Letting Go

“How much do we need to let go of?” a friend asked one day.

“I’m not certain,” I replied, “but maybe everything.”

Letting go is a spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical process, a sometimes mysterious metaphysical process of releasing to God and the Universe that which we are clinging to so tightly.

We let go of our grasp on people, outcomes, ideas, feelings, wants, needs, desires—everything. We let go of trying to control our progress in recovery. Yes, it’s important to acknowledge and accept what we want and what we want to happen. But it’s equally important to follow through by letting go.

Letting go is the action part of faith. It is a behavior that gives God and the Universe permission to send us what we’re meant to have.

Letting go means we acknowledge that hanging on so tightly isn’t helping to solve the problem, change the person, or get the outcome we desire. It isn’t helping us. In fact, we learn that hanging on often blocks us from getting what we want and need.

Who are we to say that things aren’t happening exactly as they need to happen?

There is magic in letting go. Sometimes we get what we want soon after we let go. Sometimes, it takes longer. Sometimes the specific outcome we desire doesn’t happen. Something better does.

Letting go sets us free and connects us to our Source.

Letting go creates the optimum environment for the best possible outcomes and solutions.

Today, I will relax. I will let go of that which is upsetting me the most. I will trust that by letting go, I have started the wheels in motion for things to work out in the best possible way.

From “The Language of Letting Go”
by Melodie Beattie

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I have been reading some of my journals from the middle of that last torturous year at work. I was astonished to see what pain I was in then and even more devastated to see that I am still struggling with some of the same fears. The fear of making a change and holding on in order to avoid fear and taking risks. How scarey this is! How shocking it is that fear still has such power over me.

Or maybe, it is just upseting to me because I have to learn the same stupid lesson over again!!! and over again...

I know, I know... Life's a journey not a destination.

This too, shall pass. I hope.

is truely only able to be done with practice, and times will happen when you find yourself "forgetting" to let go, but...

once you have the feeling of letting go, well...amazing is the only word i can use to describe the feeling that is left inside.

so much peace mixed with strength!!!!!!!!!!

there are many times when i think of what could've been and maybe even what should've been? and then when the peace shattering stuff gets flung at me on top of this confusion, i find myself trying to rush around and fix it all. yet again.

when this happens, even in the bitter cold, i will sit facing the sun, talk to Him, talk to myself even...and then? i play my tetris game on my cellphone for awile.

i never read The Language of Letting Go, but it is something that sounds like a must read & thank you for sharing it.

Yes, it is a very good book....

I have to admit that I've been having a hard time lately with this concept. I was in a better frame of mind when I posted this earlier. I've been sitting alone a lot in the dark wondering about a lot of things. I wonder why it feels like I am giving up. I don't like it but I can't shake it. I feel like I've done a good job of letting go of the past, it's the future that worries me. It all seems like too much effort and I'm not even sure what for. That is what bothers me the most. Which leads me to the existential question, "Who am I and what I am here for?"

Too deep, much too deep a question for me today....

I have to admit that this book has lead me to answer that is quite appropriate and timely. The entry for today, essentially says that I don't always have to be strong to be strong. It's OK to be vulnerable and afraid and vulnerable and tired and lonely. It's just OK. I will remain strong if I have the courage to be afraid... and to not punish myself for not feeling strong.

I think it isn't so much about me letting go of the past as it is about the past letting go of me. That doesn't make much sense as I write that but I know what I mean. I mean the preconditioned responses that I have to life and about myself. When life is hard and I can't go on or when I give up because I know that I am bound to fail and afraid to try. The preconceived notions that I always chase everybody away and nobody is ever going to love me.

Sad isn't it?

That's my point.

It is sad Looking4...kind of like a self fullfilling prophesy. I'm trying really hard to change how I look at life...stupid as this sounds I'm pretending to be happy. Not that I don't have plenty to be happy about in my life but I'm trying to move in a new direction...practice makes perfect...
ok, maybe not perfect but it might become habit forming.

I've always leaned towards depression and I'm really, really sick of myself.

The glass really is half full!

Letting go is very difficult for sure. I try as well. What I find the most difficult of anything is living in the 'now'. I usually find myself living in the future (sometimes the past) but almost never in the present. My inner self is always on guard regarding the future, for some reason. Terribly on guard. Like red flags flying all over the place!

I've ordered a book that was on Oprah's book list...though my massage therapist was the one that said I should read it. Never heard of it before then (don't watch Oprah). It's called The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. http://eckharttolle.com/the_power_of_now Though, I think it may be out of print, not sure.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could all do that. (((Looking))) I hope you are feeling better today.

I'm not doing well at all today. I'm at the give up stage. I am very discouraged. I think it might be the med change. Since I went up on the Lexapro, I believe it took out the anxiety (which was a 9) but the depression is still there (which I had rated 1-1/2 to 2) and now a 3 only because the edge was gone. Now I am so fatigued all the time, I can't and don't care anymore. My life is sliding in the pits. It's been this way for months now.

I can't believe how bad I have gotten. I don't take care of myself and I don't care. It's scarey to know what you doing but not able to stop it or have the energy to do anything about it. I don't know what to do anymore. I don't care and I give up trying.

(((Looking))) I'm so sorry for how you are feeling. I've had to deal with depression for a long time, and anxiety. To tell the truth, I've been kind of in the same spot as you...so you don't have to feel totally alone. I manage to take care of myself, but that is only because I have to go to work Monday through Friday. Otherwise, I'd be home being a slob in the same sweats and t-shirt every day, most likely.

My house is in the worst pits I've ever known it to be. And I'm not sure how to get out of it. I get home at night and want nothing more than to take a bath, put on pajamas, and then do nothing. No energy, no nuttin.

Maybe the increase in the Lexapro is making you more tired than normal. I think a lot of the SSRI's do that. ???

Maybe for now just do what you need to do to survive and baby yourself until the meds take completely ahold.

I hate depression. I'm so sorry. Just know that you are not alone in how you are feeling.

Dear. dear, dear Looking4hope ............ *I* can believe how bad you've gotten and I understand that not taking care of yourself ..... I do that too. uuuggghhh
For me it passes and and I can move again. Hang on, sweetie, hang on.
I hope and pray that things will soon lighten for you .