Is it possible to have more Love, happiness, and healthier relationships by letting go of control?
Yes, there is. We all want to have happy and healthy relationships. Too often we try to make relationships work by controlling other people. Because issues that create pain cause us to lose what we hold so close.
Yet it’s interesting how letting go creates more of what we want than holding tightly does.
In every type of relationship, there is the desire to be in control of the outcome. If you do X-Y-Z, someone will treat you better. Or at least they should. So we tell ourselves.
We all want to be in control most of the time. But with relationships, control is holding on to someone with closed hands, trying to determine their responses or behavior.
You can’t control anyone else and have them truly give you what you want.
Control causes manipulation. Which breeds bitterness. And creates loss and division. Which ends up in an ending you don’t want.
People who try to control others hold them tightly with their hearts and minds, using words to steer certain responses.
It’s problematic. There’s no freedom in a relationship like this, be it friendship, family, or romantic.
Subsequently, it’s much harder to give and receive love when you’re being restricted, held on too tightly by someone else.
Earn 25% commission when your network purchase Uplyrn courses or subscribe to our annual membership. It’s the best thing ever. Next to learning, of course.
Love can be defined in many ways. Wayne Dyer defines it this way:
"Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you."
Ultimately, love is the art of letting go and letting God (aka the Universe, Almighty Love or however you define Deity).
Here are pieces of a doctrine that my good friend, mentor, and pastor shared with us recently. He gathered this wisdom from one of his friends.
To let go doesn’t mean to stop caring, it means I can’t do it for someone else.
Letting go is not to cut me off. It’s the realization that I don’t control another.
To let go is not to enable, but to allow learning from natural consequences.
Letting go is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.
To let go is not to try to change or blame another, because I can only change myself.
Letting go is not to care for, but to care about.
To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.
Letting go is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.
To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their own outcomes.
Letting go is not to be protective. It is to permit another to face reality.
To let go is not to nag, scold, or argue, but to search out my own shortcomings and to correct them.
Letting go is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes and to cherish the moment.
To let go is not to criticize and regulate anyone, but to try to become what I dream I can be.
Letting go is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.
To let go is to fear less and to love more.
Letting go is a process, a practice, and something you get better at with time and repetition.
What are you holding too tightly to? Is there someone in your life that you wished treated you better or differently that you’re holding on to? Is there pain in your past that you haven’t released yet because of fear or anger?
Practice letting go. It’s where healing comes from.
It’s also the gateway to love and happiness in every area of your life.
Leave your thoughts here...
All Comments
Reply