Everything you need to detach permanently (in order)

In this video, I'm going to show you everything you need to know so that you can let go permanently. My name is Aaron Doughty, and I have seen thousands of people transform their lives through letting go over the years. I've traveled the world running live events showing people the magnetic power of letting go. I've showed people how to use letting go to change not only their outer circumstances in their life, but how to become free on the inside, how to feel more authentic, how to feel more vulnerable, and also at the same time, how to actually attach in a healthy way. You see, a lot of times what happens is people will look at letting go as a way to get out of attachment, which is painful. They then get into independence where they don't need anybody, but then They're in a lonely island all by themselves. And in fact, that letting go and that attachment becomes a way of actually avoiding connection and intimacy. So in this video, I'm gonna show you the 3 different stages of letting go. I'm going to show you what you need to let go of at each different level so that you are able to move from codependence to independence to then interdependence, to then going out of the frame completely. I'm just kidding. But these are the stages and will completely transform your life when you begin to even learn it. So first off, let's go to the stage that you may have remnants of, or you might find yourself getting pulled into. The first stage of attachment, you could say, is that of codependence. Codependence. Codependence is where you are okay if someone else is okay. It's where your needs are connected to someone else and your happiness depends on them being able to meet these needs. So what happens at this layer is if you're in a codependent relationship, It's a relationship that is tied to some form of exchange, some form of, in a way, need. And what happens is people many times will stay stuck in codependency because there's something about it that feels unresolved from childhood. So if you look at this, it's codependency. Uh, if you're okay, I'm okay. These are where there are protest behavior behaviors, which are basically Protest behaviors are ways in which you get what you want by subconsciously manipulating. Now let me explain what I mean by that. You can also think of these, by the way, as like different stages of development as a kid. As kids, babies are codependent on mom. That's normal. And eventually the baby might become a certain age where they start to become independent. They start to get to a stage of like teenagers. Teenagers want to be independent, right? They want to do their own thing. I don't want to do what mom and dad do. That's lame. And they start doing their own thing. And they start gaining that. But what happens, of course, is if you stay in that stage, you then become lonely after a while and realize that this may be a way of actually just avoiding connecting to other people. And eventually there's more of an opening that happens from there. But when you look at codependence, let's also realize that there are certain patterns. There are 6 different patterns that I normally talk about on my channel, at my live events, et cetera. These patterns are rooted in these different layers. And when you begin to become aware of these patterns inside of you, you can begin to transcend them. So for example, let me share with you one pattern that I've had to overgive, probably 2 of them, In the past, a pattern of overgiving and a pattern of people pleasing. Now, in the codependent stage, you will attract people into your life that reflect back the opposite of these patterns because there's something to integrate, there's something to learn. So I'd find myself as an overgiver or a people pleaser attracting overtakers or people that were hard to please. And part of the reason behind this is there was unresolved energy there, and there was a connection, almost a desire for that energy, because that was the energy that was known, that felt like, in a way, safe. And also, what do you get to avoid from that? I was coaching a friend of mine yesterday who was talking about how she finds herself in relationships where she attracts men that she can like give lots to and she really hypes them up and makes them feel really good about themselves. But she always overgives, overextends. Then after the relationship, she's like, "Why? I just, I'm such a healer. I'm tired of being such a healer for everybody else." And one of the questions I asked her was, what emotion What emotion do you get to avoid feeling by being an overgiver? And if you think about it as well, many times we will give people what we secretly want to receive. If I overgive to you, not only am I enough and you need me, codependency, but maybe you'll give me what I want. So this is also a stage of kind of like bargaining. A stage of I will give to you and then you will give to me. And one of the questions I had for her was, what do you get to avoid feeling? And then also like, what, you know, when did you decide that, that, when did you learn that pattern? Because it's not who you are. If you say I'm an overgiver, I'm a people pleaser, no, you're not. You might have that pattern, but that's not who you are. That was a survival strategy as a kid to get your needs met. And many times we will attract people into our life at the codependency stage of attachment that are allowing us to feel the unprocessed emotion from the past and trying to prove— the thing that we landed on with my friend, by the way, she realized that she was always trying to prove her worth. And if you imagine proving your sense of self-worth to people, it insinuates that you're not good just the way you are. You are your performance. You are hyping them up. So at this level, what you become aware of as these adaptive patterns, and if you think of fawn, flight, freeze, and fight, these are 4 different nervous system regulation strategies. Very often in the codependency stage, you've got fawn and freeze. Fawn and freeze. You might, fawn is like people pleasing, being nice, surrendering, and like giving up your power. This is really what this