for addiction, we kind of learned that control is such a small part of what we can do. I mean, I have the Serenity Prayer. Let's see, the, oh my gosh, grant me the wisdom, grant me the strength to control the things I can, the...

Wisdom to know the difference and the, okay, the courage. Okay, either way, the point is, I can't think of the serenity prayer. You can tell I'm frazzled today. The serenity, I'm pulling it up. We can't live our lives messing up the serenity prayer. That's mortifying. I need to get to a meeting. That's mortifying. I have it all over the place. Okay, ready? We're gonna say it together because God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

I said that like every day for five years. So it's wild when all of a sudden you're like, you screwed up a little and then you're just completely off track. I digress always. So learning that and like accepting that it's terrifying, right? And like to learn that really there isn't a lot we have control over is daunting. For me, what's happening lately is my partner or my partner, my My go parent. I guess he should be my partner, but doesn't feel like it sometimes makes decisions and does things and I have no control over it.

And he has my most precious thing, literally my heart outside of my body, my daughter. And he makes choices that I wouldn't make. And that's really, really, really hard for me. And I want to compensate in weird places and control other things. And God, I can just even feel, even talking about it, I can feel my body get worked up. Like I don't, why is there a towel here? Because I am the worst. Like I can feel all of a sudden that like feeling in my body of how can I control something that I have no control over.

Now, the reality of it is when we made the choice to get a divorce, That was part of the deal and those were things were considered and it was still the right choice for me. But it's still hard and I can still feel that anxiety like rising up and in my throat and like, it's why I exercise so much 'cause then it's like when your body's stressed and you have to like calm your mind, I get better and better at that. So I'll be, 'cause I have a radio show. I'll be on air and I know that there's all these things going on behind the scenes, but I know, I know how to control, at least for short increments, myself, my body, my mind when things are piling on and I have no control.

God, I hate it. I hate it. Don't you just wish you could make everyone's decisions and everything would go lovely, right? Let's talk about what we can't control and this is a hard one. other people's behavior. Yup, we don't have any control over that, which is 99% of our struggles, right? We can't control outcomes. We put in what we can put in and then a combination of luck and all these things go into play and the outcome is the outcome. Timing. I can't stress you how much timing has come into my life, good and bad.

Like I think sometimes we only see the bad because it's like, oh, if I would've been here or met this person here, or if they would've known me then or this or that. But the reality of it is timing works in both ways. Sometimes you go, I'm glad I had no control over the timing because the timing is perfect. And I will say because of the way I look at life, 99% of the time, the timing perfect, love it. It always works out for me because I am so, I got the long game mentality. I'm like, we'll see why this will be positive.

And not everything turns positive, but a lot of things do for me because I view it that way. We can't control the past. We have to let go. Let go of the past. Obviously, you should work through the past and talk about the past and not go to a mindset of like, well, I can't control it, so I'm not going to revisit it. You just have to accept that the past is the past, but it doesn't mean you can't learn from it. It doesn't mean there aren't things to unpack. Other people's opinions. Listen, this is what I'm actually good at.

I just sat on a wet towel before I started doing this live stream. I am not, your opinion to me is rarely any of my business. And luckily I have been trained in this. because I've been in media for so long is that like, I get it. You don't like me. Sometimes I don't like me. That one I'm pretty good at, like a little too good at. I can kind of disassociate a bit with that. What we can control now, this is important, our response, our response to people and what they're doing, our boundaries. And this is important.

As a co-parent like this is super important because I have to have good boundaries. I can't get dragged into some silliness. Recognizing them, making them verbalizing all very important. Our effort. Like it's true. If I want something to grow, I have to put time and energy into it. And like I have been And so I haven't not been as lucky to be in cadre as much as I'd like to. And I'm like, this is something that's valuable to me and I enjoy it and I love the community. So I go, I need to put more time and effort and, you know, make it make it a hard schedule in my planner.

