Anyone on a personal growth journey will be familiar with the words "letting go." From releasing painful life experiences to removing toxic situations or people, letting go becomes an expected part of the transformation journey.
Letting go requires dropping the focus on something that doesn’t serve you. This brings you closer to acceptance, which frees you to move forward and progress. To let go could include releasing old habits and beliefs that don’t serve you or handing your worries and fears over to a higher power. In other words, “Let go and let God.”
Letting Go Doesn’t Happen Overnight
I’ve learnt that letting go isn’t a once-off event! What you let go of has the habit of resurfacing when you least expect it. However, when this happens it’s a reminder to do more inner work and let the healing happen in its time.
Doing the work comes with many benefits even if you have to keep at it before there’s a final release.
Jack Kornfield says, ‘To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own.”
Whenever I choose lovingkindness and compassion toward a resurfaced problem, its release is imminent. Forcing to let go only allows the issue to crop up, over and over again.
Here are some other things I have learnt about letting go.
5 Things I Have Learnt From Letting Go PLUS Inspirational Quotes
1. I Choose My Response
When I first dealt with letting go of limiting beliefs, bad habits, negative emotions, and unsupportive behaviour, I went at it with force! It must go and go NOW. Needless to say, the results were not what I expected. What I forced to let go, went reluctantly and always found its way back to me.
I have a choice in how I respond to thoughts, emotions, actions, situations, or people. I learnt to rephrase letting go to letting be and chose to be loving, gentle, and compassionate with the things I wanted to release by letting it be.
2. I Have to Come From a Place of Acceptance
Change has to happen if you want to move on from what no longer serves you. Accepting change is key to letting things be so they move away while you move on. It’s about a willingness to drop your need to control something out of martyrdom, an unhealthy desire to be right, or pure spite!
Accepting I had to change was the turning point that allowed me to release burdens detrimental to my personal growth and transformation. Dropping attachment to an expectation or outcome is part of accepting and acknowledging the change necessary for my well-being.
3. Turn Past Experiences Into Wisdom
I first heard of turning your past into wisdom from Dr. Joe Dispenza and I remember thinking how powerful those words were. Turning my past experiences into wisdom removed the emotional charge associated with painful events while enhancing the elevated feelings of happier moments.
When you have negative emotions around something or someone, you become fixated and allow that thing to control how you think, feel, and act. This makes it impossible to release past experiences that don’t serve you. Wisdom allows you to see situations or people through understanding, making it easier to release and move forward.
4. I Choose Where to Focus My Attention
Releasing what no longer serves me means dropping fixation and focusing on what is vital for my total well-being. The famous adage that energy flows where attention goes should be heeded here! I have learnt to focus my attention on what truly matters to me rather than get stuck on something hindering my growth and development.
Focusing on my authenticity is key to ensuring I follow the path that’s right for me. It ensures I live my purpose meaningfully. By doing this I can let be what doesn’t align with my core values and personal vision and focus on taking responsibility for my life.
5. Through Self-Awareness I Could Let It Be
Letting things be wasn’t in my frame of reference for most of my life! That came from living many years as a victim of people and circumstances. However, as I pursued my transformational journey I was able to grow my self-awareness.
Through self-awareness, I began understanding what drove my behaviour and desire to NOT let go. Such understanding empowered me to release limiting beliefs, destructive patterns, and unhealthy attachments that prevented me from releasing and growing. I could consciously choose to accept change, turn past hurts into wisdom, focus my attention on what I wanted, and respond.
Final Thoughts
Letting go requires determination and a willingness to create a new story while acknowledging past lessons. Releasing limitations, people, and situations that don’t serve you is essential for mind, body, and soul but it comes with acceptance and choosing to move forward.
Self-awareness is the key to understanding yourself and others and finding the forgiveness necessary to move on. Choose to honour your authentic SELF and let it be to take back your personal power. Life is meant to be expansive, empowering, joyful, and peaceful. You can achieve this state of being when you focus on authenticity.
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