Losing Control, Finding Serenity: How the Need to Control Hurts Us and How to Let It Go

Over 25,000 copies sold.
Foreword Reviews 2012 Book of the Year Award Finalist.

The harder you try to control everything, the more out of control life can feel.

At work, they oversee every detail and struggle to delegate.
At home, they correct, try to fix, and improve everyone around them.
In love and romance, they obsess over finding the "right" person. Then, they criticize their lover or spouse for doing everything wrong.

Everyone knows the type: micromanagers, perfectionists, nitpickers, and domestic despots. Most people recognize controlling behavior in others. Few see it clearly in themselves.

In Losing Control, Finding Serenity, bestselling author Daniel A. Miller reveals how the need to control—often rooted in fear, anxiety, and insecurity—can erode trust, strain relationships, and create stress. Drawing on psychological insight, spiritual wisdom, and candid real-life stories, Miller guides readers through an honest examination of their control patterns —subtle and overt—from micromanaging and perfectionism, to manipulation and withdrawal.

More importantly, he shows how to break free.

You will learn how to:

*Reduce the control triggers of fear, anger, and resentment
*Delegate effectively and build trust at work
*Create healthier, more respectful family dynamics
*Strengthen romantic relationships by accepting rather than correcting
*Respond to adversity with calm instead of force
*Expand your creative horizons, and
*Replace anxiety-driven control with inner peace and serenity

Letting go does not mean giving up your needs and values. It means releasing the illusion that you can force life to conform to your expectations.

Discover how losing control really means gaining control!

(Readers interested in continuing this journey may also explore Daniel A. Miller’s later works, The Gifts of Acceptance and The Way of the Wave)

Like most compulsive controllers, Danny was always driven to succeed. He graduated from UCLA with honors in business administration and finished in the top 5 percentof his class at the UCLA School of Law.
 
While still inhis twenties, he became a popular real estate instructor in the UCLA extensionprogram, and in his thirties he wrote a critically acclaimed, best-selling professional book, How to Invest in Real Estate Syndicates (DowJones-Irwin, 1978). 
 
Financial success came early to Danny. Celebrities and other wealthy people entrusted him withlarge sums to invest on their behalf. By his midthirties he could afford to live in the exclusive Old Bel Air section of Los Angeles.
 
But for all his achievements and success, Danny had no sense of inner peace and serenity. He was imprisoned by his fears, anger, and anxieties--all bedfellows of controllers--and thus not open to the joy and wonders all around him.
 
After suffering aseries of traumatic events and financial setbacks that he could not control--no matter how hard he tried--he finally began a new life journey based on letting go of control and accepting people and things as they are. He surrendered to the ups and downs and twists and turns of life instead of resisting them and trying to control people and events.
 
 In the process, he became an artist, a published poet, a successful businessman, a champion senior tennis player, a happilymarried man, and a much wiser parent.
 
Thus, throughletting go of control and embracing life as it is, Danny found a different and more gratifying kind of success--an internal, core sense of well-being. He now writes and speaks about the profound benefits of letting go of control and practicing acceptance. His website danielamiller.com features over 120 of his blog posts on the control and acceptance dynamics, his poetry and paintings, and keynote speaker information.