How To Care Without Controlling: The Secret To Finding Your Peace

Here's the main idea of this controlling versus caring thing. As you guys are putting that in the chat, tell me where you're at, what you struggle with, whether you're on the I'm accused of being controlling side of the street or the side of the street that feels like you are being controlled. Let us know that because the main goal here is not to stop caring. The main goal is to stop trying to carry something that belongs to someone else, to the other person. You can care deeply about them without taking ownership of your life. You can love someone without managing every decision, and you don't have to be mean or ugly or nasty, and there doesn't have to be conflict about it or anything like that. Sometimes we feel like if we back up, we're being cold, but that's not really the case because you can support someone Without becoming their main motivator, their monitor, the one that's making sure that all the bases are checked. Here's the thing. Your side of the street includes your behavior, your honesty, your limits, your safety, your participation, how much you participate or don't, your money, your home, your children, your response, your boundaries, your choices. And their side of the street includes their honesty, their choices, their follow-through, their willingness, their effort, their recovery, their job search, their emotional regulation, their apologies or lack of apologies, their repair of the relationship, even their relationship with reality. Because sometimes we're dealing with someone that we feel like they just don't see the truth. And we can get into that power struggle of trying to force them to see things the way that we see them. And it just doesn't work. It just leads to more locking in. And unfortunately, it often leads to more cementing of the non-reality picture because the person starts to defend that point of view and that only ingrains it even further. Right. Their reality is their side of the street, right? Reality includes things like consequences, outcomes, patterns, feedback, trust being built or broken, financial pressure, relationship distance, missed opportunities, natural discomfort, right? A lot of problems happen when we mix the 3 lanes together. We try to control their side. We try to protect them from reality side. When I say reality side, most of you guys are used to me hearing that, used to hearing me say the term natural consequences, right? And those of you who've been around for a while, you're going to already know this. Like, natural consequences are the things that the world does, right? Not things you do. If it's a consequence that you impose, it comes across as punishment. It won't be helpful. It has to be those things that naturally happen as a result of someone's behavior. To put it in a super simple point of view, if you're in school and you don't study for your test, the natural consequence is you make a bad grade. Your parent telling you they're not going to pay for the next semester, that might be a boundary they set, but it's not necessarily the natural world consequence. To that person. That's not how it's going to be perceived. So the best consequences are ones that you don't dole out or have anything to do with, because when it comes from you, even if it seems like a reasonable consequence, it's going to be perceived as punishment. And that just creates resentment and self-pity. And I won't go into that whole ball of wax because you guys know I can go on a tangent about that. But just know the best consequences are the ones that you don't put there. Right. That's reality's side of the street. So you got to let reality, let the world take care of their side of the street. Because this is how you can get yourself accidentally over into the controlling lane, right? Like, let's make this practical. Okay. If someone keeps avoiding work, right? And you're like, maybe you're thinking, I told you to live here. You had to have a job or something, right? That's trying to control their side of the street, right? Their side of the street is whether they apply, whether they follow up, whether they show up, whether they tolerate the discomfort of trying, because I always tell my clients, getting a job, applying for jobs is way harder than having a job, right? It's just way— it's just a lot of work and a lot of uncomfortableness and rejection. It's uncomfortable. But your side of the street is different, right? Your side is, do I keep giving them money? Do I keep rescuing? Do I keep researching jobs for someone who isn't even applying, like telling them about this job and that job and this website and that website? Carrying the stress of the job search is not yours, right? That is realities, right? If they— Don't work, then reality side of the street, the natural world consequences would be they don't have as much money or they don't have any money. They have fewer options and life gets a little bit uncomfortable. Those are real-world consequences. Sometimes— well, I'll take that back. Most of the time, I want to say all the time, but I'm going to go with most of the time, right? Reality is going to explain things Much better than you can. And that doesn't mean that you're cruel, right? It means that you stop becoming the narrator of reality for someone who keeps refusing to face it. Maybe they're facing it in their own way. Maybe they're not facing it in the way that you want them to, right? If