The More You Try to Let Go, the More You’re Controlling
In this monologue, Aaron Doughty explains that the desire to control—whether people, outcomes, or oneself—actually blocks alignment, authenticity, and magnetism. He argues that the pattern of control stems from a deep‑seated belief that one must be responsible for being liked, easing tension, and proving worth, a belief often rooted in childhood experiences. Doughty illustrates how even the act of “letting go” can become another control strategy when it is used as a means to an end. He shares personal insights from a Tony Robbins event where he identified his core question—"What do I need to do?"—and from a family‑constellation session that revealed his early need to prove himself to his mother. Through coaching examples, he shows how the inner critic functions as a protective guard and how confronting and accepting this part, rather than criticizing it, relaxes the nervous system. He contrasts a flow‑state, present‑moment energy (which is magnetic and effortless) with a means‑to‑ends mindset that creates resistance. Doughty emphasizes self‑inquiry, acceptance, and surrender to a higher source as the true path to alignment, and recommends a 21‑day mind‑and‑heart coherence meditation to facilitate letting go.
Chapters
Why is it the degree to which you let go of trying to control anything, or the less that you try to control anyone, the more in your own frame you are and the more magnetic you are? But the degree to which you are attached is the degree to which you resist. And why is it when you actually let go, you finally allow that other person to see the real you. When you actually let go, you give people the opportunity to miss you. When you actually let go, you let those ideal clients or that ideal job or person find you. Now, in this video, I'm gonna show you how the desire to control is absolutely blocking what you want in your life. I'm gonna show you deeper of the reason you think you need to control, and I'm gonna show you how getting out of this pattern and releasing it is the key to literally alignment in your life. It's the key to allowing other people to choose you. It's the key to allowing opportunities to find you. And it's the thing that has shifted every area of my life as I applied it. And I'm gonna show you in this video the most important things that will literally save you years of trial and error along this process. Now, the first thing to understand about this is that the pattern you're in is not gonna be the pattern that gets you out of where you are. Now, this is what I mean by that. The pattern of trying to control things is a way of subconsciously trying to manipulate reality to meet your needs. So even wanting someone else to like you is a version of manipulating reality to get what you want. So you might say, I want to be approved of, I want people to resonate with me, I want there to be no tension. And the desire for that outcome is a desire that was spring out of some time of the past of when you decided it is my responsibility to get people to like me. It is my responsibility to be likable. It is my responsibility to ease tension. Now the challenge is when you have that responsibility, you create a lot of pressure. And when you create a lot of pressure, you're not being your true self. You're being someone else. You've gone from being authentic to being a performer. And when you're performing, there's moments where you're like, you can tell someone's trying really hard. You're like, just be yourself, just relax. It puts pressure also on the other people to be a certain way or to like, you could feel that version of control. Now the challenge with what I'm sharing right now is even as you listen to this, let's be honest, this might be the epiphany that you need from this video, might completely change your perspective of why you're even watching content to let go of control. Because letting go sounds like an attractive mechanism that will allow you to control. Isn't this interesting? The idea is if letting go becomes a mechanism to get what you want, you're now using that pattern to facilitate the pattern. Do you see this? This is a huge insight right here because many times what we do is we have a certain childhood pattern and we want out of the pattern and we think the way out is by actually do using the pattern, but we'll just constantly keep doing it. So right now you're listening to this and you're like, Aaron, what's the technique? Because once I let go, people will like me. Once I let go, I'll get what I want. It's now a mechanism of control. And this is what I mean when things need to be an end of itself. Versus a means to an end. This is where we break down the fourth wall. The fourth wall, what we're able to do is to see that there's more than maybe what you could see right here. There's a deeper layer here, kind of like the fourth wall of being able, and like reminds me of the movie Deadpool where like sometimes he'll talk to the audience. In a similar way, there's times where what you can learn to do is you can learn to let go and realize there's a more expanded pattern that comes out of your energy that then makes you aware of why am I even looking for this to begin with? What is the underlying belief under the surface? And if you look at the deeper layer within the fourth wall, what you will notice is that deep down you might not feel safe in the unknown. So there's a mechanism there that says, I must control, I must have responsibility, I must feel this pressure, I must control what people think, I must ease tension, I must please, et cetera. And then I say, you see a video by me and you're like, oh, Aaron's talking about letting go and how when you let go, you get what you want. And what I want is what I want so that I could feel good because I don't want the unknown. So it's still a mechanism of control. I became aware of this when I was becoming aware of how my own core pattern that I became aware of actually 2019 at a Tony Robbins conference. I went to a Tony Robbins live event right before everything shut down. And there was this idea of like, you find your core question We all have a core question we're constantly asking ourselves in the background. That was my Tony Robbins impression. Make the call. But for me, I was like, what is my core question? My core question was, what do I need to do? What do I need to do? What do I need to do? And I was always asking myself this question. I'm always like, I realize I get up in the morning, I'm like, what do I need to do? I need to film a video, I need to do this, what do I need to do next, what do I need to do next, what do I need to do next? My