NDA: No D*cks Allowed
Most NDAs keep people quiet. Ours does the opposite.
On this podcast, NDA stands for No D*cks Allowed — not men, but the behaviors that keep women small. Each episode explores the patterns women experience in work and life, and the moments when they decide they’re done shrinking and ready to rise.
NDA: No D*cks Allowed
Prepared for Everything, Safe from Nothing
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We like to think being prepared means being safe.
If we anticipate every possibility, make the backup plans for the backup plans, manage the details, read the room, stay useful, and keep everything moving, maybe nothing can catch us off guard.
But control is often less about the outcome and more about the feelings we are trying to avoid.
In this episode, we unpack the different ways control shows up, from over-preparing and over-functioning to managing other people’s reactions, silencing ourselves, and taking responsibility for things that aren't ours.
We also talk about where those patterns can come from, why they can feel so protective, and what it looks like to shift from trying to prevent every possible problem to trusting ourselves to handle what happens next.
Because being prepared can be useful. But when preparation becomes the only way we know how to feel safe, it can leave us exhausted, isolated, and carrying far more than we need to.
Thank you for listening to NDA!
If this episode made you think, challenged a perspective, or helped you recognize a pattern in yourself, consider sharing it with someone else who might need the conversation.
You can connect with us on Instagram at @nda_pod, where we continue the discussion between episodes.
Until next time, notice the pattern. Then decide what happens next.
If I had a nickel for every time someone in my personal life, professional life, anywhere really referred to me either accusingly or lovingly as a control freak, I would be retired by now. Let me just tell you.
SPEAKER_00No way. Yeah. I can't believe anyone would call you that. Is that sarcasm? Yes. Yes. It definitely is. But it's what we love about you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's an endearing quality.
SPEAKER_01Well, for some, for others, not so much. There's kind of to a previous episode, in fact, the episode right before this, where we talk about type A, type B personalities, for the way that my quote unquote type A-ness manifests, there's definitely a desire for control. And you and I have talked about my tendency to prefer control.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Quite a bit in the last five years. Right. I have spent a lot of time talking about that in therapy. Understanding where that drive comes from and knowing that it definitely does stem from my core need of safety and core fear of not being safe.
SPEAKER_00Right. Because control, when you think about it, it's an attempt to prevent a feeling. Yes. I mean, that that's what it is. That's what control is. And what it looks like for different people, it presents itself differently. Oftentimes, when we hear the word control, we picture someone standing over another person, telling them to do it exactly a certain kind of way. Right. And sure, that can be one version, but it can also look like being extraordinarily useful, which can make things tricky, can't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Being highly prepared, creating backup plans for the backup plans, becoming irritated or anxious when plans change, feeling the need to manage other people's choices, reactions, emotions, etc. It manifests in all sorts of different ways. But today we're unpacking control.
SPEAKER_00Most NDAs keep people quiet. Ours does the opposite. Around here, NDA means no dicks allowed.
SPEAKER_01Not men, the behaviors that keep women small.
SPEAKER_00This is the podcast for women who are done drinking and ready to rise. I'm Amanda Kachurka. And I'm Elizabeth Zipola. Welcome to NDA. When we think of control, right, you gave a lot of examples that I think are pretty commonplace examples. I want to bring us back to the notion of what I said a few moments ago, which is control is an attempt to prevent a feeling. Control can look like you're someone trying to behave in a way that is useful. So I guess what I'm saying is sometimes control has a clipboard, such as with our type A friend, Amanda, and sometimes control will have 76 browser tabs open and hasn't slept since Tuesday, such as with someone who's more type B like me. So I just want to offer that out and get your reaction to that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it can, depending on your standard operating system. How about that?
SPEAKER_00I like that.
SPEAKER_01I like that. It it looks differently for different people. But I think at the end of the day, to back to your point about it's you're trying to prevent a certain situation, a certain feeling, that's where it comes from, right? Throughout my life, it has always come to the surface as backup plans for the backup plans, really putting a lot of time and effort into making sure I've thought through every possible scenario that could arise and making sure I'm prepared for it, whether that's with mental preparation or with physical things. So for a very long time I was a chronic overpacker.
