When you are not firm in your own shoes and trust in yourself, in your own value, in your intuition, then fear can play an important role in your life. Fear of what could possibly happen, fear of things that you certainly don’t want to happen and you’re going to anxiously try to control that.

You want to pull your strings and influence the world so that those things don’t happen that you are so afraid of.

It has often become a way of dealing with life, because that’s how you’ve been taught, but also because you can’t really be right with your feelings.

You are working on certain things but not feeling them and therefore you are in your head a lot. You are busy all day so you don’t have to feel. You are actually not really comfortable in your body and it takes a lot of energy.

You are selling yourself short….

When you are more concerned with trying to avoid what you don’t want, rather than what you do want and facing the world with confidence, you do yourself a huge disservice.

Clinging to the idea that you can control how things go in life, which you actually have no control over, makes you your own a slave to your own fear.

Some things in life are simply beyond your control, and when you can deal with all the challenges in your life with confidence and acceptance, then that turmoil causing anxiety can be released.

Space is created

You can then concern yourself with those things that you do have influence over and that includes how well you feel about yourself, how you react to situations in life and what you want to give your attention to.

By letting go of control, you give yourself the opportunity to soften, develop more self-love and just from who you really are to really connect with others and take steps towards your dreams, from relaxation and joy.

How do you do that, let go of that control?

I’ll explain it to you in 4 steps:

1. face your fears
Wanting to be in control are fears, and to take a step in releasing fears, it is important to create awareness of your fears. And you do that by examining them.

Ask yourself what would happen if you did nothing in a situation over which you would like to have control. Write down what thoughts come up then, what fears come up then. These can be phrases, but also feelings.

An example could be: if I don’t do anything, then it won’t go well with a certain person, if I don’t do anything, then people won’t like me anymore, if I don’t do anything then I will be blamed if things go wrong.

2. Feeling what is there
Wanting control comes from your head and usually you are not in touch with your body then. And feeling good in your skin says it all, to feel good it is important to be in connection with your body.

So a next step is to connect with your body and feel.

You sit down in a place where you are not disturbed for a while and you become aware of your body. You can start with your feet and feel how they feel, think about temperature, materials in contact with your skin and whether there is tension or not.

You try not to think about it and have no judgment, You just feel. You then continue upward to your legs, your buttocks, your back, your belly, your chest, your shoulders, arms, neck and head. You feel what it feels like everywhere.

And if there are tears, or other reactions, that’s allowed to be there. Everything is allowed to be there that you feel and happens

3. Examine your inner critic
Often, wanting to be in control and not feeling is connected to the inner critic; that part in you that has negative thoughts about you, that says unkind things to yourself, such as: you can’t do that anyway, you’re ugly, who do you think you are.

You try with all your might to show this critic that what it says is not true, and so you go about keeping control in your life so that this voice will only be silent. But for the inner critic, it’s never good enough.

And believe me, everyone knows this voice, but there is a difference in how much a person believes it and pays attention to it.

Therefore, write down for yourself these thoughts for a certain period of time and examine whether these thoughts are really true and whether it is you who are having these thoughts, or whether it is just a part of yourself that you are probably giving too much attention to.

When you can disconnect from your identification of this part, an important step has been taken. In fact, you will then have more influence over it.

4. Do an experiment.
Pick a situation where you normally feel you want to be in control. And don’t do it for once. Do nothing. Yes, this can be very exciting and it can release all sorts of things, which is why the previous steps are important.

All you do is feel and stay with yourself. Looking from a helicopter view at what is happening inside you when you do nothing. You will then have a different experience and so begin to discover that when you let go of control, something else can and does emerge and it is not the end of the world.

Too exciting to do this alone? Then ask someone to be with you who you trust and can be there for you as support as you go through this experiment.

You are not what you think, but what you think does affect your life.

Good luck!