whole identity was wrapped up in what do I need to do? What do I need to do next? And then as I'm at this Tony Robbins event, I'm thinking to myself, what do I need to do to get outta the pattern? What do I need to do? What do I need to heal? Let me get a task-long laundry list of all the things I need to do so that I can heal and get outta the pattern. But remember, you can't use the pattern to get out of the pattern. You have to question the pattern and question the underlying belief underneath the pattern to understand why do you feel you need to do. And what I realized is as a kid, actually, if I summarize this down to a family constellation session that I had, this was a huge insight for me, and maybe you get your own insight listening to this. There's this German process called family constellation therapy where random strangers you've never met play out the energy dynamics of your family, some of which you may not even know the members of, but it's so interesting the kind of information that comes. In this family constellation session, there were 4 people that were playing different members of my family. There was someone playing me, was a 70-year-old guy. There was someone playing my mom, someone that actually kind of looked like my mom. And then there were 2 other people that were playing my mom's mom and my mom's dad. And in this dynamic, there was this moment where me and my mom were interacting, which is a 70-year-old guy, and I was watching the dynamic kind of like the fourth wall where you're able to see from a different perspective. And what I was doing is I was watching my mom and me, and what happened is the 70-year-old guy version of me who was playing me and kind of channeling the energy in this weird esoteric way, went over and like was tugging on my mom's dress, and my mom was kind of in a process. 'Cause my mom went through a lot of stuff growing up and she had a, when she was young, when I was young, when I was 1 or 2, my mom's dad died and she had a lot of trauma with her dad and she was like internal process. So I, little 7-year-old guy as a symbol version of me goes to like pull on her dress to get her attention and she's just in her process. He goes and does it again, still in her process, but not really interacting emotionally. So then that 7-year-old guy playing me got bored and just went over and just started playing. And that was a mechanism towards not— towards accepting that there wasn't that presence. And he told me afterwards, he said he just felt like, you know what, screw it, I don't need it. I'm just gonna do. What do I need to do? What can I achieve? How can I prove myself? So from this family constellation therapy session, I was able to see and recognize, and I thought that was so funny because so many people in my life have mentioned to me, it's like, oh, you just work. Like I have this affinity to, I have such a strong willpower and work ethic. Part of it's because my identity, it's kind of like a survival thing for my identity. It served me in many ways to create a lot of success and abundance, but the other side of this, is this has also created quite a bit of resistance because what does it believe underneath it? It believes there must be a belief that I'm not worthy. I must settle for just doing, for achieving, for being busy. And I've always been someone that's always doing things, always walking, I'm always like active and I enjoy it. But also part of it is what I'm starting to question. Do I need to do, what do I need to do to be worthy? Videos do I need to make? How do I add value to people? That's where my sense of value was coming from instead of realizing it's not based on what I do. I am worthy because I exist. Do you see the difference there? So my task was, I have another task I have to do. I have this another thing on my to-do list that I have to do to get out of where I'm at because where I'm at's not good enough already. And you see a huge insight for the person that's trying to control reality, that's trying to get the outcome they want, is that they've been ingrained into believing that where you are right now is not good enough. And if you could get someone to like you, or you can ease the tension, or you can control how people think or feel, then you could feel enough, then you could feel safe. But remember, The pattern you're in is not the way out of the, it's not what's gonna get you outta the pattern. It's first looking at it and questioning that, accepting the energy underneath the surface. Now I was coaching a woman recently who was, is the same idea. This pattern that you're in is not gonna be what gets you outta the pattern. You have to become aware that it's kind of always underneath the surface. and then you'll use that pattern to get out of it. So somebody that's trying to watch a YouTube video on how to let go of control, because if they let go of control, then they'll get the girlfriend or boyfriend, or if they let go of control, then they'll get the money, is using the letting go technique as a form of control, of still trying to manipulate reality. And the challenge with that is that it's still doing something that is an end, that is a means to an end. And when something's a means to an end, it creates resistance. When you're in a flow state, you are way more magnetic. When you go on a date and you just want, you're just focused on connecting and having fun, that's a present moment energy. When you go on a date and your focus is on getting them to like you, you've now started to manipulate the present moment. That person is no longer a person. That person is a means to the end, and that means to an end is so that you can feel different. It's because if they liked you a certain way or they eased tension or whatever, you could then feel a certain way. So what we end up doing is we end up creating this means to an end energy, which creates resistance. There are times when I'm making content where I can feel the cringiness under me trying to get into a flow state. And it's like, the very start of the video has to be a certain way, 'cause at the very start of the video is a certain way, then it gets more people to pay attention to it. And the challenge with this is that then the hook, the very beginning of the video, becomes a means to an end where I'm not in a flow state. And you can feel that underneath the surface. So the thing to realize is that when I am in a flow state, I'm not thinking. I'm just, I'm allowing it to flow through. I'm allowing God and the universe to flow through, which I believe we all have the capability to do. I'm not saying I'm special. I'm just allowing the energy to flow through. And because of