we go back to this situation, which is a common one, that's why I'm using it, where you say to someone like, you have to have a job to live in this house. Even that statement right there is, it's a little too gray for me, right? Because it's really hard to control whether someone has a job, right? A better way to say that is like, maybe you could say something like, hey, I'm not going to charge you rent for the first month because I know you need to get on your feet and figure out your money situation. But after that, rent is this much. That's your side of the street. Their side of the street is how they get the money to pay you the rent, right? That's how you keep it clear on your side versus their side. But what happens is, is you say something like, you have to have a job to live here. You let them move in and then they're not looking for a job. And then you're like following up with them all the time. You're leaving them like job options on the coffee table. I wanted to say like the newspaper where you like circled in the classifieds, but I don't really even think that's thing anymore, but maybe you're sending them links to websites. Maybe that's the modern version of that. That is you crossing over onto their side of the street. And it frequently happens when we set a boundary that we can't really control, which technically means it's not really a boundary. We won't go too far into that. We got lots of videos on that, but do you see what I mean? Now you've set this rule is what it really is. And now you feel like you have to manage this rule. And And that can easily get you to, like, you're not even aware of it, but to be crossing over onto someone else's side of the street. You have to stop explaining the consequence to them. If you let them move in and they don't have a job and you're reminding them every day, hey, I told you you had to do that, right? If you don't, this is what's going to happen. You got to stop doing that because that's just going to be perceived as nagging. It's not going to be helpful. And most of the time it just makes people want to shut you out, power struggle, they get willful, that kind of thing. And not only do you stop explaining the consequence to them, but you stop protecting them from the consequence. Now, when it comes to addiction, the line gets even a little bit more murky, right? It gets harder because if someone is drinking too much or using drugs, You may feel terrified. You are probably going to want to monitor everything. You're going to want to count the drinks. You're going to want to check the bottles. You're going to want to ask questions, track their behavior, trying to make them admit the truth. You're trying, you're basically trying to prevent the next disaster, which is coming from that place of fear, but also broken trust, having to live with uncertainty, walking on eggshells. sometimes for years, right? But the truth is you can't monitor someone into recovery. I say all the time, just this week I said this more than once in family consultations I was doing, someone's person is still in the bargaining phase, as I call it, right? They're still trying to manage it. And the family members still trying to hold the reins on it by reminding them, you said you weren't going to do that, or you said— You were only going to drink no more than 3 or only on the weekends. And I'm like, you're trying to hold onto that. But actually when it comes to getting someone out of denial in addiction recovery, you need to let that ball roll because that's the only way they're going to figure it out. So not only is it overstepping your side of the street, like a bad boundary on your part, but it also is slowing down the recovery process. You cannot control them into honesty. You can't manage their willingness to go to counseling. You can support them. You can support them. You can speak the truth in kindness. You can set limits. Most of all, you can protect yourself. You can stop pretending it's not happening if you want to, but you can't become the owner of their recovery. Even when it comes from this place of wanting the best for them, Their recovery is theirs. Your response is you. Reality, not reality, right? It's to say, now let's feel the other one, is feeling controlled. So I just want to ask you for a minute, right? Because being managed feels awful. It feels like nobody trusts you. It feels like you're being treated like a child. It feels like every mistake becomes evidence against you. It feels like what you did in your past, you're never going to let it live it down. They're going to keep bringing it up and using against you forever. And sometimes the people around you really are crossing the line over into your side of the street, over into your boundary lane, right? By over-monitoring, over-questioning, over-functioning. Did you guys see the video on over-functioning that got released recently? If you didn't, go check that out, especially if you feel like you're the over-functioner. Totally check that video out. It's a— it's— can't remember if it's the last one or the second to last one, but it's on the channel and it's really good. So If you're trying, if they're trying, they're trying to control things that belong to you and that's not healthy. But I also want you to ask yourself honestly, are they controlling because they're just controlling people? Usually not. It's usually because somewhere along the way, some kind of trust has been damaged. And