#412 - When Everything Depends On YOU Being in Control

The pressure to hold it all. In today’s episode, Dr. Tarryn MacCarthy speaks to high-achieving women in dentistry and deeply passionate healthcare professionals who look capable on the outside but feel stretched thin on the inside. When success, responsibility, and constant pressure start to shape every part of life, it can become hard to tell the difference between leadership and survival. This episode shines a light on the hidden stress many women in medicine and dentistry carry, and why the drive to keep everything together can quietly steal peace, presence, and joy.

If you have been carrying too much for too long, this conversation will meet you there and point toward a different way forward. Press play before your nervous system sends the next invoice.

Show notes:
(3:48) Feeling responsible for everyone
(10:03) Control as a stress response
(12:30) Why control is an illusion
(18:32) What you can control
(23:57) One hour to let go
(27:20) Outro

_______________________

IMPORTANT LINKS:

Empower Her Retreat:
Dates: October 1–4, 2026
Location: Taos, New Mexico
Website: empowerherretreat.org

Connect with Dr. MacCarthy:
Email: tarryn@drtarrynmaccarthy.com

Book a call with Tarryn:
https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/happiness-and-prosperity-strategy-call

Unlock your inner peace and reclaim joy in your profession with the Nervous System Regulation For Dentists Course: https://www.thebizofhappiness.com/calm

Please join my Facebook group, Business Of Happiness Hive, so we can all take this journey to find fulfillment and happiness together. Click here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2047152905700283

Where to find me:
Website: www.thebizofhappiness.com
Facebook: facebook.com/thebusinessofhappiness
IG: @thebizofhappiness

It would mean the world to me if you subscribe, leave a review, and share this podcast with your friends, co-workers, and families. This will help the trajectory of this podcast and allow others who are seeking true happiness to find the podcast.

