The Art of Letting Go

Everyone, and I mean everyone, knows that letting go is not an easy process especially when you have to let go of something you really want. Be it a great opportunity, someone you really loved or even any expectations you had about something. I, myself have had various experience where I had to let things I love the most slip out of my hand. 

Within this moment, you might have heard comments from your concerned friends - from "Don't worry, you'll get something better", "Allow yourself to feel the every inch of pain you're having now cause the more you feel, the faster you'll recover", down to "Time will heal". I am also familiar in the idea that when you lose something, you'll get something better in return. If you can't have it, what should you do next? You will be introduced a process called 'letting go'.

The process of letting go can come across as a dreadful process especially when you feel “stuck”. Should any of you reach this point, chances are you’ve been trying so hard to make everything works in your favor, or reach your goal, and it feels like you’ve tried so hard or come a long way that if you let go now, it will feel like a waste of time given the time and effort you have invested in it. It's also important to note that completely letting go and allowing ourselves to heal and look to the future with optimism and excitement can be difficult to achieve because we are so used to comfort that “what used to be” provided us. We become so hopeless where we would rather hang on to the past as if it had everything we ever wanted. We feel like we've given everything hence we deserve to get something in return. I also felt that way. But then a friend of mine said this to me - and I consider this as a huge wake up call for me. She said: 

"It's always good to expect. However, you should remember that although the amount of effort you've given was beyond anything you've ever given before, it's not for you to judge. It is for them to judge".

Another reason why we hold on to things or people longer than we should is because we convince ourselves that good things won’t happen twice; we will not be able to find someone who is that great again or who makes us feel this way again. Or we won’t be able to find a job like that again, or something we are that passionate about again. 

I realized that within the past few weeks before I lost it, I was trying so hard to stay in a place where I was not welcomed anymore. My mind had a clever of way of tricking me into believing certain things to make it less painful for me, or put it in a way that doesn’t really hurt my pride or heart, but eventually, I have to look at it the way it is, the way it is being portrayed to me, not the way I want to see it. If you experience it as well, worry not. It is not an optical illusion. It is the reality, and in reality what you see is what you get. If an opportunity passed you by, it didn’t really want to stop at your station, if someone let you go, they didn’t really want to stay, if someone else got what you were praying for, this blessing was not written for you to begin with and you will be blessed in another way.

The truth is if you reach a point where letting go is the only option, it usually means that this thing or someone already let you go.  As you keep learning the art of letting go, let go of your fear, of your past, of your mistakes, of your insecurities, of your failures, of your self-doubt. You are forced to forgive yourself enough to let go of the parts of you that dim your light.

Still reading? Good. Now coming to the hardest part..

Letting go is hard and we all know that. However, it's good to know that you will always find something or someone that makes you feel this way again, new passions will emerge and good things will happen twice and as many times as they want, and will probably be a better and more convenient fit for you. If you look back at your life, you will find yourself laughing at certain situations when you thought you would never move on from someone, or how you held on to something so tightly only to realize later that it was wrong for you. Great things happen to us all the time in different shapes or forms; we just like to focus on the things that are not so great. Holding on to something out of fear that it will never happen again, is the definition of fear. We have to be fearless in letting go.

Nothing is a waste of time, even if it feels like it is, we are here to make mistakes and learn lessons to grow as individuals, if we keep holding on to toxic situations or toxic people because we’ve already done too much or it’s too late to change things, we are only setting ourselves up for a miserable life. There is power in letting go, a power that brings more peace and serenity than being stuck in situations that make your heart a bit heavier each and every day.

Having this mentality or faith will help you overcome the reluctance that comes with making a decision of whether or not you should let go. Things that are meant for you have a way of flowing smoothly into your life. The more you fight for something that is not meant for you, the more it will fight you. You may get what you want in the end, but it may not last and you may not feel at ease with it. The beauty of things that are meant for you is that they just happen; against all odds. We are just programmed to complicate life sometimes.

Hence, these days I am practicing what I like to call 'lesspectations', where I expect less for everything that happens in my life. This doesn't mean that I become a pessimist, but because I believe that hope is the root cause of all problems. 

Good quote I found on the net:

“If you’re brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello.”
—Paulo Coelho

Forgive yourself, let it heal, and believe that everything will be alright. Stay strong.

See you in another post

Marcel