August 2, 2025 • 15 mins
In this honest and heart-opening Shower Sprinkle, I share the behind-the-scenes story of a big hospital event that took an unexpected turn—both externally and internally. What started with excitement quickly shifted into anxiety, control, and overwhelm. But through the process of pivoting (again and again), I found something deeper: peace.
If you’ve ever tried to control every detail, fix every problem before it happens, or make something “perfect” so it feels safe—you’re not alone. This episode is a raw and real reminder that surrender isn’t weakness—it’s wisdom. And sometimes, the biggest breakthroughs come when you loosen your grip and trust what’s unfolding.
🔑 In This Episode:
- What control really looks like (and feels like) in our bodies
- How a simple room change triggered an unexpected spiral
- The difference between planning and panic
- Why perfection isn’t the goal—presence is
- How surrendering led to more fun, more freedom, and real joy
- The power of pivoting—again, and again, and again
Take This With You:
“You can’t control every outcome—but you can choose how you show up. When you breathe, trust, and let go, life has space to surprise you—in the best ways.”
You can find me at:
https://www.instagram.com/cataton/
https://www.facebook.com/casey.taton/
You can find what sparks me at:
https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1AgeRtyojY/
https://www.instagram.com/lmbdcelebrations/
Music by: Jason and Ashley Scheufler
Artwork by: https://www.instagram.com/graphx_ink/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hey friends.
Welcome to the Enter Sparkpodcast.
I'm your host, Casey Caton.
If you're looking to hearstories of transformation and
personal growth, this podcast isfor you.
My guest and I will be sharingthose sparking moments that has
changed the mental living a morefulfilling authentic life.
I'm so excited for you to heareach unique story.
(00:24):
So sit back, relax, and let'sget started.
Hey friend.
Welcome back to the Enter Sparkpodcast.
I'm your host, Casey Taton.
This is a shower sprinkle andreally a bunch of realizations
(00:45):
that I was just having.
I just did a big event at thehospital.
It's one of the biggest eventswe do all year.
It is Christmas in July.
For, little Moments by DreamCelebrations, and I do it with
another organization and we havea bunch of community that comes
in and donates, different thingsand superheroes that come in.
(01:07):
It's a really big fun event.
But a couple things came up forme.
This year we changed a littlebit and we pivoted and I got
anxious and I realized that.
I was trying to control theoutcome.
Ugh.
Let me just tell you guys, whenyou think of control, I don't
(01:31):
know what comes up for you, buttrying to control and predict
what's gonna happen does nothelp me at all.
Doesn't help anybody, becausethe truth is we really don't
have control over anythingexcept for.
The things we do ourselves.
(01:55):
So if you are the person thatwhere I was trying to plan every
detail, I wanted to make sureevery problem was fixed before
it even happened, and I justwanted to be certain that
everything was gonna go okay.
(02:16):
It does nothing to you.
It actually.
It was not good, actually.
It wasn't good for my body.
It's almost like being in, youknow, having trauma response.
Trying to control everything canusually come from a past fear or
a past pain.
(02:37):
And what I know is I wanted itto be perfect, funny, right?
Because there's really no suchthing as perfect.
And I had just listened to thispodcast on pivoting, and I laugh
because when I think of Pivot,our life is full of pivots,
(02:58):
right?
I always think of the friendsepisode.
I have watched all the friendsepisodes and I laugh all the
time over and over about them,and I think of them on.
Where they're moving the couchand they're like, pivot.
And then I was listening to thispodcast about pivoting in life.
And the example was, you know,you can pivot a little bit with
(03:20):
things, right?
But really you're pivoting yourwhole life.
And it was like I picturedpivoting as a circle in my mind.
Like it's not just a right turnpivot.
It's like you're constantlypivoting with everything you do
in your life because we don'thave control over everything we
do in our life.
(03:42):
And it hit me.
And so this event is veryspecial and dear to my heart,
and I just wanted it to be sobeautiful.