I will say, maybe you are dealing with just a controlling person. They just control everything. What that means is you're dealing with an anxious person because they feel like they need to be in control. That's not me saying it's okay to do that. That's not me saying, well, you should just let them do it because it's their anxiety. But I'm just saying controlling people are anxious people. That's what the deal is. But if you're feeling controlled, it could be likely to be coming from a sense that the other person has that you are not taking control of something important. Right. Because it's like if you drop your responsibilities on someone else's side of the street, if if you're lying to them, if you're paying for the liar, right? Then that's when doesn't mean that they should. But I just want you to sort of understand the pattern of why this situation occurs, right? Because just because I tell them they shouldn't do it doesn't mean they're not going to do it, right? I just need you to understand that we all play a part in this thing, right? If we want people to back off, one of the most powerful things you can do is start to consistently carry your load, carry what belongs to you. Not just saying, leave me alone, Not just saying something like, I got this, or I'll figure it out, or I'm going to do it right, or I'm telling you the truth, or I promise this time it's going to be different. I'm going to be sober, or I've been sober and you don't believe me. All those things, right? It's about taking ownership without someone else chasing you. That's actually how trust is rebuilt, right? It's not just about trust that what you're saying is true. It's about I can trust you to handle this without feeling like I have to check behind you. You don't— it's not going to help to sort of demand freedom, call them names, tell them that they're controlling, remind them of all their bad characteristics. It's not going to make them do less of it. Just like when they try to control what you're doing, all it does is make you get more sneaky. Same thing on their side. They just get more sneaky about how they do it. And both people in the situation, their trust is broken on both sides. Neither one of you trusts the other one, and that creates a whole lot of sneaking and lying and just propagates the whole problem. Now, back to if you're the person who, we're going to call it overcares or overhelps. Right. Might have really good reasons for not trusting this other person. Like, like they lied to you. Like you've been disappointed tons of times. Like you've watched them make the same mistake over and over again. So I'm not telling you to magically trust someone who hasn't earned trust. That's not it. When I say, you know, stay on your side of the street, it's not me saying trust them. There's a difference between not trusting someone and trying to control them, right? Not trusting them might mean like, I'm not going to give you access to my money right now. Trying to control them is more like, I'm going to monitor everything that you spend. Not trusting them might mean that you have a boundary of something like, I'm not riding with you in the car if I think you've been drinking. That's a boundary. Trying to control them means I'm going to count every drink that you take and spend the whole night Trying to make you stop, right? Or trying to catch you, that kind of thing. You know, when you don't trust someone, that's a natural thing, and you need to do what you need to do to protect yourself on your side of the street, not to make them behave in a certain way, right? Trying to control them means that you need that other person to act exactly how You want them to make your anxiety go away because that's what's really happening, right? Like I said before, control is usually about anxiety and it's like you're trying to get these certain things to happen to make your anxiety go down. And a lot of control, it's truly just anxiety management. You're trying to get the other person to behave differently so you feel safe. It doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you human, right? If you're peace of mind depends on controlling someone else's choices though, you're going to live in fear. You're going to feel more powerless, which is only going to drive that anxiety and fear because you are not in control of their choices. You're in control of your response. That's your side of the street. If you want to support someone, then you say something like, I'm here with you while you face this. If you're saying something like, I'm going to manage this so you don't have to face it. Usually not what you're saying, but you're communicating that in your behavior, right? Like you're managing it to make sure it happens. That's coming from that place of control, right? A place of support is like, I'll help you think through your options. Control is like, I already decided what you need to do and now I need you to agree. There's a difference, right? If your help supports Their responsibility, it probably is your side of the street. It probably is helping, right? But if your help is replacing their responsibility, you probably have crossed into the control lane. If you've been around the addiction recovery space for very long, you've probably heard the term detachment with love, right? It's like an Alan. It's an Alanon saying. Detachment with love doesn't really mean giving up. It's not saying, I don't care what happens to