Transcript

Dr. Tarryn MacCarthy

(0:01) Welcome to the Business of Happiness podcast. (0:05) It's your host, Dr. Taryn McCarthy. (0:08) And this is the podcast where we put happiness first.(0:14) I help high achieving, deeply passionate healthcare professionals like you rediscover their happiness and their freedom. (0:23) Join me in conversations with experts to uncover our unique definition of happiness and answer the question, is there really such a thing as work-life balance? (0:35) If you've heard yourself saying, you know, I'll be happy when?(0:41) Well, my friend, the time is now. (0:44) Time to step out of the busyness of your life and time to step into the business of happiness. (0:54) Hello, welcome back to the Business of Happiness podcast.(0:58) Hi guys, I'm your host, Dr. Taryn McCarthy. (1:01) And today's going to be a great day. (1:03) I'm so happy to have you here with me again today.(1:06) And in this, we're on the third part of this series around the programming in dentistry and in medicine that we have kind of just allowed to be a part of our everyday and that you get to choose to take back your power over. (1:25) And this really pivotal moment in, really in time for us as women in medicine and dentistry to really take back our power. (1:34) And so I'm really excited to be sharing this with you.(1:37) But before I do this third part in our series, and this is a great one, by the way, you're absolutely going to resonate with this. (1:44) But before I do, I just want to remind you of the Empower Her retreat happening October 1st through 4th in Taos, New Mexico. (1:53) And if you haven't been to one of my retreats as a woman dentist, a women physician, you are going to want to be there this year.(2:02) It is amazing. (2:04) Even if you have been to one of my retreats, this one is really special. (2:08) We have rented out the entire retreat center.(2:10) It is in the beautiful mountains in Taos, New Mexico. (2:15) And our focus is on healing. (2:17) I know, because you have been healing everybody else, taking care of everybody else's health.(2:23) It is time for you to step away from work, from home, from all the responsibilities you carry, from the stress and overwhelm and the to-do list, and give yourself a weekend of healing from a place of understanding, from knowing what you're going through every day, and supporting you, not just while you're there, but in the weeks beyond. (2:49) I want you to be able to leave there with a sense of healing, a sense of wholeness, a sense of calm that you can take with you back to work and home when you go back home on Monday. (3:01) So check out empowerherretreat.org.(3:04) I'm letting you know about it now at the top of the hour. (3:07) So please, if any part of you is thinking, this is something I need, head over to the website, and let's schedule a time for you and I to chat. (3:16) This is a really intimate group of women.(3:20) There are only a few spots left, and I don't just let anyone sign up. (3:24) I need to have a conversation with you to make sure that this is going to support you and that the right women are in the room, because that is the importance of the space. (3:34) That being said, what the healing is, is from that feeling the need and the weight of all the responsibilities in your life.(3:45) And that is exactly what we're talking about today. (3:48) Feeling like you are responsible for everything and everyone all the time, and that the outcome is all dependent on you. (4:00) Okay, recognize that feeling.(4:02) And just right now, if you're saying to yourself, oh my gosh, that's exactly how I feel, then this episode is for you. (4:08) Feeling like you have all these spinning plates constantly, and you're just barely holding it together, but that every plate you're spinning is made of this extremely fragile china, that if at any moment you make a mismovement or you breathe differently or you don't pay complete focus and attention to the spinning plates, it's going to shatter. (4:33) And it's the most valuable, important piece of china that ever existed.(4:38) But even beyond material things, this is now people's lives, people's livelihood that you're absolutely responsible for. (4:48) I remember this feeling myself, feeling like everything depended on me. (4:53) And it makes a lot of sense, because not only is it people's health, and in dentistry, their teeth, I mean, we don't replace teeth.(5:04) Yes, we can with implants, of course, and so many of us do, but this is serious business. (5:10) It's their bone, it's their health, it's their ability to smile. (5:14) I mean, we feel so responsible for these things.(5:17) And in orthodontics, we sign patients on for treatment for years at a time. (5:24) So the moment I accept you as a patient and you sign up for treatment, I've just committed to you and my responsibility to taking care of you for the next two to four years of your life and of mine. (5:39) That responsibility feels enormous when you're a business owner and you've just hired someone and her paycheck is on your shoulders.(5:50) Her ability to provide for her family is on your shoulders. (5:55) Not just that, but the weight of responsibility of a mortgage, of practice ownership, of your student loans. (6:04) I remember feeling so overwhelmed every day and feeling like this intense sense of dread just knowing that at any moment something could fall apart.