SPEAKER_00Were you?
SPEAKER_01Yes, because it was like, well, I have to be ready for every possible situation. I don't want to like get here and then I the one area where it still shows up is I travel with a whole ass pharmacy everywhere. Every time I go on a trip, I you can be sure I have the usual like ibuprofen, acetaminophen, some kind of antacid, but I also have like antidiarrheal medication and cold medicine and band-aids. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00I will say, selfishly speaking, I do know that nine times out of ten, if there's something I need, she has it. So I will admit it does kind of come in handy for people who aren't like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there are definitely people who benefit from it for sure. Yeah. I feel like over time, I have trained people in my life to see me as the reliable one. Oh, because I've spent so much time trying to control situations, dynamics, emotions, catastrophes, preventing them. I think I've positioned myself as like the go-to person. So then, because I know or I feel like there's that expectation we're gonna remove from the equation whether or not that's actually true, because I feel like that's the situation. I put a ton of pressure on myself to always be that prepared.
SPEAKER_00Maybe you have tried often to trick yourself into thinking that you're managing the outcome, but through a lot of the work that you've done with your therapist or just even just reflecting upon yourself, what I think I heard you just say is acknowledgement that what you're really trying to avoid is the emotion that you believe the outcome could create. Yes. So, what is that emotion for you? What's the emotion that jumps out at you that drives you the most to try to avoid experiencing and feeling? Professionally, it's embarrassment.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I don't want to be caught in a situation where someone is perceiving me as, well, she didn't prepare for this. Right. That's to me like humiliating. Oh, okay. Personally, I think it's more we're gonna go deep here for a second. So my mom, and I've talked about my mom before, she passed in 2014 from cancer. And because my mom was in such a position of being the go-to person who organized everything and created the menus for the family vacations and created the packing lists and created XYZ, and then I inherited that. I feel like the expectation is on me to be the same way to kind of fill that role, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00So if you think about it, right, from what you said, and thank you for sharing that. In your case, and in many people's cases, I would imagine, even our listeners, it's interesting if we were to get curious with ourselves, and same with me, how much our need for control is truly us, and how much is it a way of keeping, in your case, your mom close by continuing the way she moved through the world?
SPEAKER_01It's so funny to think about this because it's so drastically different on the personal and professional sides of my life.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Personally, I have definitely tried to fill my mom's role that she had with the rest of the family. And I've always felt like that was, and again, to be clear, no one has ever stated that that was the expectation. No one has ever even hinted that that was the expectation. This is a hundred percent me putting this on myself. Okay. As oldest daughter. Right. Okay. Yeah. And also the only woman in my immediate family. I have my stepmom, my stepsisters, but my core family unit that I've been with forever. Right. I have two brothers and my dad. So only woman, and especially right after my mom passed, it was immediate. I started putting all this pressure on myself to essentially be her. Right. Professionally, though, it still comes from me, but I think it ties back to being fired from my first job out of college because that was humiliating for me. It was like I was the first person ever to have this role in a marketing department, and I was super excited and I felt like I had a lot to prove. And I failed.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01There were also people who failed me, but I played a part in it as well. Right. And so I think my pursuit professionally from that point forward has always been to avoid embarrassment. So that has resulted in really deep controlling tendencies. So it's weird that comes from such drastically different places on either side of me.
SPEAKER_00Right. Exactly. Control is an emotional response tool that you've reached for. Yes. Right. And it's done its job and it served a really important purpose to protect you. And but also at the same time for any of us, and I reach for that tool as well in different ways and for different reasons, but it can eventually start hurting us and start pressuring us. So the work that I feel we can benefit from if control is a tool that we reach for, is not to try to become less responsible or capable, right? But to recognize when the healthy, grounded version of you, you know, emotionally grounded version of you is choosing to lead, and when maybe the activated emotional or scared version of you is trying to make sure nothing painful can ever happen again. Makes sense. It does, yes.
