In this 17‑minute self‑help video, Aaron Doughty guides viewers through the hidden energetic dynamics that keep them attached to an ex‑partner and offers a clear mental framework for releasing that attachment. He begins by explaining that the real obstacle is not the person themselves but the meaning and story we assign to them—often a belief that they are a soulmate, the missing half, or the sole source of love and joy. By illustrating how we attach similar meanings to inanimate objects (a camera battery, a lucky hotel room), he shows that meaning is a mental construct that can be consciously altered. Doughty then delves into deeper layers, suggesting that unresolved inner‑child wounds and unmet childhood needs often surface in adult relationships, causing us to cling to familiar emotional patterns. He emphasizes that the core issue is a desire for control; recognizing that we cannot control another’s feelings or actions liberates us. The video reframes the viewer’s role, stating that the individual is the common denominator of all positive emotions, and that letting go is actually about allowing oneself to feel—especially grief—rather than using the ex as a proxy for emotional fulfillment. By consciously shifting meaning to other passions, friendships, purpose, or new ventures, the attachment weakens. Doughty concludes with a practical “game plan” that includes acknowledging the meaning, grieving the loss, recognizing inner‑child triggers, relinquishing control, and redirecting energy toward self‑generated meaning, and points viewers to a playlist of deeper videos on the topic.
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If you could see this video, then you might be having a hard time letting go of someone in your life. You might find that you're thinking about somebody a lot, that you're giving away your energy and you're feeling depleted simply because you are giving so much attention and energy over to somebody that is no longer in your life. You might deep down know that this is a dynamic that maybe you should let go of, but you find it hard to finally actually let go. Where in this video, by the end of this video, the intention is that you have a game plan and you understand what the deeper energy is here that is keeping you attached, that is keeping you depleting your energy or sending your energy away over and over again. And I'm gonna show you how to bring your energy back how to be in your own frame of reality, and how to finally move on from something that you've been telling yourself you need to stay attached to. One of the first things to realize about letting go of an ex that will make it so much easier is recognize that the meaning you are giving to your ex, the meaning is the thing that you're having trouble letting go of. Now, what I mean by this is, Anything in life that we experience has a certain meaning based on the story that we tell ourselves about it. So if somebody, this meaning that you're giving, this story that you're giving to your ex was probably that this person was supposed to be a lifelong person for you, supposed to be a person that's supposed to show up for you. Maybe you have like this belief, this person's like a soulmate or some twin flame energy. Which with that carries so much heavy energy. And if that person is the meaning that was supposed to fulfill you, and there's a belief that you won't find that anywhere else, what ends up happening is you end up projecting all that meaning and power onto them, which creates a lot of pressure, which then makes it very hard to let go of. Because what you feel you're letting go of is you're letting go of the other half to your soul. You feel like you're letting go of your one shot of love. You feel like you're letting go of something and that's what's hard to let go of. This is true about any attachment, by the way. Anytime people say, well, it's hard to let this thing go. Well, what I'll do sometimes is I'll pick something up like this battery, for example, from this camera. And I'll say, it's very hard to let go of this battery. And of course you're like, Aaron, it's very easy to let go of this. It's easy for me to let go of this. but I could tell myself a story about it. I could say this was the first battery I ever used when I ever made a YouTube video. It's the first camera that I ever had. And I made this, and I could tell you some elaborate story about this camera. And then you'd be like, wow, no wonder he never lets go of that battery because there's such an elaborate story to it and such a glorification of the story that it makes it very hard to let go of. Now, of course, it's very easy to let go of. I could just let it go and it would fall to the floor. Well, in the same way, when it comes to letting go of an ex, what you're really letting go of is you're letting go of the meaning. Now, this doesn't mean that it didn't have meaning for a certain phase of your life. This doesn't mean you're letting go of all the good memories and all the bad memories. What it means is that it served its purpose. There's a closure to understanding that it served its purpose. And what happens is when you can come at that place with inside of yourself, that's where you start to let go of a lot of the energy that's been holding you back. It'd be like if I'm like this one battery, this is, you know, if I let this go, I'm letting go of like what started my YouTube channel. Or, you know, I remember hearing once about Manny Pacquiao, who's a famous boxer, and he would go to Vegas and he would box and he would always stay in a certain room in the Mandalay Bay. It was his lucky room. And one day what happened is he didn't go into his lucky room and he stayed at a different room, and then he ended up losing that fight. And the belief is, I lost that fight because I'm not in my lucky room. Now, of course, the lucky room might have had a certain association in his mind and may have had a belief that he's