Our honesty, are we honest with ourselves? When we go, we have no control over this and you go, well, I don't know. You left 10 minutes late for work and now you're worked up because there's people around you driving the speed limit like there are things we can we can and like being honest with yourself about how much effort or what you're you're doing and what your part in things are is really powerful it's not like I have a who's to blame but like how can what what can I change to make tomorrow different or in a situation like this what can I do differently what honesty that you can bring maybe I did start a fight.

Maybe I did come to work with a bad attitude. One thing I can control is my sobriety. Like, and that's every day. That's every single day I wake up and decide, I think I'm gonna be sober today. I think it's a little more solid than that. Like, I think I'm gonna be, but it really is. It's like, that's one thing I can control because in my life right now, adding that in the mix, Adding drinking into the mix would not help in any of the categories of my life. So super important for me to just choose to be sober.

I saw this quote ready. Peace starts when we stop fighting the wrong battles. Oh, I freaking love that. I love that so much. Peace starts when we stop fighting the wrong battles. Everything about that, 20 out of 10. So like I'm putting time and energy into the wrong things, into somebody's fight because I have bad boundaries and now I'm fighting with my ex. I can't control if my boss thinks I'm a piece of crap that day. But why? do I? can't. They've decided that. They've decided that. Like I can know that I can do the best show I can do.

make it interesting, do the things I can. But the reality of it is, there's just some things that aren't your battles, doll, and you're just gonna be a part of it. You're somebody else's like footnote in a story. You're somebody else's punching bag for the day. P starts when we stop fighting the wrong battles. I freaking love that, right? Again, we talk about that losing control feeling. recognizing that in our body. I had that on, gosh, what was it? I think Friday and it just felt like I was, or no, not Friday, I think it was Monday.

I had this like overwhelming feeling. My job's amazing. I work on a radio show and talk for three hours. But sometimes you have the feeling of like, I really should be doing A, B and C. I really should be with my kid right now. I really should be. I can feel that. Anxiety, sneaking up, and it's so unspecific and so unhelpful. So for me, making lists of what I'm gonna do when I get done with work is really valuable. I'm gonna go pick up my kid. We're gonna make dinner. We're gonna watch a show. Just simple things that you can do and do the next step and really find yourself going, okay, I am succeeding.

I am pushing forward in some capacity. You don't have to react immediately to things you don't control. You don't have to have an answer. You don't have to have like, this is so important for me to hear right now. So when something happens to no control of your own, sometimes you just have to sit there for a second. because you want to scream, you want to cry, you want to lash out, you want to try to control it. When I see something happen that I can't control and it makes me anxious, I want to come in like a raging bull and like shake things up.

But I know that's not really helpful for me, not really helpful for the situation. So lately when something occurs that I don't like and I have no control over, especially around my daughter, I take a beat. Listen, a lot of the decisions and things aren't that day. It's like future plans and it's like it's not going to help if I react in that moment or wait a night. You know, some things, a lot of things can wait. We're in such an instantaneous environment where write the e-mail, do the thing, send the text back.

But I've been really in like a, if I don't know the answer to something or know that I should give it a little time. I let things pend. I let emails pend. I let text message pend. Because the reality of it is, if you don't, you're going to burn some bridges. And like, we're not in the burning bridges business. We're in the good boundary business, but we're not in the like, I'm blowing up my life because I feel anxious business. So, and always name what's happening. I think verbalizing that's really powerful for me even having this live about control and verbalizing that like lately I've been feeling a little out of control and I want to be in control but there's some things I can't verbalizing that that's why I'm anxious that's why things are chaotic is because I have a control problem right now because I want to control something in a situation that I don't get to so Wish me luck because I am taking a beat from the situation I'm talking about and I'm setting up meetings and we're going to try to talk to people.

We're going to try to open the lines of communication. So I'm happy you're here. I'm happy I'm here. I'm happy to be a part of CADRE. I'm happy to talk and hang. Please reach out if you need anything from me. I am an alcoholic. veteran, single mom, divorcee, all the titles. So yeah, hope you have a great day. Or just a day? I don't know. It's counting down. It says good now instead of unstable. So that's