(6:16) And, you know, it extended even beyond the work because I was thinking so much about work and the delicate process of holding all these pieces, you know, like making sure that nobody sued me, that nobody gave their two weeks notice, that I didn't get reported to the board, that I didn't miss a tax document, that I kept up with my CE. (6:41) I mean, it just felt so overwhelming to maintain all of that knowledge and that preparation and control in my head, but also noticing where things were falling apart in my family, in my body, feeling the need to pay attention constantly, this like hypervigilance, this need to be in control and the weight and the responsibility of the control meant I needed to control everything. (7:13) Every moment of my day, every number on my bank account, I needed to constantly be in control and it felt like this hypervigilance followed me even in my sleep.(7:26) Even when I was with a patient, I couldn't even be with the patient. (7:31) You know, that whole idea of being present in the moment, forget about it. (7:34) I had to be thinking 10 steps ahead in terms of her treatment plan and what might happen to her on her vacation and two years from now, is she going to be in college?(7:45) And then what the next patient's going to need at the same time, thinking about the team member who needs to be trained on this technique. (7:52) And I mean, I'm getting exhausted and stressed out just thinking about it. (7:56) Hold on.(7:57) Let me take a deep breath. (7:58) And the feeling of I couldn't possibly pay attention to everything at once, simultaneously, the need to pay attention to everything at once and be responsible for everything at once and the knowledge deep down inside that it's not possible and the dread that followed that reality, knowing that it wasn't an if, it was a when something was going to fall apart and often it did. (8:26) And it was usually my life that fell apart.(8:28) Can you relate? (8:29) I would miss the doctor's appointment. (8:31) I would miss my own doctor's appointment.(8:34) And then it would take like another year to get back in on their schedule and my health would suffer. (8:39) I would, oh my gosh, I'll never forget. (8:42) And I think I've mentioned this on the podcast.(8:44) I forgot when my daughter, she was eight years old at the time, her piano teacher canceled their lesson and I forgot to rearrange the pickup for her. (8:55) She had this whole, I had this very delicate, once again, these spinning plates, delicate system of she would take the bus to the piano teacher at the end of the school day. (9:06) And then at the end of that lesson, the nanny would pick her up because the nanny only started at a certain time.(9:11) And my daughter was eight, didn't have a cell phone. (9:14) She arrived in the middle of the winter, in the dark in Maine at that time at the end of the school day. (9:18) It is pitch dark.(9:19) Eight-year-old little girl on a major street stood for an hour outside her piano teacher's house with nobody to pick her up, no piano teacher there. (9:30) I didn't know. (9:30) She couldn't tell anybody.(9:32) Oh my God, I want to just die thinking about it. (9:34) Those are the kinds of things that would fall apart. (9:37) And I knew it.(9:38) And I had this dread constantly like, okay, what shit show is going to happen today in my day as I get to work, as I get home tonight? (9:49) What is it? (9:50) And this really crazy cycle of feeling so overwhelmed with responsibility and the need to control so many pieces, this control energy, right?(10:03) Like I need to be in control all the time of all the things. (10:09) And then feeling so exhausted by it and overwhelmed. (10:14) And that exhaustion and overwhelm would just jack up my fight or flight, my nervous system, the cortisol and adrenaline in my body, which would feed this whole need to control.(10:26) Because control is also a trauma response. (10:31) Control is a fight or flight response. (10:34) Notice this maniacal cycle.(10:36) The need to control and be aware and hypervigilant all the time, needing to get ahead of things, needing to be on top of things, being responsible for everyone, followed by this intense, deep sense of overwhelm and dread. (10:52) And I use the word dread on purpose because that is what I felt. (10:57) Dreadful, dreading the day, dreading what was going to happen, what I was going to find on the other side.(11:03) And then that feeding that need to control and staying in control and on top of things. (11:09) No wonder I felt like I couldn't escape. (11:11) No wonder.(11:12) I felt like, and I said this to a client the other day, was I had built this life. (11:19) I had chosen it. (11:20) I had dreamt of it.(11:21) I had created this. (11:22) I had wished for this. (11:24) And that felt like a responsibility that I had chosen and taken on a long time ago.(11:29) And the weight of that responsibility and the need to control the outcome of those decisions compounded this stress. (11:38) No wonder I felt like I couldn't escape. (11:40) It was on this treadmill that I had built and it was going faster and faster and I couldn't disassemble it because other people's livelihood and lives, my children's lives and happiness, my life and happiness depended on it.