And The Only Way Remains - Let Go!

by Tejal Kutarekar

About Tejal

Hey There! This is Tejal Kutarekar. I am a Certified Life Coach and Entrepreneur by profession. Writing is something that is therapeutic for me. I love spreading self-awareness about emotional and mental health with the help of writing and composing poems. I am pleased to bring out my inner passion of guiding through writing with the help of the Empath to Empath platform. See you all soon with my content there.

Let Go.... Is This Really Needed?

How many times does your inner voice guide you to "let go" of something?

Countless times...right?

Don't worry! We all are in the same boat.

Before going further, let me quickly introduce you to your inner devils. We all have them inside us. Believe it or not, these are desperate guests who visit you as a surprise by cropping up out of nowhere just to make sure that your mood remains 'blah' the whole day or for at least the next few days.

Okay, Drum roll please....

Your ugly past.

Your childhood traumas.

Your devastating memories.

Your consistent rejections or failures.

Your teenage tragedies.

Your worst experiences.

Your shattering incidents

Your out of control events, situations or circumstances.

Your setbacks and obstacles.

Your mistakes.

Your grudges.

Your repents.

Even if we passed through all of them we feel trapped with them. Perhaps, even after 10 years or more, you recall how they made you feel. Our brain feels intertwined with all of them that keep haunting us inside even after ages. And the only escape remains - "Let Go".

In this article, I decided to address this in the hope it might help the many trapped souls out there;

Our human brain always craves pleasing memories rather than those memories that make us feel sad and disappointed. I call this "The brain is busy in the changing state process always". Due to this, we try to run away from unwanted memories in order to feel good all the time in every possible way. But this does not seem a great escape to feel content along with all these devils.

This may help temporarily but it is the least effective solution.

As human beings, we need all emotions. We try to feel content, balanced with all of our feelings. It doesn't seem a sensible idea to keep expecting to have a perfect life one day, or think "I will be happy and positive always". I just want my brain to remember all good memories and discard all bad memories. These things will never happen.

So, expecting them to happen seems an impractical choice in my view.

Then, which way we should go? Shall we lead towards letting go? What do you think?

I know, you genuinely tried to let go but you failed to do so. Did I guess it correctly?

I will tell you why this happened.

To understand letting go you really need to focus on what is there lying between the lines.

Let go = forgiving If this is what you have understood letting go is, then let me tell you that's not the way to go.

Now take a moment and think about a thing that you gave away to someone that was very close to your heart when you were owning it. Did you forget that giveaway feeling immediately? Of course, you did not. Even today you can recall how you felt that time. Then how come you expect to forget all wounds and scars caused by those devils immediately?

Let us understand one thing

"Letting go means forgiving and not forgetting."

Forgiving is an act of accepting unwanted happenings, acknowledging how you felt about them, forgiving them and yourself if you think the mess was because of your own mistakes, choices, and decisions. By doing so you will not exhaust your mental and emotional energy behind making elusive things happen that are near to impossible. (i.e. forgetting).

Instead, by forgiving, you are trying to focus and shift your energy, potential, inner ability in feeling at peace even when you know those cranky devils are still present in your life and bothering you at regular intervals.

Ugly past...forgive

Childhood traumas...forgive

Devastating memories...forgive

Consistent rejections, failures...forgive

Teenage tragedies...forgive

Worst experiences...forgive

Shattering incidences...forgive

Your out of control events, situations, circumstances...forgive

Your setbacks, obstacles...forgive

Your mistakes...forgive

Your grudges...forgive

Your repents...forgive

Most importantly, forgive yourself.

Now the question comes - how to forgive?

Step 1. Pen down what is bothering you or making you feel stagnated when it comes to letting go. Once you put down your bothering thoughts on paper it becomes easier to detach from your thoughts. If you hold on to them in your head it will just go haywire and make your life chaotic.

Step 2. Sharing is caring. Share your thoughts with someone trustworthy who understands your point of view by stepping into your shoes. This also helps as another person tells you some tricks to cope up with the issue the way I am telling you now.

If you have observed then you will come to know that in the above two steps my emphasis is more on letting your thoughts flow freely out of your head.

Step 3. Acknowledge and Validate your emotions and feelings even when they are not welcoming. Let us admit that we can not control our automatic thoughts but we can control whether to act upon them or not by pondering over them. Hence, learn to cherish them in order to live a life that is imperfect yet content. Accept that you are not always going to have a rosy life. Life's path is all about different phases. Balancing your life is important by accepting that not everything is under your control.

"Life is like a roller coaster ride. It is up to you to complain about the ride or to raise up your hands, shout crazily and enjoy it". "Never wish to have a better life, wish you had enough skills."

Last step. Learn some lessons from these devils. Every ugly situation teaches you something as a part of the life lessons curriculum. This is the best thing you can do to rise above all these devils. Just change the perspective of looking at these things.

"Every time I change my perspective I discover a new story."

That's all you need to do for forgiveness.

You need not keep yourself busy to not have such thoughts. (Again an impractical idea.)

You need not do any dramatic things.

You need not become a social butterfly to bury your issues. (One more impractical idea.) Being social will only let you feel less stressed out about those things but this will not fix your problem.

You need not feel sorry about them.

You need not feel guilty about them.

Before I wrap up, let us quickly recollect our mantra once again