Control Is A Fear-Driven Illusion
March 24, 2025 • Life • Lessons ⌇ Connect ↗
This lesson took countless heartbreaks and weeks of pondering to understand.
You can’t force anyone to want to be in your life. If they want to go, let them. Losing you will be their loss. Just let them be.
This obvious truth so oblivious to its own nature. Probably because it begins and ends with the human spiel that is: words vs. actions. Too often in life do people share grand statements without matching even the bare minimum action on par. I fell privy to these types too often and let their words show me a facade of who they actually were. Hell, I often trusted someone’s word so much my heart felt like they already did what they said before they even began to start acting on their promises.
It takes lots of pain to realise words are often hollow shadows of a life never meant to be lived. And it doesn’t take much after countless experiences to uncover a simple rule: let their actions do the talking. This might sound simple, but it’s way too easy to forget in the height of the feels. Especially when the emotions in your heart cloud the judgment in your mind, it’s so hard to accept whatever result you see without wishing it was different. So be honest to yourself… then accept & adjust. It always is what is for a reason.
Because if you don’t accept the reality of others for who they truly are, you will likely try to enforce control because you fear not being wanted or loved & prefer to be incomplete together rather than work on being complete alone — that’s anxious attachment.
Breaking Free from Anxious Attachment
Anxious attachment gives the other person control over you. They have control over you because you let fear (e.g. of losing them / of being abandoned) compromise your values to the point of distorting your perception of reality just to keep them close. Even if they are the cause of so much deception, disrespect and pain in your life, you will cling to your dependency on their validation because it makes you feel good in the moment, but never in the long-run. In moments like this, you must do your best to see people for who they are. You must accept the truth in what they show you because what they say versus what they do simply won’t match up. And especially then, you must act from a place of confident self-completeness, not a fear of incompleteness. Once you reach that point, their control over you will vanish because you are no longer driven by that fear that caused you to control them and you’ll come to realise: “I don’t depend on you to be whole”.
The harsh truth → someone who is truly for you will never make you feel that. No, they would never even make you question whether you are truly wanted in their life. So never give anyone that kind of power over you because you are anxiously attached… Let’s put this all simply. The cause: fearing not being wanted / loved / abandoned. The effect: enforcing control to mitigate the cause. Stop this & face your fear. Let the fear pass through you and you will come realise: all that remains is you, even without them. So if they want to leave, let them. They weren’t meant for you if they can. Accept & be thankful for life making that clear to you.
Now to the irony in this dynamic → by desiring to control others because of any irrational fear, we either let them have more control over us or we loose complete control over them. Both of these outcomes are not desired, so we are left with a the only option to practice acceptance in letting go of any desire to control. We need to let them be & draw quick realistic conclusions based on who they show you they are by what they do, not who they say they are or what they say they will do.
Focus on what you want. Don’t focus on not being wanted.
Control what you can: yourself, not others.
Acceptance isn’t passivity—it’s clarity.
Let this guide a principled life.
You’ll stay true to yourself.
Stop Projecting
Trying to control others = avoiding inner work. It’s simply projecting the avoidance to face the fear of your shortcomings onto others. The moment you accept the reality of who people are, you reclaim energy spent on control and redirect it into adjusting yourself to the truth of the matter. If you desire an unburdened mind, don’t force outcomes, but trust yourself enough to let go of anything that even requires control to exist — clarity will take shape and fear will dissipate. Trust in that.
Don’t let fear drive the illusion you can enforce control. You can’t.
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