Letting Go… And Then What?

‘Let go,’ is such a common phrase. Simple to understand and yet so difficult to do. Why is it so hard sometimes to just let go?

In my experience, letting go of everything all at once is frightening… what even is ‘everything’? I have found that letting go doesn’t have to mean dropping your conscious mind into an endless ocean of nothingness… it can mean something else entirely.

We find comfort in our routines and show up everyday as we were the day before, completely committed to playing the role of ourselves.

Letting go of cycles, behaviors, thought patterns, addictions and belief systems is hard because we feel stuck in them. The reason we feel ‘stuck’ is because we live every day as if we were the same person as we were the day before.

Playing the role of ourselves isn’t necessarily bad, but when it comes time for you to let go of something you truly want to move on from, there’s an opportunity to break away from your character.

Kicking a bad habit or ending an addiction takes repeated practice; as does breaking away from the person we sometimes feel stuck in.

The idea of breaking away boils down to the ultimate truth that there is real comfort and true love on the other side.

Letting go does not have to be nothingness, in fact, it can be full and fruitful, exciting and comforting. The other side of letting go is filled with the freedom to choose who you want to be, how you want to live and how you want to feel.

So many of us struggle with a lack of self love, sometimes an absence of it all together. Letting go of attributes of the person I thought I was enabled me to rediscover that feeling and realize how deprived life is without it.

With trust in your truth… the deepest part of your gut, your soul, intuition, heart, God, the Universe, whatever you want to call it, know that your truth, that deep inner feeling, is always something you can be absolutely sure of. Sometimes, the only thing.

I feel the most free when I am in a state of complete detachment. Detachment from myself, my responsibilities, my past and my future. This is not to be misunderstood as simply not caring about things in my life that are meaningful; my family, my friends, showing up for a career or for school.

The concept of freedom I refer to is freedom from expectation of what the next moment will hold.

It can be difficult for the mind to withhold from wandering expectations, tangents that strive to explore the outcome of tomorrow, next year, the rest of our lives. Thought bubbles that pry open the never changing past, begging us to revisit, re-evaluate and re-think our actions, conversations and decisions.

My overall attitude and perspective drastically shifted when I became aware of the opportunity to leave the wandering thoughts alone! There is always an option to detach your awareness and attention away from all of those tangents, all of those quarries and all of those desires. I no longer feel governed by my mind because I know it is not me.

“I’m not saying thinking is bad. Like everything else, it’s useful in moderation. A good servant with a bad master. And all so-called civilized peoples have increasingly become crazy and self destructive, through excessive thinking they have lost touch with reality.” — Alan Watts, The Art of Meditation

Instead of trying to control the outcome of tomorrow, I relax into the trust I have built with my heart. For me, the trust is reliable when I look at how far I’ve come, how I have matured and grown throughout my life. When I reflect on the past rather than dwelling on it, the trust in my heart grows.

This trust grows when I feel that my intuition ‘speaks’ and I follow what I hear. At first, pursuing intuitive feelings didn’t feel like much, but wow, I stuck with it. I followed everything my gut told me from what street corner to walk down, to which classes to enroll in, to what I should pack in my bag, to staying in versus staying out; every single time I felt a voice of truth in my head, a feeling in my body or a pull in my gut, I trusted it with my whole body and acted accordingly.

Even when my mind didn’t agree, I forged on with blind faith and let me tell you… my life flipped upside down.

I was given friendly strangers who turned into lifelong friends, romantic relationships that brought excitement and fun, career opportunities that have started to shape my future and wildly rewarding, incredible experiences that words can’t even begin to describe.

Each day turned into an adventure! Even on days filled with exams, classes and responsibilities, I was given surprises along the way, little moments of love and laughter that kept me giggling at the power of my intuition, that kept me excited, focused on my path and trusting my heart with my whole being.

Anyone who has read The Alchemist can relate to the power of the heart. If you read it as a distant fairytale book about make believe magic, I highly advise to read it again.

Committing to myself and trusting my heart has given me more love than I ever thought possible. It has shown me more community, more laughter and most importantly, more trust, which consistently provides the inspiration and will I need to continue moving forward wherever my heart leads me.

With my inner trust, I am actually FREE to let go of my analytical, problem solving mind. I have no desire to make sense of decisions, I simply have the desire to pursue what I know my heart wants. I no longer feel pressured to think about things before they happen, give energy to the direction of my future or even try to make sense of confusion.

I simply relax into my truth, my soul, my heart, my voice of God, my universe, my intuition, and trust.

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AES