Learning to Let Go
I am ready
If you’re reading this chances are you’re open to the thought of change in your life. Welcome and I am glad you are here. This letter is intended to provide hope with Love and help with resources.
Continue reading and you will find some insight on why we feel so much resistance, what’s happening inside the work of progress and the steps you can take today to practice choosing to let go and make room for healing, growth and the wholeness within you.
Why all the Resistance
With change can come the unknown and the unfamiliar, uncertainty and fear. What is resistance and why do I feel up against something within me and my own progress? Author, Briana Wiest says, “Resistance is your way of slowing down and making sure that it’s safe to get attached to something new and important. In other cases, it can also be a warning sign that something isn’t quite right, and you might need to step back and regroup.” Wiest suggests that when we try and force ourselves out of resistance to perform in the face of resistance the feelings can intensify gaining internal conflict, triggering fear. Wiest suggest refocus. Observation without judgment, what are we experiencing?
“The truth is this discomfort is the true problem, and we are running around trying to fix one thing after another because those are all just symptoms.”
Ready to let go?
Start simply by watching, listening and look for patterns in your own life. Do observe your thoughts, what you say about yourself and others, how you choose to respond. Simply observe. Don’t judge harshly with criticism or immediate emotional reaction, simply watch. Be still and know.
With change, there can be an abundance of hope, the presence of perseverance and endurance, increased health, relief, openness, healing and growth.
Change is often a process over time as Dr. Dennis Charney says, “There is no magic formula for bouncing back. Full recovery, by its very nature, is slow and gradual. And every person is different. But humans have a remarkable capacity for resilience.”
It is often through the regular formation towards the end goal or outcome that we are more changed than the end result itself. That means that TODAY we are in process of being changed. Am I open and willing, ready to change. I acknowledge specific areas that would benefit change. I accept that there is some resistance there, conditions met over time have me operating in patterns. I also accept that I can willingly open my heart and be changed for good.
Practice to Let Go
The keyword it seems is practice. Once we didn’t know how to drive a vehicle, work a Smartphone and call in delivery! Now, with practice over time it’s pretty amazing what we can do. We’ve logged thousands of hours making room for new thoughts, patterns and grown expertise with practice over time.
We’re talking about making room for something different, something healing. Can we allow a little more pain for the sake of progress?
Are you Ready?
Our minds are capable of some challenging, even disturbing thoughts. Over time we can begin to self-protect and become highly critical of ourselves and others. With a mind capable of creativity, open-mindedness, and re-integration toward a "new normal" it’s fascinating we’re not more open to the possibility of change.
The resistance over time can create what Dr. Martin Seligman coined, “learned helplessness.”
If I’m honest, there’s just not enough room in this article to convey my heart in this matter. This is something I work regularly with in sessions with clients. Together we take the time necessary to process our experiences and the ways we remember them. I believe it’s important we acknowledge how we feel, accept how we’ve experienced this and open our heart in the midst of the mind’s chatter towards areas of healing and growth within our capacity. To do so, Seligman’s research found a learned “realistic optimism” to be the solution to a learned state of helplessness. Today we can pay attention to what we’re thinking and saying about ourselves and others. We can monitor what we allow to influence our thinking by way of media and social influence.
One question I have started to ask myself is, have I attracted or been attracted to a certain type of individual that is not helpful in my life? Start with identifying a baseline with where you are. Simply observe without judgement and see what’s already there. Acknowledge this and then accept what you’re experiencing right now. These are the steps necessary to let go.
Ask Yourself Today:
Is there something I need to learn here?
What do I need to do to honor my needs right now?
Observe…listen to what’s wrong, feel it, move through it, allow it to be. Wiest cuts to the deep, “The truth is this discomfort is the true problem, and we are running around trying to fix one thing after another because those are all just symptoms.”
Is there something I need to learn here?
What do I need to do to honor my needs right now?
“There is no magic formula for bouncing back. Full recovery, by its very nature, is slow and gradual. And every person is different. But humans have a remarkable capacity for resilience.”
Who We Already Are
At your core level underneath skin, hearer of thoughts, feeler of emotions, who are you? I often think we’re repeating patterns trying insatiably to make ourselves okay, again. What if we already have all we need?
Created in the image of God. The Divine Maker’s own “Poiema” created in Christ, a new creation filled with the LIGHT of the world! You are not your mistakes, you are not your thoughts and you are not your emotions. We can see more clearly all that we have picked up and packed with us along the way. We can let go and make room for something different, something healing.
For we are His workmanship [Poiema - we are the Maker’s created work, a Masterpiece of the MASTER, Self of SELF), created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them [We abide and walk with our God today.] This is who we already are.
In this power we can consider what Melody Beattie says and “Stop holding people responsible for our pain and take responsibility for all our feelings.” She goes on to say that we have permission with those closest, “We do not have to feel guilty about finding happiness and a life that works. And we do not have to take on our family’s issues as our own to be loyal and to show we love them.”
In summary, when learning to let go first ask yourself, Am I Ready? You can welcome this process by checking in with yourself daily, breathe deeply and consider helpful guided meditations to slow down with your regular check-ins. You also can reach out to close friends and loved ones, leaders of influence in your life and professional counselors and coaches readily available to help with this process.
Expect change. Welcome change. Practice choosing to let go by acknowledging what you’re seeing, experiencing and move through the resistance with acceptance of the reality of what you’re now experiencing. From this place you can move towards what you already value. Not sure what you value? This a good place to sit down and note what’s of value to you in your life and family. Learn to observe, let the moments pass before you and remind yourself continually Who you already are!
Today we can Practice.
Today we can Acknowledge.
Today we can Accept.
Today we can Let Go.
Josh Neuer is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Greenville, SC. Josh helps individuals, families, businesses and communities receive hope and healing that literally changes the world! Josh is passionate about empowering meaningful change in people including growing communities and team cultures. He is the founder of Joshua Neuer, LLC Counseling, a committed husband and father, and is absolutely crazy about relationships!