The Art of Letting go

Do you ever find yourself hanging on to things that no longer serve you? Do you procrastinate a lot? Do you feel unable to let some things go?

While it sounds simple to let things go, I believe it is an Art and it is often harder than we think. Personally I spend a lot of time practicing letting things go and it took repetition and commitment to do it. The good news is the day you start to let things go you will start to reduce stress, feel more energized and overall more at ease!

Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on ~ Eckhart Tolle

Eckhart Tolle who is a spiritual teacher believes that we create and maintain problems because they give us a sense of identity. If we believe this to be true than it would explain why many of us choose to hang on to pain and worry far beyond it's ability to serve us. In my last blog on how I went from exhausted to thriving I spoke about perfectionism. If you are a perfectionist, letting it go, may be a tough action but even more so essential.

We are human beings and as such it is a fact that we will make many mistakes in our lives. This is a given and we can choose to stress about making mistakes or we can accept it. Now the thing with making mistakes is that most of us replay mistakes in our head over and over again! This allows feelings of regret, failure and shame to establish in our mind and as a result often cause future action or inaction to be influenced by the past. This frustration that is created within our body transforms itself into worry about the future, worries about making the same mistake again. It get's to the point in which we believe that this worry gives us some sort of power over the future and we start to try and control things beyond our control, often leading to more frustration and stress.

So how do we let things go?
Make a conscious choice to let it go!

It is super important to make a clear decision on letting things go, especially if it is related to a past hurt or a mistake we made. Journaling can assist in putting your mind at ease and writing down all the feelings associated with what you have to let go. Another powerful exercise is to write down what you need to let go, attach it to an air ballon and let it go or set it on fire and watch it disappear in front of your eyes. Most important is to get crystal clear on what you have to let go.

Step back

Stepping back and getting some perspective on what happened is a powerful step. This is about creating space for yourself to look at a situation or mistake that happened from a non emotional way. Oftentimes after a mistake happened we are too emotionally charged to look at a challenge we are faced with constructively. If we simply step back we can gain a fresh perspective. Going for a short walk in nature or taking 10 deep breaths can help reduce stress in your body and will allow you to step back. Once you are in the right head space ask yourself: "what advice would I give my best friend if that had happened? " write down your answer.

Be Kind to yourself

Being kind to yourself is very important in order to fully let go of something. As said earlier mistakes do happen, even superheroes make mistakes! So it's time to cut yourself some slag, more often than not we ourselves are our harshest critics. Learn to be kind to yourself. What do you need today after this challenging situation to nourish yourself? Read out the advice you wrote down you would give a friend - and then take your own advice!

Say YES to self

The last thing to do to embrace letting go is to say YES to self. The advice you gave your friend and then yourself, transform it into taking empowered action. What do you say Yes to? What action can you take to learn from your mistake and turn it into a powerful learning tool? Making a decision on saying YES to self is the ultimate power! Embrace this step, write down your action step/s and commit to following through.

I follow those 4 steps religiously and it has greatly reduced my stress levels and I overall feel more at ease. Accepting that we make mistakes and letting things go was a needle mover to access more happiness and create more success at the same time. There is an incredible amount of Energy that we can access when we let things go.

If you let go a little, you will have little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace ~ Ajahn Chah

I would love to hear from you, please comment below about what resonated with you or perhaps share a tip you use to let things go?

Here is to cutting ourselves more slag, being kind and just letting it go!