Letting Go
If you want to control how you feel, consider letting go.
Letting go is a feeling of relief and lightness that comes after freedom. You are now in control of your thoughts and feelings; involuntary reactivity is a thing of the past.
Each of us carries around immense accumulated negative feelings, attitudes, and beliefs. How nice to get rid of the baggage! If not, know self-love is threatened from within by the continued negativity. Not infrequently, that collection of negativity makes it difficult for us to even peer in for a brief glimpse of our true self—that person without all those shoulda’s and woulda’s.
Those negative thoughts build up and cause negative feelings. Who needs that in your life?
Letting go is also surrendering. The value of knowing how to surrender is that you can instantly let go of any feelings. Once you are free of negative thoughts, creativity and spontaneity arise naturally. And trust follows.
What Letting Go Isn’t
Letting go is not suppressing or repressing feelings. These are common ways to push feelings down and put them aside. Suppression is conscious; repression happens unconsciously.
It is not expressing the feeling either. Expressing negative emotions excessively is not ideal.
It’s not numbing. You don’t need to work 80 hours a week to not feel or be busy all the time. Let alone shopping, substances, escapism, et al.
Any of the above, used to the extreme, might result in emotional isolation and lack of self-love.
Instead, letting go is decompression and instant surrender. The accumulated pressures evaporate the more we let go. Psychosomatic conditions improve, and you sleep better. You look healthier, feel better, and take kind care of yourself.
Letting Go of Stress
You can let go of your stress, too. Stress is internal rather than what most people think. They think it is external, that stress comes from the world rather than your own individual perspective. Stress is determined by our beliefs and reactivity and overload of cortisol.
The more you let go, the less stress you have in your life.
How do You Let Go?
When you let go of a feeling, you become aware of it, let it come up and give it space, stay with the feeling, and let it run its course without wanting to make it different or interrupt it.
Just let the feeling be there, and then the energy behind it dissipates. It is just a feeling. You don’t have to fear it or be judgemental; instead, you can be kind to yourself and just let it pass. If resistance keeps a feeling going, letting go is the opposite. Focus on the feeling and not the thoughts. The thoughts are just endless and auto-reinforcing, like a bickering couple of old folk.
When you are free, you are ok if it happens or if it doesn’t happen. You become more of a witness to your life and less of the experiencer. You come close to your authentic self, and you drop the victim attitude you have towards life.
Why Don’t People Let Go?
So, why can’t more people let go? That ego will resist you at every step, telling you you can’t do it or that it’s stupid. That’s fine, don’t resist those thoughts; just let them go. Keep letting go of the roadblocks the ego throws in your path.
Remember, you are free. You don’t have to let go. No one is forcing you. But maybe consider what is behind the fear you have to surrender. That’s understandable since you have been running those neural pathways for so long that they are second nature to you. To overcome those long-running neural pathways, it takes continued letting go. You have to form a habit of letting go and surrendering. Just like you need to with self-acceptance and self-love.
But don’t fear; everyone can let go. It is a natural ability. You don’t need to overthink it; you just need to do it.
You can also let go of commonly held beliefs that no longer serve you, such as simple things aren’t worth much, or we only deserve things through hard work, or that suffering is beneficial. It’s that easy.
Letting Go
There are good reasons to let stuff go. Less clutter around you pulling energy down, less business of the mind to avoid doing what is really important. Mental clutter is important to consider, as well.
It is fine to feel whatever you feel, but letting it go after that is a great option. You don’t need to keep it all in or express it all; you can just feel it and let it go.
Especially the negatives in your mind. Let them go! I put mine away in a safe place, a treasure chest in my mind that I can access if I want. But they are safe up there; I’d rather just let them go.
Lighten the load let go. You are free to do so and will love packing around less.