you. It's not some kind of emotional punishment, like the silent treatment. It's not pretending their choices don't affect you. Detachment just means— or detachment with love, I mean, just means it's like, I care about you, but I'm not going to lose myself trying to control you. Trust me, if you can learn to do this effectively, you'll feel better. They'll feel better. And the relationship will be way better. It's about not trying to manage you while supporting their effort. You can help someone, you can come alongside someone, but if you are doing more to help them than they're doing, that's a good indicator you've moved over into enabling or over-functioning. This is where people get it confused because it's like, If I stop controlling, they're going to drop the balls. Right. And so you're scared to do that. And what I'm going to tell you is you're probably right. They probably are going to drop the balls, at least at first, especially if it's something that you've been doing for a long time for them, or they expect you to do. They probably are going to drop the balls. And that's where you need to let reality have its side of the street. Right. Those are those natural consequences. Right. The choice isn't— it's not a black and white. It's not like I have to control this person or I have to let the whole thing fall apart. Right. It's not about either helping or abandoning them, even though it can feel like that. It's about understanding where your stuff ends and their stuff begins. A lot of times this is about a boundary, a conversation, stepping back, financial protection, refusing to cover them sometimes, refusing to pay the electric bill that's late or refusing to— And refusing just sounds like such a harsh word, but making the decision or the boundary that you are not going to pay their child support or that you're not going to go pick up their kids because it's their weekend and you don't know where they are. That's the real-world consequences. And it can get complicated in those situations, especially when there's grandkids involved. But so you've got to decide, you're so-and-so, they're so-and-so, but also the kids. And I do think when there's kids involved, safety comes first, right? But that doesn't mean that you fix everything so much that trying to protect the relationship between that person and their kids, because sometimes kids being upset with you is part of the natural consequences, right? If you're confused about whether something belongs on your side or their side, ask yourself this question. Can I directly control this? Is it really my responsibility? Am I trying to influence or am I trying to force? Am I trying to protect myself or manage them? And to be really good at this, you got to be extremely honest with yourself. Let me give you an example that we see all the time. One we see all the time is where, let's say one person's drinking too much. Right. And then you are saying something to them like, you're spending too much money. Maybe you're trying to make it a budget issue. And you're saying you're spending too much money on alcohol and you can only spend this much money on alcohol. If this person has a job and they earn their own money, that can be getting on their side of the street, even though it seems reasonable and it seems like, no, this is a boundary. This is a budget issue. If the money is coming from both places, do you have the right to decide whether they can or can't spend their money on it? You can decide whether you want to give them your money to spend on it. And you can say, well, this is just a financial boundary. I'm protecting myself. But you got to get— this is where you got to get really honest with yourself. Is that really what's happening here? Or is this another way to try to control the situation? But But secretly hiding behind something else? Because a lot of times it's not what you do, it's the intention behind what you're doing. And that's where it can get murky, right? Am I— are you acting from a place of wisdom or a place of fear? That's another really good indicator because if you're coming from a place of fear, when we're in fear, we don't usually make the best decisions. If addiction is part of your situation, the biggest struggle is that the person you care about feels like that person won't face the truth because they get defensive. They deny the problem. They twist up every conversation or have— it's like you just have no idea how to talk to them about it without sounding controlling. Because even the most minuscule mention of the subject can send things Into a giant fight. If that's your situation and you want to figure out how do I get through to them without starting an argument, without getting all over their side of the street, without— sometimes you got to figure out how to do it without even bringing the topic up, then I want to invite you to our Denial Breakthrough Intensive. We have this about every 8 or 9 weeks or so, and the next one is coming up. August 3rd through the 6th. So if you're watching this video and it's like way past then, don't worry. Just if you look in the description and you click the link, it'll take you and you can see when the next one is. But if you're watching right now live, go ahead and get your spot because it's coming up the 3rd through the 6th. And this is like a live coaching event. So you can only come to this when it's live. It's like a 4-day training where we teach you how to get past this defensiveness