Letting Go Even When it Hurts

The art of letting go is not easy. It has been an ongoing process for me for the last 20 years. When I first got into looking at myself and was involved in a 12 step program, I started hearing this phrase “Let it go” Surrender what you cannot change and work to change the things you can. The introduction to these kinds of concepts were as foreign as if I had found myself in the middle of another unfamiliar country. It wasn’t computing. Had I had another choice, I probably would have run away from these concepts but I couldn’t because I had nowhere else to go. I was depressed and my personal life was on the brink of brokenness and I had a baby that I needed to take care of. Instead of leaving I started listening and I started buying books that talked about such concepts and I slowly started letting in this new language, these new ideas. It was very painful in between the few ah ha’s I was getting. How was I going to live completely differently than I had been taught to live?. Life as I knew it was all about controlling the people and things in my life to keep me comfortable. Now I was being told I couldn’t do that and find the peace I so badly wanted. So layer by layer of resistance fell off of me and little by little I started understanding a bit of what I was reading and hearing at my meetings. I began to feel a little bit of relief because I was beginning to see what had been at the root of my unhappiness for so long. And little by little I started letting go. It was a slooooooow process and there were many times I felt like I was doing something wrong. I had started reading books on self development and personal transformation and some of the very popular authors were talking about just making a choice to feel better and let go and then it would be so. I didn’t understand this concept at all but it made me feel bad because I couldn’t just make a choice to think differently and then be instantaneously changed and peaceful. I also began to hear the same thing in the meetings I was going to. They were saying just keep your eyes on what you can be grateful for and then you will feel better. This didn’t make sense to me either because I felt like the people in the group wanted to push their feelings under the carpet. They wanted to pretend everything was ok even if it wasn’t. I began to miss meetings and started looking for books and people who would validate my process and experience. It was hard. I felt very lonely and very uncomfortable. Over time, day by day, from reading, talking and seeing myself in a clearer way, I began to understand that I had a ton of grief inside of me. I believe most of us do. It comes from lost dreams, lost hope, not being able to have the kind of relationships you want. It comes from giving yourself up to different degrees to please others or getting in touch with being victimized in many different ways as a child and or adult. I began to see that if I was going to get better, I was going to have to embrace my journey, which in the end was totally unique to me. That was one of the first lessons about letting go I had to learn. I had to let go of what other people thought my journey should be, I had to let go of people telling me that if I just did this or that I would find peace and I had to learn to trust what I knew about me that no one else could possibly know. I had to trust that I could get myself to where I needed to get to. As I began to understand and practice this very profound lesson, people who could support me right where I was without agendas started coming into my life. I started seeing some of the issues in my life that needed attention and I began to go through my very personal process towards emotional healing and well being. I questioned myself a lot and resented my process at times because I had a lot of very low days for quite a few years. But when push came to shove what else could I do except for putting one foot in front of the other and little by little, day by day, experience a little more awareness and a little more self love. Letting go was not as simple as it seemed, I had to practice baby steps because I was scared to death of what my life would become. Today I am still learning to let go. As I encounter different situations in my life I face fear and worry. My youngest daughter is a teenager and she is starting to ride in other kids cars to get to activities. I went through the letting go process with my first daughter around this subject and figured I wouldn’t have to go through it with my second. Was I ever wrong. My 2nd child is my baby and now I have to let my baby go in someone else’s car to the burger joint or mall. It brings up feelings of fear and I start asking myself questions like ‘can she make good decisions?” “Will she be more cautious than risky in choosing her friends from now on?” “Will she be ok?’ I don’t know is the answer and all I can do is take charge of what I can control. I set times to be home, I tell her to call me when she gets to her destination, I tell her to call me when she is on her way back. I always insist on meeting the person that will be driving. I ask if they have had any tickets, I ask them what kind of a driver they are, what kind of car, who else is going and I pay attention to the demeanor and energy of that person and then I look at my daughter and say, “have a great time honey, talk to you later.” If fear crops up I ask myself what I can do beyond locking her up in the house to keep her safe and I always say nothing. And then I let it go again. This kind of thing happens everyday in my life with all kinds of issues. As I have done my work, I have learned how to identify what is bothering me and when I’m bothered and I look at it and make choices to do what I can to take care of myself, then I can let it go.
Ultimately the fears that we have and the need to control that we have comes from feeling out of control. If we choose to hang on to the idea that we can control the people and things in our lives, we will become more and more paranoid and our lives will become more and more small. On the other hand, the process of letting is hard and brings up a lot of grief over the fear we have. Be gentle with yourself and know that if your intention is to be free of the burdens of trying to control, you will eventually reach the place of freedom. Be patient, it will take time and be willing to listen to yourself even when someone you may look up to thinks you should be doing it another way.