Giving Up Control Might Be Exactly What Your Mental Health Needs

Most people think their anxiety comes from not having enough control. We want more control over our schedule, more clarity in our relationships, and more certainty about what’s coming next. But what actually exhausts us is not chaos, it is vigilance. It is the constant mental labor of tracking, anticipating, managing, and bracing for what might happen next. Sometimes the most stabilizing thing you can do for your mental health is not to tighten your grip, but to intentionally loosen it.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

I am an atheist. I do not believe this prayer is heard by a higher power or answered through divine intervention, and still, I consider it one of the most psychologically accurate reflections on mental health we have.

Not because it invokes God, but because it names a core nervous system truth. Much of our suffering comes from confusing what is actually ours to control with what never was. We exhaust ourselves trying to manage both.

The Serenity Prayer endures not because of theology, but because it describes a form of discernment most of us were never taught. Acceptance where effort only creates strain. Action where it truly matters. And the wisdom to tell the difference.

Control Is Not the Same as Safety

Many of us were taught that control equals safety. We learned to plan ahead, stay composed, and hold things together. Over time, that lesson can harden into a belief that if we just manage better or think harder, we will finally feel calm.

For many people, the opposite happens. The constant effort to control outcomes, emotions, relationships, and even our own thoughts slowly wears the nervous system down. Anxiety thrives on hyper vigilance. Burnout grows when responsibility never pauses. Shame often hides behind the belief that we should be able to handle everything on our own.

Learning to give up control in intentional, chosen ways can be one of the most supportive mental health practices available.

What Giving Up Control Actually Means

Letting go of control does not mean ignoring responsibilities, abandoning boundaries, or becoming passive. It does not mean handing your life over to someone else or pretending things do not matter.

What it does mean is allowing support instead of self containment. It means reducing constant decision making, easing mental monitoring, and letting the body step out of vigilance for a while. It often looks like trusting clear agreements, practicing surrender within structure, and allowing uncertainty to exist without immediately trying to fix it.

This kind of surrender is deliberate. It happens within choice, consent, and clarity. The nervous system recognizes the difference immediately.

Control as a Learned Survival Strategy

For many people, control is not a personality trait. It is a survival strategy learned early in life. It develops in environments where help was inconsistent, mistakes had consequences, or vulnerability did not feel safe.

In those conditions, control becomes competence. Independence becomes identity. So when someone suggests letting go, it can feel threatening rather than relieving.

This is why healthy surrender has to be chosen, not forced. It grows through trust and consistency, not pressure. It unfolds in layers, giving the nervous system time to learn that safety can exist without constant oversight.

Mental health improves not because control disappears, but because it no longer has to carry everything alone.

A Personal Example: Releasing Control That Never Created Safety

In my own polyamorous relationship, surrendering control has also meant taking an honest look at which boundaries actually created safety and which ones simply soothed my anxiety.

At one point, I believed that limiting whom my partner spent time with, how relationships could develop, or how intimacy unfolded would protect me emotionally. In practice, those controls did not create safety. They created vigilance. They required monitoring, comparison, and constant internal negotiation. My nervous system never rested because control always demands upkeep.

Over time, I chose to release restrictions that existed only to manage my discomfort rather than to support mutual values or consent. I stopped limiting who my partner could build relationships with. I stopped using control of their time, connections, or depth as a way to regulate my own nervous system.

What I discovered was that real safety did not come from narrowing my partner’s freedom. It came from widening my own capacity to tolerate uncertainty, trusting communication, and grounding myself instead of managing someone else.

This was a genuine surrender. Not surrendering care or commitment, but surrendering the belief that I could create safety by controlling another person. Once that illusion fell away, the relationship felt calmer, not riskier. My mental health improved not because I controlled less for them, but because I carried less within myself.

Here is the distinction that matters:

Mutual structure creates safety. Self soothing control creates vigilance.

Releasing controls that never actually protected me made room for a deeper, more stable sense of safety than restriction ever provided.

Why Letting Go Regulates the Nervous System

Many mental health struggles are rooted in chronic nervous system activation. When the body stays in fight or flight too long, the mind follows. Thoughts speed up. Rest becomes difficult. Even calm moments can feel fragile.

Intentional surrender works because it reduces cognitive load and introduces predictability without pressure. When responsibility is shared, clearly contained, or consciously released, the nervous system receives a simple message. You do not have to monitor everything right now.

That shift alone can slow breathing, lower stress hormones, and soften physical tension. This is not avoidance. It is regulation.

Dominance, Submission, and Mental Health

This is where dominance and submission, when practiced ethically and consensually, fit cleanly into this framework.

Healthy power exchange is not about removing boundaries. It is about choosing which boundaries matter and placing them intentionally. The submissive is not giving up agency. They are exercising it through consent. The dominant is not taking power. They are holding responsibility with care.

Unlike self soothing control, which tries to regulate anxiety by limiting another person, consensual D s structure is mutually chosen, clearly negotiated, and openly revisited. That clarity removes ambiguity, which allows the nervous system to rest.

From a secular perspective, consensual power exchange is simply a structured way of practicing the discernment described in the Serenity Prayer. Control where it belongs. Surrender where it does not. Wisdom in knowing the difference.

A Closing Thought

If your mind feels tired, it may not need more discipline. It may need relief.

Letting go in intentional, structured ways is not giving up. It is choosing to stop carrying what was never meant to be held through force or vigilance. Whether through relationships, agreements, or consensual power exchange, surrender can be a deeply rational and regulating choice.

If you are curious about exploring intentional surrender, power exchange, or relational structure in a grounded, consent forward way, I work with individuals and couples through coaching designed to support both mental health and relational clarity.

You can learn more about my coaching work here: sirchristopher.org

Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do for your mental health is decide where control ends and allow yourself to rest there.