And the thing is, is I've donethis event for years.
This isn't my first one.
We had some little things shift.
We were shifting into differentrooms and it scared me.
(04:03):
I felt like I had no control,which I didn't.
And I got to see pictures of therooms of what happened.
And so literally in my mind, Iam trying to plan out what we've
done in the past and how I canshift it to fit these rooms and.
Make it the best possible thing,right?
(04:24):
So I, and I had also told myselfthat I wasn't gonna be
frantically doing this the nightbefore that this happens every
July.
And although I didn't learn someof the changes until, a month
before, I wasn't going to gointo panic mode.
(04:45):
And I think I went into panicmode over control is I had no
control over the event.
I didn't know the room sizes.
Is this gonna work?
Is that gonna work?
Do I take 500 things with mejust so I can make everything
look perfect?
But when it came down to it,what was perfect, perfect.
(05:06):
In my mind, perfect in the kids'minds.
Because really the only thingthat mattered in that event is
that we brought smiles to kids'faces, and it was a big.
Aha moment of I can't controlwho shows up.
I can't control what myvolunteers do.
(05:27):
I can't control what the roomslook like or even if
everything's gonna fit.
But what I could control is howI responded to it and how I
responded to the event and goinginto the event.
And I knew that we would bemaking that circular pivot
several times.
So.
I just had to surrender andtrust that I knew that I had the
(05:53):
best of volunteers going to showup with the best, most beautiful
energy.
And whatever happened, however,the rooms got decorated, it was
going to work out.
And our mission is to bringsmiles and those smiles were
gonna happen.
Oh, this is a heavy topicbecause.
(06:18):
I want you to look at your lifeand just think about how many
things do you want to control,how many things, do you have
those moments where you're like,I just need this to be perfect
if I just need this to go thisway.
But really, that's not reallife.
Um, we only have control overourselves, and when we choose to
(06:38):
do that and choose to justsurrender.
It's really trusting the processand it's something that I have
really been working on.
And I'm not gonna say this yearwas perfect on that, but it was
a year of full circle pivotingfor me and just releasing the
(07:00):
control.
And it also made me realize,what else do I try to control in
my life?
Because I don't have controlover what's gonna happen next.
Anything can happen.
Anything is possible.
And I realized that once I letgo of that, I had more fun.
The right volunteers showed upand we had kids that had the
(07:25):
most beautiful smiles on theirfaces and parents who shed tears
of gratitude that we were theredoing this for their children.
It has taken me a long time, andI think it's a constant practice
and it is for me, but when youstart to trust the process and
let go, it's like you feel thisflow in your body and this
(07:50):
rhythm and this fun, like that'swhere the fun comes from, right?
Just truly trusting, deeplytrusting your heart, like
opening your body up and like,yes.
This is the best.
Like I have no control over howthis is gonna go, and I'm just
here for it.
And that is truly what I wantedto talk about today because this
(08:12):
was a big thing for me and I,you know, I look back on past
events and I have like thisperfectionism that I want things
to be perfect, so I don't eitherdo them or.
I do them and I just try tocontrol everything.
Is everybody okay?
(08:33):
Is everybody fine?
How are you doing?
And I just, it's like in thosemoments you are not even
enjoying because you're soworried about the things that
other people aren't even seeingor even actually noticing.
But when you surrender, youbreathe and you calm your
(08:55):
nervous system down and bringyour body to full awareness.
You actually get to enjoy what'shappening right in front of you.
We had a successful event thisyear, and so I just wanted to
come on and talk about it.
And the other thing I did ispeople would ask me, how did the
(09:15):
event go?
And I was like, it went okay.
And then they were like, justokay.
And I was like, yeah, it wentokay.
And I am gonna do a whole notherpodcast on this.
The event went amazing, youguys, not just okay, but my mind
had already went into, okay, Iwas home from that event, and
(09:37):
I'm already thinking about whatI can do next year.
