The Art of Letting Go
What are we here for, if not to let life and love and grief touch us deeply?
I am a bit of a ‘letting go’ fanatic. Ever since I learned that it helps you feel and be more free, I have taken up learning the art of letting go like it is my damn job.
And so, I have consumed a lot of information about letting go. I’ve read Be Here Now by Ram Dass and Michael Singer’s The Untethered Soul more times than I can count.1 The Buddha, Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron, and most good meditation teachers will all say variations of the same thing: letting go is the way to become free, and to let go, you first must let it in to be experienced. We can practice allowing in and letting go of all of life.
I continue to make letting go a focus of my daily life: releasing past experiences and my expectations of the future, whether they be profound or mundane, does free me, more. Often, though, when I feel myself clenching something, my mind initially tries to let it go rather frantically. I want it processed and out of my system right now, so I can move on to the next experience; the next thing; the next chapter. I want the freedom of having let go, and I want it now. I am a (shameless) fiend for novelty and movement; stagnation is my greatest fear. I become frustrated when I notice myself clinging to what already happened, or to what I want to happen, or to how something might happen. I feel my life force draining from me, wasting time hoping or holding on. (God forbid I be held down or back by something I have the power to relinquish.)
But of course, you can neither think your way into letting go, nor pretend like you have when you haven’t. When I mentally try to let go, I’m resisting the process: I’m actually just afraid of feeling what I’m trying to let go of. Letting go is not a process you do, but one that you experience, if you allow it: it happens on its own, through the body and the mind.
In the words of Ram Dass, “You can’t rip the skin off a snake. The snake must molt the skin. That’s the rate it happens…” He continues, “You’ve got to go at the rate you can go. You wake up at the rate you wake up.” Similarly—you can’t rush letting go: you open the heart and surrender to the process. You feel and be with what’s here, now. You go at the rate you go.
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Part of letting go involves really wanting and trying to let go as you keep holding on. It often involves getting frustrated by the mind’s tendency to cling, and feeling afraid of feeling what you’re trying to let go of. Holding onto something that feels good, or trying to push away what doesn’t feel good, is natural. It’s ok to not want to let go. It’s ok to not want to let it in. We are only human, and perpetual enlightenment isn’t the goal of life for most of us: we can learn to be content with the messy, angsty, mercurial process of letting go.
I don’t think we’re supposed to let go of everything, or that letting go is as simple as “feeling it fully.” Can we ever “feel all the way through” the death of a child, or a parent, or a lover? It seems like letting go is more about your willingness and openness to feel whatever comes, as it comes. Some grief may visit for the rest of your life; some grief may never leave your side. Letting go is not about getting to a state of totally fine and ready for the next experience—it’s about allowing the moments that came before, and the one right now, to work on you in the ways they are meant to.
The moments that are hard to feel and let go of are the ones that make life worth living. The moments that cling to me the most—the ones I find myself grieving, over and over again—are the ones that teach me the most.
What are we here for, if not to let life and love and grief touch us deeply?
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Bodies do know how to let go—they do it every moment. Most of the moments that came before this one, today, have already passed through you with little or no resistance. When something comes up and gets stuck inside, relax and release your way into and through it. 2
Between all that happened in the past and all that might happen in the future, there are endless things you could be clinging onto. Pay attention to what your mind and heart keep returning to. Notice what needs to be let inside.
Sometimes letting go looks like life tearing something from your grasp; other times it looks like gently reminding yourself, hey, you can move on now. That’s over. What came before is already gone. Sometimes letting go is dramatic and full of despair, and other times it is humble and easeful, as you watch life simply rise and fall away.
When you find yourself hung up on something, and struggling to move past it, it might just mean that you have awareness to gain, or something still to learn. It might just mean that this experience was meaningful to you. What a blessing, to be sentient.
Soften your grip.
Maggie
Other books I love about this topic — Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender by Dr. David Hawkins, and Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza.
This is Michael Singer’s whole thing —to relax and release your way through all of the blockages that come up in life, continuously.