Letting Go
In my most peaceful moments the first and last thing I did was “let go”
Positive Affirmation
Today I am making the decision to let go of the things that remove me from my peace. I will let go with love and gentleness towards myself. I will keep letting go until I have forgotten entirely about the thing that I‘m letting go of.
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In concept, letting go is the easiest thing to do, but in practice it can be one of the hardest things to master. How do we let go? In all of our deepest struggles there always a “YOU” hanging on to a mental position. What holds us back from letting go? Not letting go keeps us trapped in limiting mindsets, it keeps us in relationships with people that are not healthy for us and most of all, not letting go allows our past to keep a firm grip on us.
What’s holding us back from Letting Go?
Fear sometimes holds us back from letting go. If you look back in history, the people who stand out the most are the ones who have had the courage to change the world. They took risks that others were not willing to take because they were fearless. Observe how fear limits you and holds you back from what you really want in life, be aware when fear arises within you and walk through it. Walking through your fears can be a liberating experience that teaches you a great deal about yourself. On the other side of our fears is freedom. When we walk through our fears often we realize that, fear itself was more torturous, than experiencing what we are fearful of. Fear often creates hypothetical situations that are not real in the moment we are in.
Make a list of your fears, are they logical or illogical? Fear itself is nothing more than an emotion that is accompanied with a belief in our mind. More often than not are fears are not logical and they born out of the fallacies of the mind. Fear cannot live in a house that love rules, so follow your heart, even if it makes you uncomfortable or unpopular. Speak the truth in your heart, even if it makes you appear unkind. By the end of your life you will have made thousands of mistakes, those mistakes will be easier to live with than a single regret for not following your heart.
How do we Let Go?
Letting go is a decision, however the decision may require work on your behalf. Letting go, can be like dumping a rock out of your shoe. You stop, let it go, then keep walking without looking back. No longer giving it attention in your mind. Moving forward is the key point here but, being willing to let go is the hardest part. Letting go of mental positions can very much upset the balance of many beliefs. It may cause you to look at a series of things you hold dear in your mind. To bridge the gap of your willingness to let go, you may need to include acceptance. When letting go, you sometimes need to accept things that have happened in your life. Some things that appear to be the most awful events in your life, turn out to be a blessing. Sometimes things happen for you, not to you. Note; your acceptance does not mean that if someone has harmed you or done you wrong that they had the right to do so. Your acceptance means that you accept that something really shitty has happened to you and that you’re making a decision to move on from that trauma in your life.
If you are trying to move on from a trauma someone else has caused you, forgiving that person is not the first step, we really don’t need to forgive others. To not forgive another is an illusion you hold over your head, at the end of the day it only makes you sick and bitter. There is an old saying that applies to this “Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting another person to die”. When you don’t forgive someone you are holding nothing more than a mental position. When you forgive that person you release yourself of having to hold that burden. Forgiveness happens on its own when you stop projecting anger towards the people who have harmed you. This is a more direct path towards our healing. By focusing our anger towards another, you are giving your power away, which in turn impedes your ability to help yourself. Never think of acceptance as giving up or letting others win, see it as a powerful position of mind to return you to peace. The road home to peace, is love. It’s love that will provide you a swift return to peace.
Letting go sometimes takes a hero’s heart, for the mind can replay your traumas and dramas over and over. Just because you let go once doesn’t mean that it will never resurface in your mind. The landscape of the mind changes slowly. By staying vigilant in your practice of letting go, the landscape of the mind begins to transform. Be patient in the process and be sure to insert love to self as often as you can. Again love is the path home, it leads us with sure footedness along the way.
Steps to Letting Go
- Identify what we are hanging onto
- Ask yourself are you fearful to let this go and why
- Bring acceptance
- Let go and keep moving forward
- If it comes back up in your mind be willing to keep letting go with love
She Let Go
“She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go. She let go of fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.
Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go. She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a book on how to let go… She didn’t search the scriptures. She just let go. She let go of all of the memories that held her back. She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.
She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right. She didn’t promise to let go. She didn’t journal about it. She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer. She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper. She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope. She just let go.
She didn’t analyse whether she should let go. She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter. She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment. She didn’t call the prayer line. She didn’t utter one word. She just let go. No one was around when it happened. There was no applause or congratulations. No one thanked her or praised her.
No one noticed a thing. Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go. There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad. It was what it was, and it is just that. In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.”
Ernest Holmes
Home work
- Make a list of the things you would like to let go of
- Go through your list and accept all the things on it. Try saying to yourself that these things have happened for me, not to me.
- Make a list of your fears, are they logical or illogical?
- Ask yourself, will the things I am hanging onto make any difference five years from now
- Follow the steps to letting go
letting-go-lesson-plan
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Lesson by Ned Burwell