And some of it'sself-improvement.
How can I improve these things?
How can I make things a littleless hectic next year?
How can I make, you know, justoverall.
We wanna make things moresmoothly.
And so some of that's notcontrol.
Some of it's just really, Iwanna make it easier for myself
(09:59):
and everybody else volunteeringand everybody else..
Helping, but not, but, and Ialso have to find the balance
between the two of controllingevery second of the event
because that's not real life.
When you go play a sports game,do you control the whole game?
(10:21):
Absolutely not.
You can't control yourteammates.
You can't control anybody elseout there.
But I can control the way Ireact and the way I respond to
things.
So I just wanted to do a littleepisode, a little shower,
sprinkle on the feeling ofcontrol and the feeling of
alignment.
(10:42):
And it's been funny because whenI know that I'm just free in
alignment.
I can feel it and I challengeyou to go do something, let go.
When we try and control things,we're just creating tension in
our body, creating tension inour relationships and, you know,
even our creativity.
(11:02):
When I get into that place ofletting go of control, I have so
much fun.
And I actually enjoy, and it'sfun because I've been doing
these things, you know, when I'maround kids, it's funny because,
they're not trying to controleverything.
They're living in the presentmoment and they're just being
kids.
And I'm like, that's what lifeshould be about, right?
(11:24):
But somewhere in our lives welearn too.
Try and control, try and predictthe outcome.
And so as I've been working onthis, um, it really showed up
for me with a hospital party andjust.
A couple of other areas of mylife of, and honestly, with my
shoulder, I have no control overhow it's gonna heal, when it's
gonna heal.
(11:45):
But I'm learning that I trustthe process.
And for me, if you've listenedto my other episodes, the
shoulder process has been very,very long.
And I'm learning lots and lotsof patience because I can't
force any of it.
Nothing.
Works as fast as any of us wantit to be.
(12:06):
And so going back to that funpart of just allowing myself to
step back, do some breath work,take some deep breaths, pray,
think positive thoughts,whatever you do for you, I
encourage you to go do that.
When I'm in alignment and mybody is like, yes, I'm here for
(12:29):
it.
I stand different.
Words come outta my mouth in adifferent way, more confident.
And I honestly started singingmore.
I walk around my house singing alot, but when I am open in
alignment, I'll be listening tosomething and someone will say a
word and like a song pops in myhead automatically and I just
(12:50):
start laughing because I wannasing it.
And that's just having fun,right?
So go today and.
Try and let go of controlsomewhere in your life.
I'm gonna leave you with that,my friends., This was a big eye
(13:12):
awakening experience for me andreally something I've been
trying to work on, but it reallyhit home with a big event that I
had planned that turned outamazing.
Everybody had fun.
My volunteers had fun.
The kids smiled.
And that's what matters, right?
They didn't notice the littlesmall details that I noticed.
(13:34):
When I let go of the control, Igot to enjoy and I got to hear
words of gratitude andthankfulness and see those
smiles.
And that's really what it'sabout.
So whatever you're trying tocontrol today, maybe it's what
tomorrow looks like, maybe it'ssomething in your life, an
outcome, a relationship.
(13:54):
A conversation, you're runningit through your head, let it go.
And just remember, you can onlycontrol what you can control the
way you respond to anything thatis happening.
And when you take a breath andsurrender, everything just goes
(14:16):
so much more smoothly andthere's so much more fun in
life.
So as I continue to work onthis, I'm challenging you.
Go to it yourself.
And if you, you know, maybe youdon't control anything in your
life and you're like, heck yes,I am just that person that's
(14:37):
here for anything.
Whenever, wherever.
Let me know.
Help your friend out.
If you're the person who's like,oh, this hit home for me.
And I like to try and overthinkcontrol the things that are
gonna happen, what people aregonna say.
Try and let go of those, journalabout it, do some breathing,
(15:02):
calm your nervous system down,and then tell me, reach out to
me and let me know how it workedout for you.