luckier or he can be more in state, but really it's the meaning of that. That shifts. There are other boxers and other people that could stay in any room and perform at a certain level. There's a belief there. And in a similar way, there may be a belief that's keeping you attached to a person. And there might be deep down a deeper energy for you to look at here that can really allow you to shift in a very powerful way. And that is to understand that there may be an inner child part of you that feels that mom or dad may have not been physically or emotionally available as a kid. And there may have been a belief that if you had done something differently, that they wouldn't have emotionally or physically left you. So there may be a part of you that you haven't grieved as a kid that may have this energy, the way that you're relating to this energy be the reason it's hard to let go of. Now, if you want also, not to say that we have to make up a story for you to let go of your ex, but imagine this. Imagine you had your ex and all this like energy that you might be projecting at them, that they were the other half to your soul, they were perfect in so many ways, and if you would've been a little bit different, you could've had a different outcome, which is once again, using some way of negotiating to get something back because it's trying to control reality. What is one thing we cannot control in our life? There's many things, but one of the most things that's hardest to control is relationship. And the thing is, is what the deeper core aspect is here for you as well is realizing that you can't control this. You can't control what people think or feel about you. And that can be a very liberating thing because then you realize that maybe this thing The thing that's deeper is that if you let go, you're afraid you're gonna lose them forever. But realize that deep down, you don't have to prove yourself to other people. Realize that deep down, what's really happening is you're coming back to yourself in a powerful way and recognizing that this is an opportunity to love yourself more. Many times when people are in a relationship with someone else as well, what happens is they believe that that other person is what's causing them to feel love and joy and peace inside of themselves. When actually what's happening is you are using that person to give yourself permission to feel love and joy on the inside of your body. So here's the tricky thing about the whole thing. That person that may be reflective of that pattern is actually a reflection of something you have been giving yourself permission to feel inside of yourself. It's not so much that you like this person as much as you like the person you get to be when you are around them. That's what you really miss. So when I say let go of them, you might say, well, if I let go of them, I'm letting go of this emotion and this feeling inside of my body. But really you're not. You were the common denominator the entire time. You are simply giving yourself permission to feel a certain way when you are around them. This is very liberating because you recognize that your life, your happiness, you are the common denominator. You've just given yourself permission to feel a certain way. Like if right now I said to you, if we were hanging out and I said, oh my gosh, I looked at your phone, they just texted you back. They wanna be back with you. They want everything that you had before. You might inside of your body feel on top of the world. You may have been feeling in the dumps for weeks and then all of a sudden you feel on top of the world. You've, all of a sudden you feel amazing. And then I say the inevitable, just joking. I tell yourself I was joking. You're like, that wasn't very funny. And then all of a sudden it brings your energy back down. Do you see how The common denominator there is inside of you the entire time was the ability to feel love, joy, peace, approval, acceptance, et cetera. But the common denominator is before you were only giving yourself permission when this person was in your life, thinking they're the ones making you feel this way. No, they were a reflection for you. They were a reflection. To you be giving yourself permission to feel a certain way. So when you recognize this, basically what you're saying is this is the only person that's ever allowed me to feel this way. When in fact, that's of course silly. There are billions of people on the planet. And what I found in relationship is the deeper you go inside of yourself, you only find people that reflect that deeper aspect of you the deeper you go inside. So at a certain level of growth, you meet this person, you've had certain insights. This breakup or this detachment from this ex might be allowing yourself to go deeper inside of yourself. As you go deeper inside of yourself, you will then attract somebody that reflects back that deeper level of depth that you've gone inside of you. But that deeper level of depth may also come with recognizing that what you really enjoyed about this person is who you allowed yourself to become. And what this person might be showing you is all the ways in which you don't love yourself, all the ways in which you don't accept about yourself. And as you begin to accept yourself more, as you recognize the beauty of the relationship and also the things that maybe deep down it was reflecting back to you, that's where there's more freedom. Now let's take this a step further. This is gonna sound like a more exaggerated idea, but imagine that this person in your life, imagine that I told you that this person went and damaged your house, kicked your little sister's dog, and did all of this crazy stuff and burned down plants in your front yard and whatever. And if I told you all of that, you might then start to think differently about it. What? All of a sudden crossed a boundary. Kicked my sister's dog? Who would do such a thing? That story would