Letting Go

August 2023

We share excerpts this week from author Jaimee Ratliff as we focus on letting go. We challenge you to keep a Gratitude Journal this month (and maybe beyond). Every week spend 15 minutes writing at least five things you are grateful for. For more tips read here: https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/gratitude_journal.

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

The following is excerpted from https://medium.com/personal-growth/to-anyone-who-struggles-with-letting-go-ed5bf12fb1e6 where you can read the full article.

“Letting go in this sense is releasing all doubt, worry, and fear about a situation, person, or outcome. It’s releasing anything that disrupts your happiness and no longer serves you on your journey… and focus on what you can control, instead. It’s an internal process that must happen for you to truly feel better and get on with life in a healthy way…. honor where we are on our individual journeys of letting go. Know that wherever you are right now, is okay.

Mind control — Making an intentional choice to no longer let past issues and people who hurt us control the mind is what can break the cycle of unhealthy rumination on these thoughts, ideas, and feelings. The reality is your thoughts don’t define your value. You are not the summation of your past experiences. Just because something doesn’t work out, doesn’t mean you are now labeled as a failure or you’re incapable of receiving what you desire in life. Thoughts are nothing more than thoughts. What we decide to do with them is what can either make or break us.
Getting it all out — While obsessing over the details of what happened in the past is never the healthy route to take (we all do it), it’s important to analyze why you’re feeling a certain way, and how you can show up differently the next time. There are so many breakthroughs to uncover through self-reflection. Other ways to express yourself include talking to a trusted friend, family member or therapist. Sometimes, friends and family sit so close to a particular situation that they’re unable to provide unbiased support the way in which you need it. When we continue holding on to grief, anxiety, pain, and resentment from the past without fully working through each situation, all of these experiences, patterns, and narratives accumulate inside the heart, making it even more difficult to let things go.
Acceptance — We all want to know why something ended the way it did or how someone could end up hurting us so badly without having any concern about how it negatively impacted us. The painful truth is, we don’t always get that “closure” we think we ought to have. Not everyone will explain why they did something or even apologize when they are at fault. Fully accepting the situation as it is without constantly wishing it would be different is really the only way to getting on the road to being okay.
Forgiveness — To truly let go and move on, sometimes you must forgive people who aren’t even sorry. Sometimes you have to accept an apology you’ll never receive. That takes so much strength, courage, and humility. While it may seem unfair and backwards, sometimes, that’s how the chips will fall. The most important thing is that we also must learn to forgive ourselves. This can be done by writing a letter to yourself, replacing self-loathing with compassion, and deciding to make better choices next time.
Stay present — The present is all we have. We can’t go back and fix the past, and what happens in the future isn’t here yet. We must make an effort every day to remember that and allow ourselves to open up and enjoy what is unfolding right in front of us: all parts of the journey both easy and hard, good and bad.

I owe it to myself to be more kind to me. Every day we have a choice to keep holding on just a little bit longer, or conclude that today is the day we will finally let go.”

Originally published at ThisWayNorth.net.

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