Thanks for listening to myshower.
Sprinkle.
I hope you resonated withsomething in this.
And, let me know what controlmeans to you and how you feel
about it.
(15:23):
Thank you for tuning intoanother episode.
I hope today's story inspiredyou to embrace your own journey
of growth and change.
Remember, transformation isn'talways easy, but it's always
worth it.
If you enjoyed this episode, besure to subscribe.
Share it with a friend, andleave a review.
If you found something thatsparked you in this episode and
may spark a friend, I encourageyou to go share with them.
(15:45):
If you have your own story youwould like to share, I would
love to hear it.
So please reach out to me.
Until next time, friends, gohave some fun and let those
sparks lie.
Hey friends.
Welcome to the Enter Sparkpodcast.
I'm your host, Casey Caton.
If you're looking to hearstories of transformation and
personal growth, this podcast isfor you.
My guest and I will be sharingthose sparking moments that has
changed the mental living a morefulfilling authentic life.
I'm so excited for you to heareach unique story.
(00:24):
So sit back, relax, and let'sget started.
Hey friend.
Welcome back to the Enter Sparkpodcast.
I'm your host, Casey Taton.
This is a shower sprinkle andreally a bunch of realizations
(00:45):
that I was just having.
I just did a big event at thehospital.
It's one of the biggest eventswe do all year.
It is Christmas in July.
For, little Moments by DreamCelebrations, and I do it with
another organization and we havea bunch of community that comes
in and donates, different thingsand superheroes that come in.
(01:07):
It's a really big fun event.
But a couple things came up forme.
This year we changed a littlebit and we pivoted and I got
anxious and I realized that.
I was trying to control theoutcome.
Ugh.
Let me just tell you guys, whenyou think of control, I don't
(01:31):
know what comes up for you, buttrying to control and predict
what's gonna happen does nothelp me at all.
Doesn't help anybody, becausethe truth is we really don't
have control over anythingexcept for.
The things we do ourselves.
(01:55):
So if you are the person thatwhere I was trying to plan every
detail, I wanted to make sureevery problem was fixed before
it even happened, and I justwanted to be certain that
everything was gonna go okay.
(02:16):
It does nothing to you.
It actually.
It was not good, actually.
It wasn't good for my body.
It's almost like being in, youknow, having trauma response.
Trying to control everything canusually come from a past fear or
a past pain.
(02:37):
And what I know is I wanted itto be perfect, funny, right?
Because there's really no suchthing as perfect.
And I had just listened to thispodcast on pivoting, and I laugh
because when I think of Pivot,our life is full of pivots,
(02:58):
right?
I always think of the friendsepisode.
I have watched all the friendsepisodes and I laugh all the
time over and over about them,and I think of them on.
Where they're moving the couchand they're like, pivot.
And then I was listening to thispodcast about pivoting in life.
And the example was, you know,you can pivot a little bit with
(03:20):
things, right?
But really you're pivoting yourwhole life.
And it was like I picturedpivoting as a circle in my mind.
Like it's not just a right turnpivot.
It's like you're constantlypivoting with everything you do
in your life because we don'thave control over everything we
do in our life.
(03:42):
And it hit me.
And so this event is veryspecial and dear to my heart,
and I just wanted it to be sobeautiful.
And the thing is, is I've donethis event for years.
This isn't my first one.
We had some little things shift.
We were shifting into differentrooms and it scared me.
(04:03):
I felt like I had no control,which I didn't.
And I got to see pictures of therooms of what happened.
And so literally in my mind, Iam trying to plan out what we've
done in the past and how I canshift it to fit these rooms and.
Make it the best possible thing,right?
(04:24):
So I, and I had also told myselfthat I wasn't gonna be
frantically doing this the nightbefore that this happens every
July.
And although I didn't learn someof the changes until, a month
before, I wasn't going to gointo panic mode.
(04:45):
And I think I went into panicmode over control is I had no
control over the event.