(11:56) And here's what I want you to hear. (11:58) If you're feeling like you're in this situation, you are not broken. (12:02) There is nothing wrong with you.(12:04) You are not good enough. (12:06) You are not incapable. (12:08) The truth is you are enormously capable.(12:11) You are brilliant. (12:12) You are doing so much right now that is outrageously unexpected of you. (12:18) You are holding so much more than most people could tolerate.(12:22) And here's the real truth, and you're not going to like it. (12:25) This is going to feel very uncomfortable, but I just want you to hold this potential. (12:30) We actually have no control of anything outside of ourselves.(12:35) And this is what I needed to hear and really come to terms with. (12:39) Control is an illusion. (12:41) And that feels terrifying when you feel like everything depends on your control.(12:46) Control is an illusion. (12:48) We actually cannot control anything outside of ourselves. (12:52) And what feels so exhausting and overwhelming is constantly trying to control everything outside of yourself.(13:00) That is what's feeding the stress. (13:03) It's like banging your head against a brick wall and hoping the wall will move. (13:08) The more we try to control things that are completely outside of our control, the worse we feel.(13:15) And when you feel so stressed out and overwhelmed, what happens? (13:19) That fight or flight, that constant washing of your body with adrenaline and cortisol, what happens is you lose access to executive function. (13:29) And executive function is the one thing we need.(13:32) The access to our forebrain, to our frontal cortex. (13:36) When you are in fight or flight, you are going nowhere near frontal cortex. (13:39) You are in amygdala the entire time.(13:41) This is biology. (13:43) When you are in stress mode, when you're in cortisol, adrenaline, chronic stress, you are operating out of your amygdala in a reactive phase. (13:53) And it's in that place where we feel like we're just holding these plates that are spinning and could fall down around us at any moment.(14:00) The interruption I needed was the realization, oh wait a minute, I can't control a damn thing. (14:07) Now let me explain this to you. (14:09) The things that I was trying to control, and maybe you can relate to this.(14:12) I was trying to control my patient's appreciation, their attitude. (14:18) I thought if I was the best orthodontist, they would just appreciate me, and they would be happy, and there'd be no parents complaining. (14:26) If I had the perfect communication and systems in place and clarity, and my team was well trained perfectly, if I could control the training of my team and the copy and messaging that went out of my practice, my patients would understand and be so grateful.(14:47) And if I could really impress on them the value they were receiving here, and the amount of care and effort we put in, they would just be so grateful that every day my patients would refuel me. (14:59) If I could control the way they saw the experience they were getting. (15:04) Notice the control.(15:05) Guess what I can't control? (15:06) Anything outside of me. (15:08) Patients appreciation, I can't control.(15:12) Whether or not they value what I value, out of my control. (15:15) Whether or not a parent of a patient had a bad day or is going through a divorce and is just taking it out on me, out of my control. (15:23) Completely.(15:24) You cannot be the most excellent person enough. (15:31) Excellent business owner, doctor, dentist, leader, communicator. (15:36) You can't be good enough to control their experience.(15:41) Not possible. (15:42) Team member drama. (15:43) I thought if I could just have everything in place like my HR locked in, my manual, my business manual, my job description manual, training.(15:54) If I had everything locked in, I had everything on the calendar of their licensure and my licensure and a route for them to take when they had a complaint and perfect communication skills and bringing them all kinds of CE on how to communicate with each other and I was the best listener and I gave them what they needed and I was the best boss. (16:14) I could control staff drama. (16:17) Guess what?(16:18) One thing out of your control. (16:20) You cannot control your team's ability to navigate their own stress. (16:26) You cannot control whether or not a team member gets pregnant, gets sick, gets married, moves, decides to have a change in their career, doesn't like the environment they work in.(16:38) Out of your control. (16:41) Notice these are just two tiny things that I thought if I was the best at, I could control the outcome. (16:47) Here's another one.(16:48) Mother, being the perfect mother and I know I'm bringing this word perfectionism in and if you feel this pull for perfectionism and you're noticing, oh my gosh, yes, I'm always trying to be perfect. (17:00) Please listen to the most recent episode before this one, the last episode about how perfectionism is a programming that we have bought into and your choice to step out of the programming because it is real. (17:13) But today, we're not even talking about perfectionism.(17:15) We're just talking about control. (17:17) I thought that if I was the best mom, if I really cared about my kids, if I really valued my parenting, that I could control whether or not my kids did well in school. (17:30) Out of your control.