Letting something or someone go is not an easy task because it’s a habit that we build for so long. How many times we have been asked to give up something (i.e. relationship that drags us down) to make a space for our lives for something better? We usually hold on because we assume things will get better in time.
I was in a relationship long time ago, where it didn’t bring benefits to both of us. The family was a good one, and I loved the eldest sister because she taught me to ‘let go’ such painful relationship. She even asked me to read a book about woman vs. man in order to understand the differences between woman and man, and how man can be such a b*tch, sometimes. *LOL* She was a kind-hearted woman whom I would love to meet again in the future because she lives far away from here. She has always been in my prayers, every night.
Our faith must be in things unseen, and not in things seen; for who hopes for things (already) seen? – St. Paul
Anyway, there are times we need to learn how to let go so we can see the big picture of our mistake for holding on. When we are no longer holding on something that only bring us down, we actually rise. I stopped spend my time struggling in vain to make myself into what they wanted me to be. I don’t blame them for making me who I am today, but I am so grateful to have them in my life because I now understand that some people are meant to teach us to let go off the rope.
Guy Finley’s The Secret of Letting Go is a book that points out consciences that letting go is not something to do with self-sacrifice, self-denial, or releasing any circumstances outside of yourself. In his book, he revealed the new dimension of ‘letting go’ which includes (pg. 9):
Letting go isn’t living with heartache-filled dreams of what might have been.
Letting go isn’t the certainty that somebody else was wrong.
- Letting go isn’t clinging to the ashes of one disappointment while basking in the warmth of some imagined new victory.
- Letting go isn’t the anxious search for a new solution to an old problem.
- Letting go isn’t learning to live with the weight of lowered expectations.
- Letting go isn’t the avoidance of people or places that painfully remind you of past attachments.
- Letting go isn’t having to convince yourself of how right you were to let go of something.
- Letting go isn’t the desperate search to find someone to agree with you about your side of an argument.
- Letting go isn’t the need to rehearse conversations in your mind in an attempt to feel confident.
- Letting go isn’t your insistence that you can let go of (fill in the blank) anytime you want.
In fact, Finley listed down the real insights of ‘letting go’ (pg. 11-12) which I find rather interesting:
- Letting go of yourself is letting go of your problems, for they are one and the same.
- Go along with your longing to be limitless.
- Uncovering what is wrong must always precede the discovery of what is right.
- You can only be as free as you are willing to be truthful about yourself.
- Letting go is strictly an inside job.
- There is nothing hidden in the world from you if you will reveal yourself to yourself.
- You can live from true intelligence or with self-insistence.
- Letting go takes no strength – only a willingness to see the need for it.
- You can never act any higher toward a situation than your understanding of that situation.
- Once you see a problem, you know the solution.
- A weakness detected is a weakness rejected.
- Letting go is the natural release that always follows the realization that holding on hurts.
- Unhappiness does not come at you, it comes from you.
- Suffering is only something you picked up by mistake.
- What you really want is to stop thinking about yourself.
- Defeat comes from clinging to solutions that don’t work.
- Letting go happens effortlessly once you see there is no other choice.
- Real freedom is the absence of the self that feels trapped, not the trappings that self acquires to make it feel free.
- Wanting to learn about yourself while limiting your discoveries to what you want to find is like saying “I want to see the whole world from my bed.”
- The only thing you lose when you let go of something you are afraid to live without is the fear itself.
The book itself has tons of great tips on how to overcome the fear of letting something or someone go. We often bound to be afraid of our own thoughts. There’s no way we are afraid of another person, but we are battling in our mind. We have the fear in what we thought, or what the other person is thinking about us. This kind of thought always eat us, making us unhappy towards ourselves. We misjudged other, get angry, misunderstood, and resent other people because we cannot see the whole situation, and suck up with of our own ‘thought’. It’s our choice to choose what’s the best for our happiness.
Finley’s book on letting go is a great book because it leaves positive messages to the readers, and offers some guidelines on how to let go things, and start living in a happy and successful life. This is why I love reading this book as it gives me a new perceptions that letting go has nothing to do with other people, it only me, and I have to make the decision… Alone. I finally come to the senses that once I dare to let you, then I can live as I please. Having the freedom is better than prisoning myself in a problem that wouldn’t let me achieve higher in life.
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