begin to change. You might find that then the way that you feel about it changes. And I'm not saying that you have to go project onto this person to let go of them all of these negative things and imagine that. But the only thing I'm intending to do with this video is show you that the common denominator here is you and your energy and what you're giving yourself permission to feel. And that the meaning you give to this person is a very important part of why it's hard to let go. So when you begin realizing that the meaning is what it is, you can start to put meaning in other aspects of your life. This is why many times what'll happen for people that are having trouble letting go of an ex, what they finally do is they start, finally start focusing on themselves. They finally start focusing on things they're passionate about. They finally start to put meaning into other aspects of their life. They might find meaningful friendships. They might find meaning with an animal. They might find meaning with a purpose that they commit to or starting a new business. They find new meaning. And as they find new meaning, it's like it becomes easier to let go. So really the thing that you wanna be asking yourself here to really let go and move on from this person that you're thinking about over and over and over again is because the thing you're thinking about them over and over and over again is because there's an emotion or a belief there that if you keep thinking about them and if you figure this thing out, then you can avoid a certain emotion. And what I'm here to share with you is that what emotion are you avoiding feeling? It might be grief. It might be actually grieving the relationship. Subconsciously, you may be still attached to this relationship because there hasn't been an acceptance that it's actually ended. And what happens is as you begin to accept that, as you begin to give yourself permission to grieve that, you then realize that you keeping them alive in your mind and overthinking about it is the belief that you're keeping them alive in your consciousness. So letting them go is representative of the emotion that you will feel on the other side of that. So what emotion could you allow yourself to feel that maybe you've been avoiding? And thinking about them and staying attached to them is the avoiding of that emotion. That's really what this is about. And deeper than even this relationship, this may be a replayed emotion and energy from childhood. This is something that I've recognized in myself at times when it was hard to let go of a certain person from the past. I've recognized that the reason it's challenging to let go, part of the reason is that would reflect back a similar energy dynamic from childhood, a belief that I did something wrong and a belief that like, if this person would just come up to speed, then everything would be good and I'd complete that. And what I had to recognize is that this person wasn't just the person, they were reflective of a pattern from childhood. And as I began to give myself permission to feel the emotion that I wasn't allowing myself to feel, which was grief, not just of the relationship, but also grief of childhood, of maybe not having mom or dad's physical, like, affection or nurturing in certain moments, or maybe them not emotionally being present. This is why a lot of times breakups, I think the thing that people don't realize about breakups sometimes is that if you did not properly process a certain breakup, what can happen is you might go through a deeper breakup or some form of breakup that might actually bring up the unprocessed emotions from prior breakups that you didn't allow yourself to feel. And that might be also what you're feeling very deeply. And now overthinking becomes a mechanism to not feel, to not accept. And what I'm suggesting to you is let this person be a symbol of an opportunity for you to accept yourself to feel what's coming up instead of using overthinking and thinking about them as a way of keeping them alive in your consciousness. And as you do that, as you begin to feel whatever emotions come up and allow yourself to feel it, that may be extremely transformative for you. And it may be you not only feeling the breakup of this relationship, but you might also be feeling the remnants of childhood stuff come up. And this may be an opportunity for you to accept yourself at a much deeper layer. Very often people might find themselves clicking on a video like this because they're like, well, Aaron, tell me how to let go of the ex because I hear if I let go of them, they'll come back. They believe if I let go of them, then I can attract someone new into my life. And what I'm actually here to say is that the letting go, if it's a mechanism to get anywhere, won't actually be powerful. The key is not just letting go. The key is letting yourself feel. Because if letting go is a mechanism to avoid feeling, that's missed the point. If letting go is a mechanism to control what people think about you or to have them come back, that misses the point. Deeper than this is realizing that what you're really letting go of is control. Because deep down you can't control this dynamic. That's actually liberating, even though you wanna believe that if you hold on, you'll keep them alive. So when you use this as a portal or as an opportunity for you to love yourself more, for you to go deeper inside of yourself, for you to accept yourself, to feel the emotions you aren't allowing yourself to feel, for you to begin putting meaning into other aspects of your life, that's where there'll be extraordinary transformation and change inside of your life. And if you wanna learn deeper how you can actually let go at the deepest aspect of some relationship that's not serving you, here's a playlist right here of the top videos on letting go of an ex to really help you let go and move on in a very deep way. You can check it out right here.