SPEAKER_01So there's an interesting story that I can share where I kind of started to see personally the differences between how my mom lived her life and how I live my life, and where I started to realize that there's differences between my mom and I, and me trying to live up to being her for my family is completely unsustainable. This was like it might have been the Christmas after she passed. So 2015 Christmas. My entire family had come into town for the holidays, and we were at my dad's house, and it was dinner time, and I love to cook, always have, and so frequently I am at least one of the ones preparing meals for my family when they come to visit. So right. It was dinner time. I was in the kitchen, and the kitchen was always at my parents' house kind of the hangout spot. It's just where everybody tended to congregate. And so it's loud, there's wine being consumed, so everybody's laughing and joking around and having a great time. And I'm like laser focused on getting food on the table. So I'm like at the stove, stirring something on the stove, minding my own business. I'm in focus mode. And my dad comes over to me and he's like, Are you okay? And I looked at him and I was like, And he was like, Okay, you just you just seemed, I forget what word he used, but essentially what he was getting at is like you're disconnected from what's happening around you. You're not participating in conversations, you're not like you seem very closed off. And again, that's not exactly what he said, but that was what he was getting at. Yeah, the gist. And I'd be curious to know if he remembers this. I looked at him and I said, You're either going to get dinner on the table in a reasonable amount of time, that's like good food, or you're gonna get happy joking around family participation, Amanda. Those two cannot coexist. He just sort of laughed and was like, Okay, just checking there's nothing majorly wrong. Right. Okay, I get it. And at that moment, I was like, because I'm not my mom. My mom could do that. My mom could be the joking, laughing, having a conversation while also preparing a meal. I'm not that person. Sure. It's too much for me to even try to be that person.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01And in that moment, I was like, you know what? That's okay. I'll engage with my family later. They're gonna get a really good meal. That's my focus right now. And that was like the first moment that I started to realize okay, why are you putting all this pressure on yourself? This is not sustainable.
SPEAKER_00No, and so you do you cook like that anymore when everybody gets together?
SPEAKER_01When I'm in focus mode, I am in focus mode. We will chat when the food is ready, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So you gave yourself permission to be who you are so that whatever you're doing, you could be locked in in a way that is authentic to you. Exactly. Yeah. So that's a healthy way.
SPEAKER_01In a healthy way. So that was the first time that I ever really gave myself that permission. Listen, there's still a lot of areas where I don't give myself that permission. And I'm trying to be aware of the those moments when they pop up and pause and think, is this authentically what I need to do, want to do right now or not? And if the answer is no, then I don't do it.
SPEAKER_00Right. Oh, I love that. I know what one thing that I see, not only do I see it all the time with the people I coach, but I also have lived it. So I get it. And that is the whole notion of how for most of us, control definitely began as protection. So maybe you grew up in a really, and I'm speaking now to other listeners like me, who grew up in a very unpredictable, toxic, scary at times environment, right? So maybe unpredictability was dangerous, or maybe mistakes carried really significant consequences that didn't match the crime, so to speak. And maybe you became, like you said, the responsible one or the mature one, or the peacekeeper, or the fixer, or just the person who was always anticipating everyone else's needs to try to keep the peace. And so for me, I know that I learned that being useful and alert and 10 steps ahead, I knew that it would reduce the chance that something painful would happen.
SPEAKER_01This is something that actually my stepmom has modeled really well for me and that I really, really respect. And she something that she and I have in common. So my mom was 1000% an extrovert. Okay. I am not, I'm not an extrovert. I try to be what I need to be if I'm with and you can, and I can read that. I can do it in short stints, but for a long sustained period of time, I just can't do it. I call it too much peopling. I have limits, and those limits decreased fairly significantly during the pandemic. And they haven't increased since. But it's funny because this is something that I observed my stepmom doing fairly early on in her relationship with my dad, and that was just stepping away when she was getting overwhelmed and taking some some time for herself. Right. And that's not something my mom ever did. Oh, really? No, because she, I mean, she was an extrovert, so her battery was charged by being around a lot of people and engaging and being social. And so that was kind of the environment that I grew up in. There were always family or friends or you know, people at the house, and we were always doing things, and it was always loud. And yeah, and that's just you know, that's the environment I grew up in. And so I had never seen that need to step away modeled by anyone in my life before. And I don't even remember the first time I saw her do it, but we were with my family. My family is big and we're loud and we're we're a lot, fully acknowledged, and that can be very overwhelming for someone who is introverted. And we were with the family, and she stepped away to just take some time. And I remember thinking the first time I saw her do that, I was like, You can just do that? That's an option. And having somebody model that option for me has in my mind given me the permission to do that as well, right, and to opt out of things when I don't want to do them.
