Ever heard one of your girlfriends say, “I’m just not ready to let go.”
Or maybe you’ve been that girlfriend.
Well I’m taking a stand against it from now on. I understand the psyche behind it. But I don’t believe in it.
How about this instead…
How about letting go moment to moment. Breath by breath. Experience by experience.
The better we get at letting go, the less expectations we have, the more freedom we experience and the more opportunities life presents us.
Let me give you a common scenario.
You know the relationship you’re in isn’t right. You feel it in your gut. But ‘knowing’ doesn’t necessary make it any easier.
You have two decisions that bare two outcomes:
1) Settle for something you know isn’t right and have an average life.
2) Have the hard conversation and break up, feel the pain, let it go and make way for awesome.
Here’s a step by step process for ‘letting go’ for a more enlightened and purpose fuelled way of living.
- BE AWARE. What is it that you need to drop. Get clear.
- MAKE A DECISION. Whether it’s yes or no (quite often the answer is both) just make the decision you know you need to make to avoid being stuck in time. Why wait? Be brave, show up and remember what’s important to you. Happiness or mediocrity?
- FEEL IT. After making the decision and putting it out there. Allow yourself to feel it in all of its glory. The pain; the discomfort; the feelings of anguish, guilt and sadness. Yep, there’s no skipping this part unfortunately.
- LET IT GO. Notice moment to moment if your body is in a state of contraction or expansion. Typically we want to experience the latter. It’s in this space that we’re more open, more alert, more conscious and living in the now. When we’re contracted – and this can be experienced by tightness in the chest or abdomen for example – we’re generally holding onto a thought or story at that one moment. When you feel the contraction – practice letting it go.
This is not just a one off type of thing. If we want to get really good at it and live the life we want to live we have to practice it daily.
Start with the small stuff like when a stranger doesn’t smile back at you or when your boss looks at you strangely. Notice the body contract, shoulders tighten or however stuff manifests in your body, and choose to soften and release.
Ease and flow, people. Let it go.