level's about. It's giving up power. And people at the codependency stage that have a difficulty letting go of their ex, it's primarily because there's an attachment, a belief that they have what they need. Here's a trick. Here's a thing that will begin to bring you out of this stage though. You ready? When it comes to codependency, you think it's the other person that completes you. But really, it's how you feel when you're around that person. It's the version of you that comes out when you're around them. They may represent a certain emotion or energy to you, and you may give yourself permission to be expressive or to not care or to be a certain way, and therefore that's what you really enjoy. But you think that they're the the thing you need, when in fact they were just a symbol of it. So when you start to realize this, you start to realize that you were the common denominator, not them. So when we talk about this, realize that overcoming people pleasing and overgiving and being invisible is, this is a layer where you are learning that you have abandoned you for others And what you're learning to do is to step into tension, to lean into tension, to lean into expression, to lean into recognizing your own power, recognizing you've been giving away your power. When I realized this about myself, I realized that a lot of my relationships were not reciprocal relationships, meaning balanced. They were imbalanced relationships, non-reciprocal. And that had been normalized because it felt familiar to childhood. Having a stepmom growing up that was controlling, it was an imbalanced relationship. My job was to give, was to manage. I wasn't really able to be a kid. So therefore my role as a kid was to depend on somebody else in a codependent way because I needed to make them happy so I could feel safe and good about myself. So at this level, what you're learning to do is you are learning to embrace authenticity and to embrace tension, okay? So now we're gonna talk about, this is the thing that I think you will, many of you I think will be in between codependence and independence, with a lot of you in independence. And I'm gonna show you a little bit about the shadow side of that and how to actually break free 'cause it makes all the difference in the world. Now, what are you letting go of? You're letting go at this stage of external validation, of approval, of the story of I tune to them. And you also many times will have to grieve codependent relationships because when you're in a non-reciprocal relationships, what happens is there's a certain dynamic there where You're afraid that people are gonna leave you if you start claiming your own power, claiming your own independence. So it's like you have to be okay with whether people resonate with you or not, okay? So this is one of the stages of attachment and detachment or letting go. And codependency is a stage where you begin to transform as you begin to, instead of living according to the values of validation and approval, You start living according to the values of vulnerability and authenticity. And for me, back years ago when I was learning and really integrating this, it meant I had to express myself to people. It meant I had to set boundaries. It meant I had to let people sit with tension and not try to mitigate their tension. And it was very uncomfortable because growing up, their tension was my tension. But I remembered that that tension became the initiation into like, I can express myself. I then began to respect myself more. And what's funny is as I wasn't attached to wanting, needing their approval or validation, I started to also gain respect. Because like, oh wow, Aaron will speak his mind. Aaron will share how he feels. It's not, then also relationships begin to feel safe because then as you're expressing yourself, it's like there's not resentment or energy underneath the surface. Does this make sense so far? So let's look now at this other phase, the second phase. Now also, the frame technique that I share on my channel, the frame technique is a bridge between codependency and independence. Okay, now independence is where a lot of us land once we realize, I don't need a man, I don't need a woman, I can make myself happy. I could work really hard to create stability. I can— I know that I could set my mind to something and experience something by working hard. And the level of independence is that I don't need anybody. This is where many people develop an achievement and self-reliance pattern. Self-reliance. It's like safer to be in my own energy, safer to figure it out myself. So if you have that fawn and freeze down here, you have fight and flight up here. So we might fight to like create a successful business or get lost in your work. So this is at a high achievement level. This is where you really start focusing on self in a healthy way. Like, I'm gonna start giving to myself. And this is a very empowering stage. This is where you look at self-development. This is where you look at certain levels of psychology. This is where you start to realize that I don't have to, that's your stuff, not mine. I don't have to take on your energy. And it's a whole new world when you get into this level because then you're not, like, you don't feel at the whims or like a leaf in the wind, like getting sucked into all these different directions, like out of the frame. But then I come back. So realize, here's some of the patterns here. Self-reliance, controller, needing to control things, perfectionist. It's kind of at the bridge between codependency and independence is perfectionism. I must be perfect to be enough. These are more control dynamics. These are where you lose your sense of self. This is where you start to gain a sense of self, but there's shadow sides of obviously all these patterns. So self-reliance, I don't need anybody else, I could do this myself. Now in relationship patterns as well, let's look at, if you were to read the book Intimate Love by David Deida, he talks about a version of these 3 stages basically. There's codependence. These are relationships where like the man makes the money, the woman stays at home and she does all the laundry and she gives him