My book Clarity & Connection is temporarily 47% off on Amazon, which is a really big sale. You can also find it in bookstores and your local library.
“From the very first page I'm so taken in and so emotional about all that I'm reading. Just wow. So deep, so true, so meaningful, so everything. This is going to be my all time favorite book to come back to. And I can't wait to give it to someone as a gift when the time comes. It's that great. Now let me cry a little.” - Jana V (5 Star Review)
Give Yourself the Freedom of Letting Go
Attachment is a battle with the past and the future because it refuses to fully engage with the present. Attachment deeply rejects how things are and clings to how the mind craves for things to be. No matter what angle attachment is arriving from, it essentially clings to an idea so tightly that it causes waves of tension and stress that distort perception and add to the thickness of conditioning. Every attachment that ripples within you, just makes the mind heavier. More than anything, attachment does not like uncontrollable change.
Human existence is rarely devoid of sorrow. All of us have experienced hurt, stress, pain, dissatisfaction and many of us have experienced life altering trauma. The most common representation of attachment that the mind experiences is when it unconsciously drags the past into the present. Falling into cycles of reliving past pain in our mind or even going as far as to see threats where there really are none is a sign that attachment has taken a hold of the mind. Letting go is the only answer.
Human beings are so dynamic and wide ranging in their experience, that letting go will not look the same for everyone. But even so, in all aspects of letting go, for real healing to be possible, three qualities are needed:
1. Acceptance.
2. Objective observation of the present moment.
3. The effort to keep choosing more skillful actions than the past.
Letting go is only possible when you accept the discomfort in your mind and body. Acceptance is the decision to no longer run away from what you feel when the tension of the past is reverberating through your mind. When you reject mental tension or suppress it, you will end up creating deep patterns that compound the heaviness of the mind. When you accept what’s arising, the pain may not immediately go away, but you do gain the resilience that comes with looking at it directly.
The phantom of past pain eventually evaporates when you calmly observe it with the light of awareness. Patience and acceptance are a mighty combination. Acceptance is freedom because you are ultimately deciding to stop fighting yourself. Letting go and acceptance are two sides of the same coin, both can help you see through the clouds and finally see the present. One of the most liberating things you can do for yourself is embrace the truth that you cannot change the past and that you do not have full control over the future.
When you accept the tension of the moment, it tends to wither away because you are no longer adding the fuel that tension receives when you struggle with it. Tension ignites defensiveness and often that will look like the mind launching a myriad of projections in all directions. This will quickly cloud everything you see. Acceptance creates space for you to start training yourself to observe the present moment without projecting anything onto it. Seeing the present moment with clarity takes patience and repetition.
Letting yourself see the world, your friendships, your family, nature and anything else you care for in a new light, where there are no stories wrapped around them, often sparks a new level of wonder and amazement in the mind. Bearing witness to the miracle that’s in front of you can reinvigorate you to choose new actions instead of just leaning on the old way of doing things. When you drop the old stories and start fresh, you see that you have a lot more power than you thought you did.
A lot of people want quick and easy ways to let go because they know their problem stems from hanging on, but the issue is that if you have been holding on for decades, it is going to take intentional repetition to train the mind to release its defenses and fully let go. Especially when the pain is deep, you will have to let go many times, but eventually you will see that the heaviness does not have the same impact as it did before. If you stop feeding it by struggling with it, it will weaken. Everything needs energy to exist, even your past pain.
Wisdom will teach you that it is wiser to place your energy into acceptance and letting go instead of rehashing old battles. When you take your energy away from your past pain and place it into slowing down and being intentional, you open a great new chapter in your life. The deepest freedom you can feel in your life is something that only you can give yourself. Letting go is essentially a decision to redesign your mind. When you change your mind, you change your life.
Reflection Questions:
What is your current relationship with your past?
What do you do to release tension in your mind? Is it working?
What story can you let go of right now?
Speaking in San Francisco on May 14th
Friends in SF, I will be one of the speakers at the Wisdom and AI conference! Looking forward to meeting many of you there. Learn more about the conference here and get your tickets.
I like this conference because the goal is to focus our energy towards shifting AI into something that uplifts humanity instead of diminishing it.
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Function Health
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