One way to begin the letting go process is to ask yourself, “If I let this go, what will it make room for?”
The general answer to this will most likely always translate to something of equal or far greater value.
But it takes awhile for most to logically accept this answer and allow the process the time it needs to come to fruition.
An example of this might be that you’ve been holding on to some words that you’ve written over the course of the last few years of your life but you haven’t thought of them in years.
You love the words. They once inspired, not only you, but others too. You remember the day you wrote them and what happened behind the emotional scenes that inspired you, but you know that you probably won’t feel that way ever again.
Maybe their meaning is slightly off and is a bit out of style now. They no longer inspire you, or others, the way that they once did.
But if you let them go, you clear some space in your creative & heartfelt closet, and it becomes a place to hang new words that you find might inspire, not only you again, but as well as others too.
Maybe the message will fit you better and be more in style with creative originality. It will be a better look for you all around.
It’s an extremely metaphoric example, I know, but the idea is the same in an even more perplexing way of getting the message out loud and clear. Think of an echo, bouncing around an empty chamber.
You see, when we let something go, the love that we had for it is never truly lost, it just eventually transforms itself into something else, like a memory.
This is the truth because now we have made space for something new to come along. Memories don’t take up as much space as unhealthy attachments do. This my friends, is absolutely true.
It’s considered by the author that it is important to keep in mind that even though we have to let go of something that we cared so deeply for, we don’t have to put away the gentle memory of what it brought to our life at the time that it was meant to make us happy.
Letting go does not have to mean forgetting. It means releasing something’s ability to affect you in a negative way so that when you are remembering it you are not bombarded with the not-so-positive feelings.
Can you miss something forever?
Absolutely.
Does something feel empty inside after letting go of something you’ve held on to for so long?
This too, touches on the absolute, but you must also keep in mind that you now have room for much more room for all of the positive things that must have plenty of room for what’s truly meant for you.
Letting go is really hard. I get it.
Especially when you have to let go of something you really thought made a difference in your life, and others too.
But even by thinking that you give way too much power to your expectations and that power gets in the way of what the universe has always had in store for you. And by letting go of old things you allow what’s meant for you to come to you.
Letting go is much more painful when things seem “stuck”. It often seems impossible to do, but the truth is if you reach this point, it means that you’ve been trying too hard to make things work in your favor, or to reach the goal. You just have to let go of it all.
Though, it does sometimes feels like we’ve tried to damn hard, or come so far that if we let go now, it will feel like a waste of time given the time, effort, and the energy we invested in it.
But nothing is ever a waste of time, even if it feels like it is, we are here to make mistakes and learn lessons to grow as individuals. But if we hold on to those mistakes they become toxic to our overall well-being.
And if we keep holding on to toxic things 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 of unbearable pain and suffering.
A Positive Motion
There is a positive motion in letting go, a motion that brings more peace and serenity than being stuck in situations that weigh a bit heavier each and every day. It's called moving on.
This motion really helps you move on and let go faster. But it's not easy to stay the course of letting go.
It’s the same notion that when one door closes another one opens. Life opens new doors for you all the time; imagine you are a key to multiple doors and you just think you can only open one door.
We are all blessed with so much potential, so many talents, so many things to give back to the world. We have so many keys to open so many doors. When you leave one door behind and lock that door and label the beautiful memory on the front, you will be surprised by the doors that were waiting to be opened by you and only you, to create so many more cherished memories.
When you let go there will be something more waiting to fill that empty space. Mine just happens to fill back up with more words that happen to string sentences together with paragraphs and questionable grammar, like the ones that follow.
A Little Dream
Sometimes I have this dream. The same dream over and over. A silhouette of someone is carrying something with both hands, it walks up to me and says, here you’ve forgotten something. And drops it right front of me. Sometimes I pick it up and it’s nothing but pain, and sometimes it spills joy all over me, but sometimes I keep walking right on by it, instead of paying it any attention whatsoever, only to have it eventually chase me down. And I wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in cold and agonizing sweat.
I am being chased by what I try and throw away?
It often seems to be that way.
But I’m not the only one being chased by what I threw away. And I’m not the only one who’s thrown something away, or who’s lost something that I thought meant the world to me.
But I know there will be more pain, just as there will be more happiness, and I would rather feel said happiness than staying stuck in the pain that I’ve held on to for so long.
As I start to wake up, I lay there staring at the ceiling. It’s an ordinary ceiling, nothing special at all. I close my eyes and let go of me and the dream, of trying to figure it all out.
Eyes closed, I listen to the movements within my thought process. I might very well have already let go, but my mental capacity has been filled to the brim of what went wrong for way too damn long.
And to be aware of this, might mean that I am in the midst of a change. Because I have to change, and the only way to do that is to let go.
Now, I’m not sure if I can muster the strength. But I know it's there, I thought.
Nothing can help me, especially holding on to things just for me. As far as I can see, any expectations that I have are just something I hold on to, to fill the void as far as my eyes can see, and that void is simply, a void. I’ve been in that void before, put everything I held on to, into it. And just like then, I had to force myself to let go and adjust.
And now here I am, right back where I began and I have to accept it. No one is able to fill that void, except me. No one is coming to weave my dreams for me—it’s my purpose to creatively weave dreams for others.
That’s what I have to do. Such dreams may have no power over me, or others, but if my life is to have any meaning whatsoever, that is what I have to keep doing.
I have to let go of it all in order for the right things to bloom from the wounds. We all have too.
Waking Up
As dawn fast approaches, I give up trying to get back to sleep altogether. I throw my most trusted hoodie on, make my way to the coffee maker, and smash the brew button with my thumb. I pour a cup and head outside, just to soak up the beautiful morning.
The sky grows brighter by the minute. It has been a long time since I have been able to see, or even pay any real attention, to the sunrise.
At one end of the sky a line of silver appears, next, a thread of blue slowly showed too, like blue ink on a sheet of paper, it spread slowly across the horizon.
If you put together all the shades of blue in the world and picked the bluest epitome of blue, this is the color that you would choose.
My hands fall away from my mind, and I just stare at the scenery, my heart and soul as blank as a fresh canvas.
The candlelit sun plays peek-a-boo with the day ahead just above the horizon, and the blue sky is swallowed up by smoke & sunlight.
A single cloud hangs above, a pure white cloud, it’s edges distinct as they come with a touch a grey. A cloud so sharply etched with hope you could write your name on it.
A new day had dawned alright. And in the light of letting things go, what this day will bring, I have no clue. But I’m going to make sure it‘s beautiful.
And so you’ll see, some endings are not bad; sometimes they are not even endings at all — just the dawn to a brand new beginning.
Til the next time,
Ryan Love
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