Letting Go Sucks; Then Sets You Free.

Life is just a continual balance of letting go — and holding on.

Photo by Fuu J on Unsplash

How often do we have to DO this thing? All. The. Time. From the instant we open our newborn eyes, we begin the process of letting go. And it doesn’t get easier from there. Life is an endless parade of leaving what we know for the unknown.

We have to lose the training wheels to bike on our own. We leave our mothers at the door on our first day in school. Letting go is what we do. Remember when you discovered the jolly fat man in the overloaded sleigh didn’t travel the world by reindeer to drop gifts by the sackful down our chimneys? Letting go of that was harsh, right? Ditto the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy. No one wants to give up what makes our hearts happy.

“One of the hardest lessons in life is letting go. Whether it’s guilt, anger, love or loss, change is never easy. We fight to hold on and we fight to let go”.

As we leave childhood behind, as training wheels become motorized in our first car, and teen-postered bedrooms becomes college dorms, we release more of the familiar. We get married, have children and one day, we let them go, too. As we learn more of the world, as hurts begin to form scar tissue, our naivete and innocence is left behind. Our hearts get nicked and dented and, the more we open them, the more we risk. Yet, we do it anyway.

The first time we feel the heavy impact of grown up ‘letting go’ is when a person we love walks away. They say sometimes you win and sometimes you learn, but the learning thing can kneecap you almost as much as the person who made the exit. From our first crush, a dating split or divorce, it ain’t ever easy. Breaking the same heart that loves someone so deeply sadly is the price of admission in life.

“Getting over painful experiences is like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” C.S.Lewis

Then someone you love dies, and their leaving wasn’t because their love stopped but because their heart did. That’s when the loss of letting go is multiplied endlessly. Whether you lose a parent, sibling, spouse or the very worst – a child, this letting go takes a mega chunk out of everything that makes you tick. And it takes quite a while to get your balance back, your trust in life and to repair your fractured heart.

Meant to lessen our attachment to outcomes and expectations, letting go in its highest form, allows us accept what is the natural order of things, though it can feel anything but ‘natural’.  In fact, the more uncertain, the more resentful and frightened we feel. The more we care about something, the more we become attached to it. When it comes to people, we often share so much of ourselves that they become part of who we are. The process of moving on gets harder, the more we are attached, yet releasing it allows us to reclaim ourselves. Most important, is the peace you find from freeing yourself from what isn’t meant for you. (Disclaimer: I’m not at all good at this letting go thing!)

“We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned to have the life that is waiting for us.” Joseph Campbell

Letting go is not at all easy. It can’t be done in a moment or a day, no matter how much you wish it could. There’s no trick or short cut to releasing what you’re attached to. Whether experiences, jobs, or relationships, we hang on to negativity and sadness of loss rather than the positive aspects of release. Sometimes letting go is pure hell, even more so when that loss is as final as it gets and moving on is the hardest assignment you’ll ever have.

They say to let go of things we cannot change, but we humans are a stubborn lot. Sometimes, what we know we need to relinquish are parts of ourselves that continue to weigh us down. People who haven’t left the world but have left us. Jobs that we thought we nailed just to realize nothing was set in stone. When we let go of expectations, hurts, anger, feelings of being wronged, we find missing pieces of ourselves. Carrying around footlockers of resentment, bitterness, fear and anxiety holds us back and emotionally exhausts us. Setting down heavy emotional baggage allows us to move lighter and quicker to a better place. Until we release the endless monkey brain thoughts, and rumination about things we can’t control, we won’t be able carve out space for what we can control.

“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” Thich Nhat Hanh”

What can you do then? Distraction only helps for so long; ditto suppression. Hiding within the fortress of your house or refusing to think of or change anything that can be, is an exercise in futility. Eventually, complaining runs out of road — and even the most loyal ears. It’s a much better plan to embrace your fears; don’t argue with them. Notice when your heart and your mind are singing two different songs. Write down your hurt and uncertainty without judgement. (No one’s gonna alert the grammar police.) Allow yourself 10 minutes a day to feel sorry for yourself – or mourn your grief. And when ‘letting go’ is still too high a mountain to climb, try to rest in ‘let it be’.  In the end, that’s often all we can do anyway.

Life sure doesn’t always make sense. Some things that come into our lives were meant to be our history, not our destiny. (Don’t you hate that?) Still, letting go of anything that has become part of us will never be a straight line. All we can do is keep the lessons it taught is — and let the universe do its thing.

We all have stories and mine are neither unusual nor technicolor blockbusters. All I can hope is whatever I share sparks a continuing conversation, one that that invites ideas, opinions and discussion. So, if you’re not bored, I’ll try to keep the words coming this time, even the not-so-happy, pretty or private ones.

To be continued.