and denial. While staying on your side of the street. No lecturing, no begging, no threatening, no becoming the police. You don't have to turn in your FBI badges and your fingerprint kit and all that kind of stuff. We're going to talk about why denial happens, why the defensiveness happens, and how to use things like the mirror method. It's a way to invite change or encourage change in a way that actually feels good to them and not bad to them because there's a difference between trying to force someone to see the truth and learning how to communicate in a way that lowers the wall. The way I always imagine it, it's like you're trying to get to your loved one and they're on the other side of this giant field, but this giant field is full of landmines and they're under the ground. If you know exactly where those landmines are, you can figure out how to get to them without stepping on them, but it requires you to slow down and be strategic. You got to have a map of these landmines. When we get in fear, we just want to run across that field and get to them, but we step on landmine after landmine. It blows up in our face. They get hurt, we get hurt, and it's just a hot mess. So this is all about how do you sidestep all that? If you need a better way to handle denial, defensiveness, then check out the intensive that's coming up soon. And there are other resources in the description down there. The links for all this is in the description down there. If that's not the right one for you, we have other ones. Great. For those of you who are watching live, we're about to the point where we're going to take some questions and comments. I would love for you to join the conversation. If you're not watching live, you're on the playback, hey, we're glad you're here too. I do read all the comments, so feel free to join in. And if you want to come live, we're live every Thursday at 1:00 and we would love to see you here. Bri, what do we got back there? All right, here we go. Questions. The first one says, my husband is getting near to relapse, so I'm mentally preparing. I don't like being around him when he's high, so I just avoid him when he's using. Is that the most effective behavior? Yes. For the most part, that is. There are other pieces that need to happen too, right? But as far as your side of the street, yeah, that's your side of the street, right? It's like, I don't like being around him when he's like that, so I Remove myself or I— what's— I keep trying to think of the right word. I mediate the amount of time that I'm with it. Maybe I have to be around them some, but I can make that as less as possible. The best way I can describe it is if you want to be helpful to the other person, then you want to alternate between positive reinforcement for behaviors that you want to see more of and neutral. Positively reinforcement and neutral. You don't want to get into the negative reinforcement thing where you're reminding them, I told you if you were like this, I wasn't going to be around you, blah, blah, blah. You're saying all that. That would be a step on their side of the street, but just simply backing out, planning other things, going somewhere else, totally your side of the street. So yes, I'm for it. It's a good boundary. Next question says, Why does lack of fear of consequences happen in alcoholism? Why are they nice outside of the home to everyone but mean inside to their own family? Makes no sense. All right, these are 2 big questions but good questions, so let's take them one at a time. Why does it seem like they don't fear the consequences? There are multiple parts of that. Okay, let's just start with the biology of it. When you're in active addiction, it's like the connection between your feelings and the part of your brain, like the frontal lobe part that weighs consequences and thinks through things. It's actually like, it's not that it's not there. It's like the volume is turned way down. It's really dulled. It's like, you know what it's like? It's like, you know how they say love is blind? It's like when you fall in love with someone, it's like you're just not looking at things accurately and you're not thinking how this relationship could play out. That's what it's like. In fact, it's from a brain perspective, almost exactly the same as that. And so it's like they're not thinking clearly. It's like maybe they know it's wrong and they know the consequence, but it's hazy. It's way back there. It's kind of hard to explain the brain part. The other part is the urgency on the addictive behavior is turned way up. So they're basically living in this present moment. And so those big consequences feel really far out. So it's like they're in this short-term thinking, how do I get what I need to get today? How do I hide the evidence? How do I sneak it? How do I pay for it? All these things are just really focused on the here and now. That's the other part of it. Now, the other question, why are they nice at home or why are they nice to everyone outside the home but mean to their own family? There's a couple reasons for that. One of them is, as unfortunate as this is, most of us show our best selves to the outside. That's not me saying it's right, but sometimes that's just manners, right? I used to see a lot of teenagers and they would say, oh, you don't know my mom. If you saw her at home, she's way different than she'll act in here. And I'm like, yeah, that doesn't necessarily mean she's