SPEAKER_00I love that. Did you ever tell her how she taught you something? I don't think I have.
SPEAKER_01She does listen to the podcast though. So, Tammy, shout out. Oh, Tammy. Hi, Tammy. I was seeing someone in this environment where I was so used to having to be the engaged person all the time, showing me that it's okay to disengage when you need to.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I love that.
SPEAKER_01Which I really appreciated.
SPEAKER_00All this talk made me think of something that has to do with control in terms of how I've been really struggling lately. And it's tricky because it's something that has been making me feel really uncomfortable. I met this woman and I was really excited about possibly even having her as a mentor. And I respected what I thought she represented, and I was actually really excited and hopeful about the relationships fairly early on. She crossed a boundary, let's just say that matters to me. And I've really been struggling to say something, which for almost everyone in my life who knows me, speaking directly is not something that I usually struggle with. And to be honest, I'm afraid that addressing it, no matter how delicately, could definitely create consequences that I cannot control. So if you think about it, I've been trying to control the possibility of this fallout by controlling myself. I don't know what I'm afraid will happen, but I think I need to ask myself, what am I afraid will happen if I speak up? Am I afraid she'll be upset or that she'll tell a different version and I'll be accused of God knows what, like being dramatic or lying, or who knows, or that other people will align with her. I think probably I'm afraid of losing access to some of these other relationships that I'm still in the early stages of building that I'm really enjoying. But at the end of the day, I think I'm probably just trying to protect myself from the discomfort of not being able to control how she responds.
SPEAKER_01There's a lot of uncertainty. So by controlling your response to the scenario, you're also controlling hers.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no matter how lovingly or non-confrontationally I addressed it, if I were to, I can't guarantee that addressing that boundary would have no professional or relational consequence. But what I can control is whether I abandon myself to preserve access. Yeah. Right. That's very true. Silence is also a choice, right? And I haven't decided what I'm gonna do. But silence is also a choice, and that has a consequence for another really important relationship, and that is the one with myself. So I'm just kind of working through some of that, but it just made me think about everything through the lens of control.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely. One thing that we always like to, and you talked a little bit about it in the example you just gave, but that interruption and and how do we stop ourselves when we feel like we're leaning into controlling a situation, whether it's ourselves or others. And I think you hit on it beautifully with what are you afraid is going to happen? Asking yourself that question. What is the result that I'm afraid of? Right. What's the worst case scenario in your mind that you're afraid is going to come to fruition? And what do I think it would mean about me if this doesn't go according to plan? How sure, how am I afraid this is going to reflect on me? Is this my responsibility or am I claiming it because uncertainty feels difficult? It's another opportunity for a pause. Right. And asking yourself some questions to try to identify what you're trying to prevent. For sure. And I think there's also a lot of value in separating preference from requirement.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's true. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like, does it need to happen this way, or is another way that's going to get us the same result acceptable?
SPEAKER_00One thing that I know I'm practicing is trusting that I can respond to what happens instead of completely exhausting myself trying to prevent every possible thing from happening. Yeah, I get that. I completely get that.
SPEAKER_01Again, taking some time to ask those questions, examining your definition of safety. Safety for me equals always knowing what's going to happen. Anything uncertain is scary to me. But reassuring myself that safety doesn't mean having to know every single time exactly what's going to happen. It can also mean trusting that I am capable of responding when something changes. I can survive disappointment or embarrassment. I can repair mistakes. I can ask for help. That's a big one for me.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01And I don't have to prevent people from feeling their feelings.
