Let It Go

So much healing work requires the act of letting go. Letting go of habits, thoughts, ideas, beliefs. Whatever is no longer serving us needs to be released. But here’s the thing. I had a hard time letting go of things. On the surface it was easy for me to tell myself that I was ready to let go of something when deep down I was holding on for a multitude of reasons. Much of why I was holding on to stuff was because it had become part of my identity. In a previous post I brought up a statement that I made to myself "Who am I without my trauma and my stories?” I remember when the words of that question escaped my mouth I damn near did everything in my power to shove them back in. I was exposed in those words. I had said them to a real person, in fact two real people. One person was my therapist who came back with the question. Who do you want to be?

Along this life I have learned a lot about what I do not like. I could craft a whole world around those things. But ask me what I wanted, desired or aspired for and I got choked up. It was a similar vibe to the whole superstition of not telling folks when you applied for a job and feel really good about it, you keep your mouth shut to not jinx it. I held myself back from saying what I truly desired out of fear that the luck would get sucked out and those desires would never come to fruition. In the past couple of days I’ve been taking a deeper look at the art of letting go. And in this reflection I realized that me keeping my mouth shut was less about not wanting to jinx the good stuff from coming into my life but rather because I was still holding on to the old stuff.

In the beginning of 2023 I moved into my own apartment by myself. I had never lived on my own before. I was a mother for the first time at 19 so I had no time to be a young person out in the world figuring things out. At 42 I was truly living on my own. This independence gave me time to learn my own rhythm. Minus my work schedule I started to learn when I like to get up what I like to do first thing in the morning for myself. When do I like to take showers? At night? Or in the morning? What do I like to cook? What do I even like to eat? How would I decorate my own space? I never asked myself these questions directly but I moved through them by simply living. The more I got to know my own rhythm the more that I began to learn more about what I like, what lights me up and brings joy into my life.

Once my rhythm had been established I dove head first into healing. In a short period of time I had gotten comfortable in my agency, autonomy, independence and sovereignty. I was waking up to myself and as a result I wanted to move at light speed towards the things that felt good and repaired my nervous system. I had been living in a space of unhappiness for some time and once I had gotten out of that dark place I yearned for light. But as I tell everyone, you cannot rush healing. In fact not only is it dangerous but it’s kinda hard to do. REAL healing is a slow process, it takes time. I was done being in limbo and wanted to get to the other side of awkward. You know that phase of your life when you’re in limbo. You’re not back there but you’re also not over there, you’re in the in-between.

The in-between is where I must slow down, as hard as that is. This slower pace has revealed something to me that I think is revolutionary. I must let go of the old to make space for the new. And the new is bigger and better than what I’m holding on to. I’ve learned that letting go cannot be forced, and believe me I tried to force it. Letting go is slow and deliberate. It’s intentional, it’s compassionate. Letting go is grieving. I can’t take all the old idea and habits with me into the new. And honestly that is a concept that I hadn’t even considered until recently. I thought I had let go. I thought I had released old stuff, but as it turns out I was only covering it up. So how do you know when it’s time to let go? You’ll know when you feel stuck. When you feel that everything is to tender to hold in conversation and you’ll either cry or get angry at the slightest breath.

You’ll know when you’re ready to let go when your heart begins to yearn for something more. And the letting go doesn’t mean that everything is gone forever. It simply means that you’re not carrying the heavy load anymore. You’re not wearing the mask anymore. Those parts of yourself, those beliefs and stories no longer become your identity. You realize that you are more than the stories you’ve told yourself. You are more than the pain that shaped you and left an imprint. Letting go is the most loving thing that you can do for yourself.