I didn't know the room sizes.
Is this gonna work?
Is that gonna work?
Do I take 500 things with mejust so I can make everything
look perfect?
But when it came down to it,what was perfect, perfect.
(05:06):
In my mind, perfect in the kids'minds.
Because really the only thingthat mattered in that event is
that we brought smiles to kids'faces, and it was a big.
Aha moment of I can't controlwho shows up.
I can't control what myvolunteers do.
(05:27):
I can't control what the roomslook like or even if
everything's gonna fit.
But what I could control is howI responded to it and how I
responded to the event and goinginto the event.
And I knew that we would bemaking that circular pivot
several times.
So.
I just had to surrender andtrust that I knew that I had the
(05:53):
best of volunteers going to showup with the best, most beautiful
energy.
And whatever happened, however,the rooms got decorated, it was
going to work out.
And our mission is to bringsmiles and those smiles were
gonna happen.
Oh, this is a heavy topicbecause.
(06:18):
I want you to look at your lifeand just think about how many
things do you want to control,how many things, do you have
those moments where you're like,I just need this to be perfect
if I just need this to go thisway.
But really, that's not reallife.
Um, we only have control overourselves, and when we choose to
(06:38):
do that and choose to justsurrender.
It's really trusting the processand it's something that I have
really been working on.
And I'm not gonna say this yearwas perfect on that, but it was
a year of full circle pivotingfor me and just releasing the
(07:00):
control.
And it also made me realize,what else do I try to control in
my life?
Because I don't have controlover what's gonna happen next.
Anything can happen.
Anything is possible.
And I realized that once I letgo of that, I had more fun.
The right volunteers showed upand we had kids that had the
(07:25):
most beautiful smiles on theirfaces and parents who shed tears
of gratitude that we were theredoing this for their children.
It has taken me a long time, andI think it's a constant practice
and it is for me, but when youstart to trust the process and
let go, it's like you feel thisflow in your body and this
(07:50):
rhythm and this fun, like that'swhere the fun comes from, right?
Just truly trusting, deeplytrusting your heart, like
opening your body up and like,yes.
This is the best.
Like I have no control over howthis is gonna go, and I'm just
here for it.
And that is truly what I wantedto talk about today because this
(08:12):
was a big thing for me and I,you know, I look back on past
events and I have like thisperfectionism that I want things
to be perfect, so I don't eitherdo them or.
I do them and I just try tocontrol everything.
Is everybody okay?
(08:33):
Is everybody fine?
How are you doing?
And I just, it's like in thosemoments you are not even
enjoying because you're soworried about the things that
other people aren't even seeingor even actually noticing.
But when you surrender, youbreathe and you calm your
(08:55):
nervous system down and bringyour body to full awareness.
You actually get to enjoy what'shappening right in front of you.
We had a successful event thisyear, and so I just wanted to
come on and talk about it.
And the other thing I did ispeople would ask me, how did the
(09:15):
event go?
And I was like, it went okay.
And then they were like, justokay.
And I was like, yeah, it wentokay.
And I am gonna do a whole notherpodcast on this.
The event went amazing, youguys, not just okay, but my mind
had already went into, okay, Iwas home from that event, and
(09:37):
I'm already thinking about whatI can do next year.
And some of it'sself-improvement.
How can I improve these things?
How can I make things a littleless hectic next year?
How can I make, you know, justoverall.
We wanna make things moresmoothly.
And so some of that's notcontrol.
Some of it's just really, Iwanna make it easier for myself
(09:59):
and everybody else volunteeringand everybody else..
Helping, but not, but, and Ialso have to find the balance
between the two of controllingevery second of the event
because that's not real life.
When you go play a sports game,do you control the whole game?
(10:21):
Absolutely not.
You can't control yourteammates.
You can't control anybody elseout there.
But I can control the way Ireact and the way I respond to
things.
So I just wanted to do a littleepisode, a little shower,
sprinkle on the feeling ofcontrol and the feeling of
alignment.