SPEAKER_00No, no, that's not my job. Definitely not. You literally have no control. It's a lie that you're telling yourself. It's true.
SPEAKER_01I will say that's something else that my stepmom's good at. It's another behavior that she's modeled for me when there's conversation or speculation about how someone's going to react to something, just kind of Stepping back and saying basically it's not mine to figure out that's between you and this person.
SPEAKER_00That's good. Yeah. I wonder how she learned that and how old she was, because that takes some life experience to learn. I'm still having to remind myself that.
SPEAKER_01It's one where my tendency would be to start explaining or helping, or well, from my perspective, helping, but in reality, probably not so much. But her just being like, that that's between the two of you to figure out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's awesome. Well, she's gonna walk away from listening to today's episode. I know pretty dumb.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, this little couple Tammy appreciation segments. Oh, she'll really appreciate that. I promise you. So I think maybe time for shrink this. Sure, let's do it. Do you want to go first? You said you have one.
SPEAKER_00I do have one. This just happened earlier this week, and I'm not proud of this. I'm definitely not. In fact, I was pretty disappointed in myself. But I this week worked for 40 hours straight. I didn't sleep, nothing. And that was definitely a shrinking moment because I, if you think about it, I definitely wasn't working that long because the task I was doing required 40 uninterrupted hours. But the shrinking moment, as I'm now looking back, because I literally am a recovering workaholic. It has caused a lot of damage to my family over the years, uh, before I really started working on myself several years ago now, and my relationships, my health. So I've been really stepping back and trying to ask myself, why did my brain decide that stopping meant failing? And for me, in that shrinking, this shrinking example this week, hyperfocus, which as an ADHD person is part of it. And anyone listening who's diagnosed ADHD, you know what I mean when I say hyper focus. It can feel really productive because I'm actually I am accomplishing something that I can see. But underneath that, I was thinking that I can't trust that if I stop that I'll be able to pick back up. Maybe I'll disappoint someone, maybe it'll prove that I'm not enough. And I guess I just wanted to share that as a shrinking example because that 40 hours straight of working, it wasn't evidence that I care more than Amanda about our business at all. It was evidence that I learned to treat my body like collateral damage in pursuit of getting something right.
SPEAKER_01So can I ask a follow-up question?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Did the fact that you were on vacation last week also play into that? 100%. Yep. You gave yourself permission to have time off and then punished yourself for it.
SPEAKER_00A hundred percent. Yes, I did. Because I was truly trying to disconnect when I was on vacation. My husband and I went on a camping trip. It was our 25th wedding anniversary, and it was just truly the first time that he and I have had that much time together, just the two of us, since before we started having children. And our oldest is 21, just to give people an idea. So yeah, I was trying to truly honor that. And uh yeah, I think probably that is a lot of it as well. So that that is a shrink, that's my shrinking example.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's that's a good one. And I one that resonates with me too, because that's something that I've had to really consciously work on, especially now being an entrepreneur. I think that we put that much more pressure on ourselves to perform and produce. Right. And so when we take time off, it can feel like we're for me. I'm not projecting this on you, but for me, it can feel like I'm stealing from the business in some way.
SPEAKER_00Yes! Oh my god, yes.
SPEAKER_01So that's a real conscious effort to counteract. Yeah, same. So I I get it, and I will do everything I can to support you in not falling back into your workaholic tendencies. Yeah, I appreciate that. I'm also guilty of them, so maybe in some ways, not the greatest support partner, but hey, I'm enthusiastic and I'm here. We're two addicts doing our best.
SPEAKER_00We'll get there.