that, there's not control there. It's just happening. This is where we get to some of my other videos that I've been talking about over a while ago where the less thoughts you think, the more free you are. Thinking, how do you think yourself out of thinking? But being in a higher vibration isn't about thinking better, higher vibrational thoughts. It's actually about thinking less thoughts because then the divine is flowing through. And really what this is a play of, it's a play of allowing the moment to be, allowing yourself to accept yourself, and allowing God and the universe to flow through. What I'm speaking to now is a version of the ego where what happens is the ego is trying to control reality. The ego wants to feel safe, The ego wants to feel significant. And what happens is in that safety and in that significance, it tries to create all of this resistance because it's not trusting God or the divine to flow through. So something to realize about the energy of the pattern you have is that it is a safety mechanism that's doing everything it can to keep you in consistent energy that you're used to. And what I was used to was my task list. What do I need to do? Now that I know that my pattern is I keep trying to do to be worthy, what do I need to do to heal it? The healing isn't in the doing. The healing is in the acceptance, the questioning, the self-inquiry, the allowing God to flow through. And the more I surrender to something greater than me, the more magic that happens. Now, when I was coaching a woman recently, same thing, the pattern, some of you will resonate with this, I think. The pattern that got you where you are might be that you lock yourself up whenever you're doing something new. All this pressure is created. Maybe you have a very harsh inner critic. And what was happening, I was coaching this woman that realized that she, anytime she was going to make a video, putting herself out there in any way, she would lock up, judge herself, and then not put out the content. And I asked her a question. I said, growing up, was mom or dad controlling or hard to please? And she goes, yeah, my mom. She said growing up, she was an actor, she was a, like going to school to be an actor. And what happened is she actually got good at it and she loved it. And then her mom said, "I'm not gonna be an acting kid's mom," is what she said. She ended up deciding that, "Okay, who do I need? I don't wanna get mom to feel a lot of tension. So what I'm gonna do is I need to be a certain way. I don't wanna be a burden." That's what she said. And she said her mom was hard to please. So in order to, avoid mom's high level of like who she believed that she had to be, what she ended up doing is creating that inner critic that would avoid mom's pain or mom's disappointment. So she had this really harsh inner critic. So she became aware that part of this inner critic was there to help her avoid the pain from mom or dad judging her. Now this part of herself, her inner critic, guess what? As she became aware of this pattern, she started to do, She tried to use the pattern to get out of the pattern. She started harshly criticizing that inner critic. And then I mentioned to her, I said, there you go again. I said, now we're criticizing, you know, I said, how I kind of asked some questions that made, that helped her become aware like, oh my gosh, I am criticizing my inner critic. The pattern is still going. And what I had her do is actually make peace with that part of herself, to accept that part of herself, to work with it instead of against it. And what happened is her whole nervous system responded and relaxed. And it was really powerful to watch. It was really powerful. Other people were in the group coaching and seeing that, and there, it was a really big insight because where else do we all do that for ourselves? We are using the pattern to try to get outta the pattern, but instead look at the pattern, accept that pattern, and maybe connect to the past version of you that felt that way, the past version of you that decided that that's who you had to be to be loved. And what you'll then find is as you start to connect to that part of you, a whole new reality may open up. So in my own life, this working really hard to be successful part, and even like, even connected to money, there's times where I'm like, I need to do a lot of things, but actually the most money that's made is when I'm in the most alignment and I'm doing a lot less of the things I don't enjoy. Remember the days when I sold women's shoes? Weren't the days I helped the most amount of people that I made the most money. It was when I was having a lot of fun, I was in the present moment, and I just kept synchronistically getting customers that wanted to buy and they would buy a lot so I didn't have to help a lot of people. I was in more alignment and I wasn't focused on whether they bought or not or trying to manipulate them to be a means to an end. It was allowing it to happen. Do you see the energy shift here? So the next step for you watching this video, I believe, is to become aware of what that pattern is. Maybe that pattern's around control. And you wanna learn how to let go because if you could let go, then you could get what you want. And maybe it's becoming aware that deep down the ego doesn't feel safe. And if you could connect to that part of yourself and to realize who do you have to do, what do you have to do to be loved? Who do you have to be to be loved? And you start to accept the parts of yourself that you're afraid to accept or you haven't accepted yet. You might find that then you become much more free. And when you are more free and you feel free, that's when all of these things come to you. But to see me even telling you that might keep you in the pattern. The biggest insight here is around acceptance, self-love, understanding that when you're present to the moment, that's when you could start to allow God or the universe to flow through. When you're trying to get something out of reality, that's where you create a lot of resistance. So something I have as well, if you haven't seen it yet, is I have a YouTube video that will help you raise and elevate your vibration by tapping into mind and heart coherence. It's one of my most popular meditations. I believe if you do this for 21 days, you will allow more of that divine energy to flow through and you'll allow yourself to really let go in a very powerful way. So do this meditation, create mind and heart coherence, read the comments to see what's possible, and check it out right here.
More from Aaron
If you can see this, you're about to become so magnetic you are unrecognizable
