We live in an age where everyone sucks at ‘letting go’. But I mean something pretty specific when I say that.
You need to let it go.
But I get why you can’t.
“Letting it go” is perhaps the most important of our ‘forgotten skills’.
No one teaches you how to let stuff go. It’s not even properly written into your biology.
Well, that’s not exactly right. I expect the software coding that was written into your biology was perfect for a time, but then the times changed, and now it’s not quite so perfect.
It’s one of those things.
Okay. Let’s slow down a bit. “Letting it go” is a loaded term these days. It’s something you hear a lot, but it also seems like everyone’s got a slightly different idea about what it means… if they have any idea at all and are not just parroting some fluffy crap they read on a motivational poster.
“Hey Jon. You sound a little angry. Let it go bro.”
Yep. Ok.
So I want to start with thinking about the breath. The breath is easy because there’s a very clear distinction between the different stages: taking the breath in, holding it, and then letting it go.
Okay, so we can see here that “letting it go” has a very clear function – it plays an integral part of an in/out cycle.
And that’s where we need to place “letting it go”. It’s not something you do every now and again. It’s not like you can go about life, drawing in whatever energy and emotions come your way, and then just every now and again, let them go.
It’s not like a toilet that you can just keep filling up, and then emptying every now and again when things get overwhelming.
The letting go is necessary for the drawing in. One enables the other.
Want another example? Imagine the food system. Imagine if there was the taking-in without the getting rid of.
There’s a lot of people who struggle with that, and it’s a pretty miserable fate. I’ve had moments like that myself. Not fun.
Or think about the beating of the heart. The heart clenches and blood is pushed out along the veins. The heart ‘lets it go’ and new blood rushes in.
A heart without a “letting it go” function is the heart of a dead person.
So this is what ‘letting go’ is all about. It is a necessary and integral part of the dynamic – the dynamic that all of our miraculous systems are built on.
But we’re not good at letting go.
We tend to clutch onto things. We tend to hoard. We tend to be stingy with what we let go off.
We hoard stuff we don’t need because maybe that stuff won’t come around again.
We harbour emotions we don’t need because maybe there’s still wisdom to be learnt from them.
We clench and strain our strength, because we worry that we’ll never find that strength again.
But in doing so, we restrict the entire dynamic. Our system grinds down into a restricted, constipated, lifeless spluttering.
If we cannot let go, we cannot fully live.
And so for some reason (I could throw some ideas around, but let’s not), we live in an age where our instincts jam us up, and we can not let go of what we need to.
So ask yourself, what do I need to let go off? But more importantly, what dynamics exist within me, where the ‘letting it go’ muscle has become weak?
And then just focus on that function, and give it the permission it needs, to release – to shed, or expel, or relax.
Apply your consciousness to the task. Give that part of yourself that permission.
And let your life return to balance.
JG