SPEAKER_01We will. So mine actually is quite in line with today's episode topic because, as I said at the beginning of the episode, being a control freak is something I've been accused of my entire life, sometimes in a positive context, sometimes in a negative context, but it's always there. So this past weekend, my husband and I met up with my dad, my stepmom, and my brother, and we had a lovely little day together. We spent some time outside and did a really nice little walk to a waterfall. We had lunch, we had dinner, we went to a play. It was lovely. But our day started uh by going to a store. My dad gifted me a pendant that belonged to my mom for Christmas this past year, and it needed a chain, and I didn't have one that that would work with it. So he said, part of the gift will go to the jewelry store and you can pick out a chain that is the right length, and that'll be part of the gift. I said, Okay, great. Well, my dad also gifted a piece of jewelry to each of my brothers that belonged to my mom. And for them, it was a little bit more of a we need to decide what you want to do with this. Like, okay, make it into something else. Do you want to keep it as is your choice? Right. So we went to the jeweler, I picked out my chain, good, happy, everything was great. And then it came time to for my brother to address what he wanted to do with his piece. And so my brother is not someone in that kind of a situation who's gonna be well, really, in a lot of situations, he's not gonna in like really deeply engage. He he's an internal processor, I guess, is okay, is what I'm getting at. So he's not gonna be real conversational and something like this, because it's just it's not in his wheelhouse. So the jeweler was sharing, like, oh, we could do this, we could do that. And I could tell this was a little bit of an uncomfortable exchange for him. And the entire time I was thinking about how I could intervene to make the situation more comfortable for him. Really? The entire time I kept my mouth shut for the most part. I think I said like one or two things, and it was more along the lines of confirming decisions that he was making, right, than imposing my opinion on him. Got it. If you would have put a camera on me in that moment, I probably look like a caged animal. Really? I was pacing and walking around. The jewelry store is not very big, it's a it's a small historic building, super cute, but like tiny showroom. I had looked at everything they had to offer within five minutes, and this was probably a 15-minute conversation. So I just kept walking around and then I'd sit for a few minutes and then I'd get up and I'd move around and would pay to see video footage of myself during that conversation because I was trying so hard to not insert myself in this conversation where really I didn't belong. That's true. You didn't. It's not, it's not my responsibility to manage how he's feeling. He is 35 years old, he is a he's a man. It is not my job to manage his feelings, right? So it was really hard, but I was super proud of myself at the end of all of it for not jumping in and trying to save how he was feeling or save the interaction because it was going differently than how I thought it should go.
SPEAKER_00Right. So, see, the awareness, it created space for you to touch yourself so you could make a different choice, which led you down the path of changing up how you responded compared to how instinctively you preferred to respond.
SPEAKER_01That's my normally would have been shrinking, but for once didn't example. How's that? I think that's perfect. That's perfect. Some closing thoughts on today's episode. Anything you'd like to share?
SPEAKER_00What I would like to share is that control it is like a drug, honestly, because it makes you feel good, it makes you feel more at ease and safer in the moment. But real safety and real control, it's not going to be built on, in my case, like overworking or over functioning, or in the example I gave earlier, silencing myself, or like what you said, trying to manage other adults. Right. It's to know the difference between preparation and fear, and between responsibility and over-responsibility, and between what's yours to carry and what falls in the nanya category, nanya business. Aiming to try to thoughtfully protect yourself as opposed to doing it a way that slowly and sometimes not so slowly abandons yourself in order to keep yourself and everything around you calm. That's what we want to aim for. We want to aim for thoughtfully protecting ourselves. And I hope that this episode inspired people to do that through us sharing our own lived experiences and what some of the things we're working through in real time. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01My closing thoughts are in a similar vein, in that I've looked to control throughout my life as a way to not only make me feel prepared, capable, protected, but also give the image to other people that I am prepared, I am capable, I am reliable. But on the inside, I've learned over time how that was really keeping me exhausted, responsible for things that are not my responsibility. And honestly, it that's isolating.
SPEAKER_00Yes, it is very isolating.
SPEAKER_01And so for me, it's not a question of how do I stop planning, stop caring, stop having standards for how I do things. It's how can I remain steady when I'm not in charge of every single variable? How do I learn to trust myself enough to know that even though I can't control what's next, I know I can handle what comes next.