(17:31) So then what if all of this is out of my control? (17:35) The weather, insurance reimbursements, health, even my patient's biological healing capacity. (17:42) Out of your control.(17:44) I don't care if you're the best medical history reporter and taker other. (17:50) Medical history person who took the best medical history ever and paid the closest attention to it and reported everything accurately on your patient health record. (18:00) I don't care if you're the best doctor to navigate those things.(18:04) There are still moments where you're not capable of controlling your patient's healing capacity. (18:13) Out of your hands, whether or not they brush or floss their teeth. (18:15) Out of your hands.(18:16) Whether or not they even know they have diabetes. (18:19) Out of your hands. (18:20) Let alone report it.(18:21) Whether or not they reported that they smoked pot on their way to your appointment this morning. (18:27) Out of your control. (18:28) Whether or not they decide to sue you.(18:31) Literally out of your control. (18:32) So what is in your control? (18:35) The only thing within your control is how you respond to the things that happen in your life.(18:42) That is it. (18:44) And your choice of response is yours wholly. (18:49) It is the one thing you have beautiful power over.(18:53) But not without understanding what is happening in your body. (18:57) Not without recognizing that when you're in fight or flight that beautiful part of you of choice that part of your brain that gets to choose how to respond gets hijacked by your amygdala when you are in fight or flight. (19:12) And right there is the secret to taking back calm in your life.(19:18) Not control. (19:19) Because there's no such thing as controlling your life. (19:22) Guess what?(19:23) You get to not control anything. (19:25) But you do get to choose how you respond to it. (19:29) Notice how this works.(19:30) A patient complains about she didn't get the right communication. (19:35) She didn't know she was getting her braces on today. (19:38) She showed up and all of a sudden you're getting braces on and she's pissed because she's got her dance on Friday.(19:43) Notice how you now get to be in a place of choice. (19:48) I can choose to cancel this appointment. (19:51) I can choose to keep this appointment.(19:54) I can choose to look at the communication that we have with patients and make sure that there's good understanding. (20:03) I can choose to put someone else on that task. (20:06) I can choose to not make this mean anything about me.(20:11) Because guess what? (20:11) It doesn't. (20:13) Spoiler alert.(20:14) It doesn't mean anything about you. (20:15) Your patient's reactions and opinions have zero indication about your ability, your worth, your capacity, your potential, your value. (20:27) That is their opinion.(20:30) But it is a choice in how you respond to it. (20:33) Respond to it with love and kindness and understanding and grace. (20:37) I'm not saying that's what you have to do.(20:40) I'm saying it's choice. (20:42) And maybe that made you people please and give the treatment for free and not that situation. (20:48) But maybe at some point in your life you're like, oh my god, I feel so bad so I'm going to do this out of the goodness of my heart.(20:54) And then you notice at the end of the month your bank account is too low so guess what? (20:58) You're in choice again. (20:59) You get to choose a new path.(21:03) You are always in choice of how you respond but not when your body is in so much fight or flight that you don't even have access to thought, to time management, to task initiation, to compassion, to greater perspective. (21:19) These are all executive functions that we lose access to when we're in fight or flight. (21:24) And here's the programming that has us convinced that we need to be in control all the time.(21:31) And all that that programming does is it fuels stress. (21:36) You do not need to be in control of everything. (21:40) It gets to be messy.(21:41) Things get to fall apart. (21:43) And it's okay because the control was an illusion all along. (21:47) It was.(21:48) And that is so hard to hear. (21:50) It is so hard to hear that you have no control especially when the stakes feel so high. (21:58) Trust me.(21:58) I felt this way with my kids, with my practice, with my patients, with my staff, with my husband, with my body. (22:06) There was such a deep need to control. (22:10) And it was terrifying when I learned, oh my gosh, I don't actually have control here.(22:15) My body is going to age. (22:17) I have choice. (22:18) I can choose what I eat.(22:21) I can choose whether or not I take care of myself but I don't actually have control. (22:26) I don't have control over my daughter's mental health. (22:30) I have choice.(22:31) I can choose to spend time with her. (22:34) I can choose to get her the help and support she needs. (22:38) I can choose to love her but I have no control.(22:42) And simultaneously in that awareness is both enormous relief because guess what that means? (22:49) You get to put down all the spinning plates. (22:51) Imagine that.