two-faced, right? There's our polite society version of ourself and then our less filtered version. So there's some of that, which is just normal for everyone, right? But there's also the fact that most of the outside people don't see and know all of those difficult behaviors that the family knows about. So those other people see them a lot more positively and it's way easier to give them that positive energy back. Whereas when you go home, you're walking into the disappointments, the lack of trust, the problems that are there, the holes you've dug, all that kind of stuff. And so your family has different energy towards you. So you kind of come in from a defensive posture. So that's part of the answer. Other part of the answer could be, it just depends on the substances. Sometimes drinking makes people mean, right? And so if they're going to work during the day and they're not drinking, but they're coming home and then they're drinking and then they're mean at home because they're drinking, that's another piece because it could have a lot to do with the actual either substance they use or where they're at in that cycle. Because when someone's in withdrawal, that will also make them kind of mean and cranky. So there's lots of reasons for that, but those are the 2 biggest ones. Hopefully that helps. Those are good questions. Next question. If our relatives are visiting and they start asking Uncomfortable questions of our loved one who's in recovery, such as what are they doing all day? We feel like we feel so uncomfortable. Our visiting relative seems very inconsiderate with their questions, such as what does he do these days? And we feel we need to shield our loved one from this. This is a good question. And I don't think I've ran into this one before. So I'm thinking about this because one instinct would be, if I shield him from this, am I shielding this person from the natural consequences of their behavior? What I would say is if your loved one is actively trying to help themself, maybe they're not completely sober, maybe they are sober, but they're taking steps and they're trying to move themselves in the right direction, then maybe a little interference for them. Maybe you want to take up for them. Maybe you want to get ahead of that question for them because that would be called helping because they're helping themselves and you're like, look, you're just looking out for your person like you would look out for your bestie, right? Like, you can't talk to my bestie like that or whatever. You'd run interference. That would be helping. If your loved one is not helping themselves and they're not doing anything good and they're not working and they're staying home all day and they're getting those questions, And I would say that maybe falls more into the natural world, the reality side of the street kind of thing. And I would probably let them experience that discomfort. Kim says, I'm blamed for relapse. First time ever trying to stay on my side of the street, but finding it hard to stop supporting, to stop Trying it hard to support through the hurt. I'm hands off. Is this detaching with love? Afraid marriage will end. So I'm not sure if you're saying, Kim, here that this is the first time you've been blamed for the relapse, or this is the first time you're trying to stay on your side of the street. But I think you're saying this first time is trying to stay on your side of the street. So it feels really uncomfortable, right? Like you're just kind of like letting it. Letting the balls drop a little bit. But yeah, that's what you need to do. Now you can be encouraging and supportive, but where you don't want to do is you don't want to say, did you go back to a meeting? Did you pick up your white chip? Have you called your sponsor? You need to call your counselor and make appointment. I called your counselor, made the appointment for you. That would be moving on their side of the street is like getting in there and trying, you're trying to fix the relapse or get Control on it. Saying something like processing it with them if they're open to talking about it, like, was there a trigger? What do you think happened? That kind of thing. If they're open to talk about it, you can do that. You can ask them, is there anything they can think of that would help or what's helped them in the past? That would be helping to support, but you're not telling them what they need to do. You're not putting all the things in the place because that's when you start stepping onto their side of the street. So. If that's what you mean by hands-off, then yes, I would call that detaching with love. All right. Bree says that we are to the end of our time. We had some really good questions today. Some, we even got some questions that I haven't had before, which is unusual, right? Get some new questions. I love that. Thank you so much for all of you who showed up live and participated. And thank you for those of you who are watching on the playback. If, and also I haven't said this in a long time, but if you like to listen and not watch on YouTube, we are on pretty much all the podcast platforms. All these live videos are put on the podcast. Not all of the videos we release on Tuesdays are on there, but all the live ones are. So you can also listen on podcast apps if you want to. And hopefully I'll see everybody next Thursday at 1. All those links to resources are in the description and you guys have a good rest of the day. Bye, everybody.