Since my wife has left me, I've pretty much read everything from people like Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, and Eckhart Tolle that I could get my hands on. I've learned a lot about letting go, but I've realized that letting go of your painful emotions isn't enough, and I wanna share that today. But first, let's talk about what letting go means to most people.
Indiana Jones "Letting Go" and taking a leap of faith
The term "letting go" is kinda deceptive. Have you ever tried to let go? you can't. The harder you try to let go the more you find out you can't do it. Letting go is more about acceptance, and allowing. Accepting the present moment as it is, and allowing yourself to experience your emotions rather than suppressing, or ignoring them.
The mistake most people, including myself have made is to ignore your emotions, or numb yourself to them through drugs and/or alcohol until you feel better.
Then one day you realize, "oh wow, that doesn't bother me anymore! I must've gotten over it!." but you haven't gotten over it. In reality all you've done is anesthetize yourself until you get so used to your pain, that you no longer realize its there.It's kind of like that game 'whack a mole,' if you stuff your emotions down, they will simply resurface some other way.
I wish I had learned that lesson a lot sooner...
You must allow yourself to experience your emotions. Some people *cough, cough* (you know who you are) like to think they are protecting themselves by locking their emotions inside, but that actually has the opposite effect. You are just locking yourself inside with the very demon you are trying to avoid. It's actually kind of ridiculous when you think of it that way. If you just open the door the demon always goes away.
SOMETIMES TO REALLY PROTECT YOURSELF YOU MUST BE DEFENSELESS
SOMETIMES TO REALLY PROTECT YOURSELF YOU MUST BE DEFENSELESS
You know how a computer can't function properly if you have too many applications running in the background? Every time you experience something and don't deal with the emotional outcome of it, that is one more 'application' running in your subconscious mind. Just like a computer experiences problems when its applications are left running unattended so do we. What are some of the things we experience when we build up emotions and experiences we can't let go of? Stress, Depression, Sickness, just to name a few.
Ok so we definitely want to let go of our attachment to our emotional pain by accepting that its there and allowing those emotions to express themselves so they can go away. Then we can have peace. But isn't peace just something else we can get attached to? We let go of our attachment to our pain only to get attached to our idea of peace. Anyone undergoing a painful situation in life can decide to let go of their pain,
BUT CAN YOU LET GO OF YOUR NEED FOR PEACE TOO?
What good is it to let go of your emotional pain, only to become so attached to this idea of peace that when it's inevitably taken away, it causes you that very same pain?
The only thing certain in this universe is uncertainty. Let go of literally everything including your need for peace. It seems contradictory but I've found that the way to achieve peace is by letting go of it.
THE ONLY REAL PEACE IS FOUND IN UNCERTAINTY.
IT'S ONLY AFTER WE'VE LOST EVERYTHING THAT WE'RE FREE TO DO ANYTHING - Tyler Durden
You are EXACTLY correct. I lost one wife, and have come close to losing my second. I have never struggled with substance abuse, but I have other defense mechanisms I've used to accomplish the same thing....avoiding feeling the pain. In my case, I learned thru therapy that if you accept the things about you which cause the pain, the things about yourself that you are not proud of, the things about you that are ugly...if you just accept that this is you, there is a sense of relief. You are no longer a prisoner to your attempts to defend yourself FROM yourself. I feel more pain now than ever, but I am happier, I am less OCD than ever, I have less physical pain, etc. it is tough to do, and it takes years, but it can be done....
ReplyDelete