(10:42):
And it's been funny because whenI know that I'm just free in
alignment.
I can feel it and I challengeyou to go do something, let go.
When we try and control things,we're just creating tension in
our body, creating tension inour relationships and, you know,
even our creativity.
(11:02):
When I get into that place ofletting go of control, I have so
much fun.
And I actually enjoy, and it'sfun because I've been doing
these things, you know, when I'maround kids, it's funny because,
they're not trying to controleverything.
They're living in the presentmoment and they're just being
kids.
And I'm like, that's what lifeshould be about, right?
(11:24):
But somewhere in our lives welearn too.
Try and control, try and predictthe outcome.
And so as I've been working onthis, um, it really showed up
for me with a hospital party andjust.
A couple of other areas of mylife of, and honestly, with my
shoulder, I have no control overhow it's gonna heal, when it's
gonna heal.
(11:45):
But I'm learning that I trustthe process.
And for me, if you've listenedto my other episodes, the
shoulder process has been very,very long.
And I'm learning lots and lotsof patience because I can't
force any of it.
Nothing.
Works as fast as any of us wantit to be.
(12:06):
And so going back to that funpart of just allowing myself to
step back, do some breath work,take some deep breaths, pray,
think positive thoughts,whatever you do for you, I
encourage you to go do that.
When I'm in alignment and mybody is like, yes, I'm here for
(12:29):
it.
I stand different.
Words come outta my mouth in adifferent way, more confident.
And I honestly started singingmore.
I walk around my house singing alot, but when I am open in
alignment, I'll be listening tosomething and someone will say a
word and like a song pops in myhead automatically and I just
(12:50):
start laughing because I wannasing it.
And that's just having fun,right?
So go today and.
Try and let go of controlsomewhere in your life.
I'm gonna leave you with that,my friends., This was a big eye
(13:12):
awakening experience for me andreally something I've been
trying to work on, but it reallyhit home with a big event that I
had planned that turned outamazing.
Everybody had fun.
My volunteers had fun.
The kids smiled.
And that's what matters, right?
They didn't notice the littlesmall details that I noticed.
(13:34):
When I let go of the control, Igot to enjoy and I got to hear
words of gratitude andthankfulness and see those
smiles.
And that's really what it'sabout.
So whatever you're trying tocontrol today, maybe it's what
tomorrow looks like, maybe it'ssomething in your life, an
outcome, a relationship.
(13:54):
A conversation, you're runningit through your head, let it go.
And just remember, you can onlycontrol what you can control the
way you respond to anything thatis happening.
And when you take a breath andsurrender, everything just goes
(14:16):
so much more smoothly andthere's so much more fun in
life.
So as I continue to work onthis, I'm challenging you.
Go to it yourself.
And if you, you know, maybe youdon't control anything in your
life and you're like, heck yes,I am just that person that's
(14:37):
here for anything.
Whenever, wherever.
Let me know.
Help your friend out.
If you're the person who's like,oh, this hit home for me.
And I like to try and overthinkcontrol the things that are
gonna happen, what people aregonna say.
Try and let go of those, journalabout it, do some breathing,
(15:02):
calm your nervous system down,and then tell me, reach out to
me and let me know how it workedout for you.
Thanks for listening to myshower.
Sprinkle.
I hope you resonated withsomething in this.
And, let me know what controlmeans to you and how you feel
about it.
(15:23):
Thank you for tuning intoanother episode.
I hope today's story inspiredyou to embrace your own journey
of growth and change.
Remember, transformation isn'talways easy, but it's always
worth it.
If you enjoyed this episode, besure to subscribe.
Share it with a friend, andleave a review.
If you found something thatsparked you in this episode and
may spark a friend, I encourageyou to go share with them.
(15:45):
If you have your own story youwould like to share, I would
love to hear it.
So please reach out to me.
Until next time, friends, gohave some fun and let those
sparks lie.
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Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.