(22:52) But there's also a new awareness that you get to lean into. (22:58) And that is that you're actually in so much more power than you realize. (23:01) You actually get to create the life of your dreams.(23:04) You actually get to lean into calm. (23:07) You actually get to lean into being present. (23:10) You actually get to put down all those things that you felt like you needed to control.(23:15) And now you get to ask for help because if you're not in control you get to receive support because it doesn't have to all depend on you. (23:25) This is the part that as women we get to lean into. (23:30) That feminine quality of receivership.(23:32) And noticing I cannot hold all these spinning plates. (23:36) That is truth. (23:38) You cannot do everything all at once.(23:41) It's not possible. (23:42) So what are you going to put down? (23:44) It might be a different answer for different times of your life.(23:47) And it might be that you don't even know right now. (23:49) Because everything feels so overwhelming you can't even access that thought process. (23:54) So I'm going to offer you this practice.(23:57) Just for this week. (23:58) Can you give yourself one hour? (24:01) One hour this week where you do not hold responsibility or control for anything.(24:08) You allow yourself to put the weight of responsibility and control down completely. (24:14) You're not exercising for fitness. (24:17) You're not exercising for a purpose or an achievement.(24:20) You're not finishing emails. (24:23) You're not catching up on treatment plans. (24:25) You're not being present for your kids.(24:27) You're not planning meal plans for the week. (24:31) Pardon me. (24:31) The word was eluding me.(24:33) You're not actually doing anything. (24:35) You're taking one hour this week to just be and not in control of anything. (24:41) And allow yourself to just feel how uncomfortable that might feel.(24:47) Allow yourself to feel emotional if you end up crying the entire hour. (24:52) Allow yourself to feel angry if you're feeling angry the entire hour. (24:56) Give yourself one hour of freedom this week of the need to control anything or prepare for anything.(25:04) One hour where you put down the programming of control. (25:08) Because it is a programming. (25:10) And we get to shift that programming.(25:13) You get to. (25:14) And what's waiting for you on the other side is enormous empowerment. (25:19) It does not mean you have to lower your expectations or your goals or your dreams.(25:25) In fact, it's the opposite. (25:26) This is how you choose yourself again. (25:30) So, when will that be?(25:32) Right here on this podcast, make that promise to yourself. (25:35) What hour this week will you find to put down responsibility and the need to control and the need to prepare and just be? (25:43) My suggestion is out in nature to give yourself one precious hour where you don't need to control a damn thing and you just can live and be in nature and experience the beauty of life.(25:56) And notice at the end of that hour the perspective you have. (26:02) The access you have to executive function. (26:05) Give yourself this gift.(26:07) And if you do this and it feels amazing, you're going to want to come to the retreat. (26:11) We're not just going to sit and do nothing for the entire time. (26:14) Although, doesn't that sound delicious too?(26:16) We're going to do practicing how to let go of this programming of control. (26:24) Because it is a programming. (26:26) But you are powerful enough to let this go.(26:29) And what's waiting for you on the other side is enormous abundance and capacity. (26:35) Yeah, you still get to have it all. (26:37) You still get to have the education and the practice and the business ownership and the children and health and a great relationship with your husband.(26:45) It is all available to you on the other side of control. (26:48) So I'm sending you so much love this week. (26:50) I'm excited for you to try this.(26:53) To take one hour committed to you. (26:56) No responsibility. (26:57) No control.(26:58) For you alone. (26:59) One hour out of this whole week. (27:01) Tell me how it goes.(27:02) Send me a message. (27:03) Taryn at drtarynmccarthy.com on Instagram the biz of happiness. (27:09) Send me a message.(27:10) Tell me what happened for you. (27:12) And check out the empower her retreat where I get to walk you through this and support you through this because the healing is on the other side. (27:21) When you feel good is when you can do good.(27:23) That is the realization. (27:24) When you in your body feel good that is when you can access that clarity of what is the right next step for you. (27:31) Now supporting you in how to make that feeling in your body in your nervous system that peace that calm that you have been looking for that freedom that is what you get to have access to.(27:45) Sending you so much love. (27:48) Thank you for listening to the business of happiness podcast. (27:52) If this episode brought you new perspective and value I invite you to subscribe so that you catch all upcoming episodes and leave us a review.(28:02) And if you know of a friend or colleague who could benefit from this perspective share this episode with them and empower their day. (28:09) For more information about the business of happiness and the radical happiness for practitioners course find me on www.thebizofhappiness.com See you there.