what he wants and he gives her the safety. And it's based— it's very much based on like survival. And then what happens is once people have an awakening, many times once people like start to realize that they've been abandoning themselves for so long, They may move to a stage of a relationship of independence. These are called 50/50 relationships. This is where like 50/50, the man does his thing, the woman does same thing, but they're also kind of like self-empowered, doing their own thing. And there's an exchange there where it's like mutually beneficial. A lot of times this is where polarity can kind of drop as well. There is some polarity that can be kind of toxic in codependency. There's a loss of polarity and dependence. Now, if you look at this as well in the form of Carl Jungian psychology, there's something that's called the anima and the animus. The anima and the animus is the masculine and feminine side of each person. And what happens is many times when we go through a spiritual awakening, we will somewhat shift into the opposite gender that we are to process and to heal that emotion. This is when you see the boss ladies that went through a spiritual awakening and they're like gone through a boss lady phase, boss chick, build business, empowerment, et cetera. This is where you see men that will be kind of like the stereotypical soy boys or spiritual guys that do tea ceremonies, invite you to their tea ceremony and kind of grow out their longer hair And it's like a, it's a certain energy dynamic. It's kind of like an archetype for understanding this. But this is where the masculine-feminine energy kind of flip. And in 50/50 relationships, this is like independent and there's a certain level of power there. You don't really need each other, but you're able to kind of meet at a certain level and there's like mutual beneficiary energy there. This is a level where you will feel more free than being down here because then you don't need anybody else. But the limits are that you're on your own island. The limits are that it can, it's normally still somewhat built out of survival, controlling, perfectionism, self-reliance, et cetera. So the letting go of this stage is letting go of hyper-independence, which is a way of avoiding feeling, avoiding vulnerability. This is where people will be like, oh, I'm just gonna learn lots of content on letting go and I'm gonna let go and let go. I don't need anybody. "I just gotta let go, I just gotta let go." Well, this is the stage where you start to realize the limitations of that. And then you actually have to let go of letting go. Kinda crazy, right? But here, here's some of the things you have to let go of at this stage to get into interdependence, which we'll talk about in a moment. Have to let go of being right. Many times as you get into this, like balancing out your feminine side or masculine side, you then are in a way going into some of the unresolved things from childhood, which then could have you wanting to be right. This is a level where you might blame the other person. They're the problem. I don't need them. Pride. This is also where you have to let go of pride of not needing anyone. Pride of having it all figured out yourself. Pride of I've created a business, I've created success. I don't need anybody else. It's easier just to do it when I'm in my room alone. Than to have to connect and like work through things. This is a level where you believe that vulnerability might be weakness and that walls may be up. There may be some walls up and then you've created success through independence. But realize that these walls can be there and what you're doing at this level is you're learning to open. You're learning to open up more, open up your heart, express yourself more. And this is when you get to a level of interdependence, which is about us. It's, I am whole, but I still choose connection. If you're a woman, there is def— or feminine energy definitely feels connected to being love. So here it's like, I will, the other person, is the key to the love. Over here, it's about like, you know, it's about kind of like achievement and there's still somewhat of a connection to love, but up here's where you focus on love is not just in them completing you. I choose love, I am love. And for men or masculine energy, the focus is on truth, directionality and truth. And you are the truth. Like you at this level of an interdependent relationship, The masculine is focused on directionality and truth and on living their purpose. And the woman, or the feminine energy, is focused on be embodying love, embodying radiance. So this is a focus where it's realizing the outer reality, people in your life are no longer the tools to get what you want, you get to embody the energy regardless of what they do. It's a choice. It's a realizing you do generate it from within, but you generate it within connecting to other people. So interdependence is a very empowering stage where you are it. Independence is a stage where you don't really need it, but you embody and are able to kind of like scratch your own itch and do it yourself. And at this level, Codependency, it's a level where somebody else has it and there's some unprocessed toxic energy from the past. So these are the 3 different stages of letting go. You have to let go at each of these different layers in order to get to a low layer of feeling whole and complete within yourself. When you do that, everything in your life begins to change. And if you do, by the way, want to learn step by step how to let go and use the frame technique. It's one of the most powerful things that I found for feeling safe inside of your own body. That creates the groundedness for you to really move up into independence and then interdependence. And if you want to check out that, you can go and click the link below. You can— it's a free meditation that I recorded recently to show you exactly how to use the frame technique. It's literally helped thousands of people transform their lives. Life. And if you want a video on step by step how to let go, my most popular video is right here. It's got over 2 million views. You can check it out, watch it, see what happens.