Let go

We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. ~ Joseph Cambell

My mind and heart were racing while I took out my laptop. I felt disappointed and sad and angry at the same time. I sat on the bed and clicked on compose. I was going to write him an email to explain for the umpteenth time how he had hurt me, how I couldn’t believe he had done it again, how I didn’t understand how someone who claimed to love me repeatedly chose to do exactly those things he knew would hurt me. And I knew he knew it would hurt me, because we had had many talks, conversations, arguments and fights about the very thing he had done yet again. Just as I was about to start typing, something inside of me asked “So, what are you gonna write exactly? What is it that you can say now that you haven’t said a thousand times before? What is it that you think he doesn’t get?”. My hands literally froze and I just sat there for a few minutes staring at the empty new message. WHAT EXACTLY WAS I GOING TO WRITE?? It was in that moment that I finally got it…

Suffering is not holding you. You are holding suffering. When you become good at the art of letting sufferings go, then you’ll come to realize how unnecessary it was for you to drag those burdens around with you. You’ll see that no one else other than you was responsible. ~ Osho

Letting go. We all struggle with it. You’d think that letting go of people and relationships that don’t serve us, sometimes even really hurt us, would be easy. I mean if something or someone isn’t good for you, you let go right?! Just common sense, wouldn’t you say? If only it were that simple, but for most of us it just isn’t. Most of us humans actually have a very hard time letting go and more often than not do the exact opposite … we hold on tighter and eventually hurt ourselves even more. We don’t just hold on to people and relationships that are no good for us, we also hold on to how we think things should’ve been, we hold on to painful pasts, anger, resentment, failure, frustration, unrealistic expectations, and the list goes on and on. Funny thing is that we’re often unaware of the fact that we’re holding on. It’s usually in hindsight that we realize that that’s what we were doing, but while we’re doing it we’re under the illusion that we’re working things out or that we’re working on things. Sound familiar? The question is WHY? Why do we do this?

Of course we can make up as many reasons and excuses as we want. Everybody will have their own story about why, but what I’ve found is that if we’re willing to tell the truth, our stories, our reasons, our excuses will boil down to a few things: 1) in one way or another we get a pay off, 2) it’s familiar and familiar is clear and comfortable, and last but definitely not least 3) our non-acceptance or denial of what is.

So we get a pay off from holding on. Yes really… a pay off. A hard pill to swallow for most at first, but when you get down to the nitty gritty of the matter that’s what you’ll find. We really get something out of holding on to whatever’s not good for us. It can be that we get to be right when they’re wrong, we get to feel justified in our anger, we get to act out, we get to blame others, we get to feel superior or we get to be the victim, we get to ‘save or fix’ people, we get to feel sorry for ourselves, we get to have excuses for why we’re not exactly where we’d want to be in life, we get to not be alone, we get to not be a failure, you name it. By holding on to things that are not good for us, we actually get to not take full responsibility for who we are, for how we’re behaving and the state our life is in. Now don’t get me wrong, this does not at all mean that people don’t lie, cheat, steal, abandon, manipulate, take advantage of and far worse, but if someone gets to do these things more than once, we’ve actually unconsciously given them permission to. And we do this because we get something out of it. It’s a part of ourselves most of us don’t want to acknowledge, but whether we acknowledge it or not, our pay off is a big part of the reason so many of us don’t or can’t let go and are (stuck) in situations and relationships that really, seriously and absolutely do not serve us.

We’d also rather hold on than let go because however hurtful or painful holding on is, it’s still familiar and familiar is comfortable. We humans love the familiar, we love comfort and we’re comfortable with that which we already know, even when that is hurting us. For some reason it’s hard for us to consider that the unknown might be better than the familiar. For some reason we always go straight to the worst case scenario when we think about the unknown. So we hold on because even if it hurts, the unknown might hurt even worse. People even say things like “you already know what you’ve got, but you don’t know what you’re gonna get”. The unknown, the unfamiliar makes us anxious, uncomfortable and fearful. We want better but we fear change. We fear change because change means loss of what’s familiar. Change is uncertain and risky. We love to think we’re in control and we can’t control uncertainty. Change will also require us to do things we haven’t done and be a version of ourselves we haven’t dared to even think about. So the question then becomes one of how badly do you want better? How badly do you want to get out of that so called familiar but unhappy, unfulfilling and unsatisfying comfort zone and move on and forward? And before you answer, maybe consider that holding on to whatever you’ve got right now, may be the very reason you don’t have something better.

And then there’s our acceptance of what is or rather the lack thereof. We hold on because we can’t accept what is. When we can’t accept the reality of a situation, we hold on to the illusion or the hope of what it might someday be. When we can’t accept who someone truly is, even when they show us who they really are time and time again, we still hold on to the wish they might someday change or better yet, change for us. We can’t, don’t want to or don’t know how to accept what is and so we fight, resist, avoid or deny it by holding on to what we think, feel or want the thing, the relationship or that someone to be. We hold on to the could be’s, should be’s and would be’s instead of the what is. We have pictures in our minds of how we think things are supposed to be, of who we think we’re supposed to be, of where in life we’re supposed to be and we fight to keep those pictures in tact even if that means that we deny ourselves. We engage in all kinds of craziness just to hold on to those beautiful and perfect fantasies. We’d rather argue with reality than accept it. The problem is when arguing with reality, we’re sure to lose.

In the proces of letting go you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself. ~ Deepak Chopra

To be honest, letting go of people, dreams, plans, relationships we have a deep emotional attachment to, requires some work of course. It’s an internal process that involves some serious soul-searching, self-observation, self-questioning and self-love. Yes, self-love too because letting go is not something you do out of anger or spite or revenge. True letting go of that which doesn’t serve you is one of the most loving things you can do. Letting go then becomes about figuring out who you are and who you’re not, what you want and don’t want, what’s true for you and what’s not and what exactly you’re actually attached to. It’s only when we’re able to let go of our pictures, projections, expectations, attachments, pay offs, fears, insecurities and egoic needs, that we can truly see ourselves and others. It’s only then that we can have real, authentic and wholesome relationships to begin with.

So if you’ve heard yourself saying or thinking that you sound like a broken record, if you’ve been unhappy with a certain situation for a while now, if you’ve been getting upset about the same things year in year out, if you’ve been disappointed, hurt, betrayed, let down, lied to by the same person/people over and over again, it’s probably time for you to finally get it too. Get that it’s not about the thing, the relationship or the other person. Nope, it’s all about you boo. Ask yourself why and what exactly you’re holding on to? What is your pay off, what are you afraid of and what are you denying, resisting or avoiding? What is that you are not willing to accept? Tough questions I know, but awareness is key and we all need to become more aware of our own stuff, our own bullshit to be exact, in order to let go of the things not meant for us ... It’s the first step towards better.

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