Letting go is by far the hardest skill that I’ve had to acquire. Though I want to sit here and say one day I turned my back on all the negativity and my journey was worry free, it couldn’t be further from the truth. However, just deciding to let go is a big step because though we’ve heard that letting go is the best thing that one could do for themselves it often seems easier to loathe and to wage war till others see where we are coming from. How many times have we tried to defend our actions and to show that we were right in a particular situation? That the other person who has wronged us or the way people paint us isn’t actually how we are. I don’t know about you but after 24 years of defending myself I’m quite weary. It took me an increasingly long time to decide to change( or begin to change) my approach but I’ve milked my original approach for all it had to offer. If we seriously ask our selves these questions -and I say seriously because we say things like “I don’t have to live up to anybody’s expectations all the time but we still get frazzled when we aren’t what others expect us to be. So I took the time to seriously ask myself whose happiness matters? I gave it some thought before I answered and surprise surprise I found that yes indeed my happiness mattered the most. I still had to admit to myself that I hoped that my mother, grandmother and my family would also be happy with the decisions that I’ve made for myself. But isn’t caring what others think defeating the whole purpose? Wouldn’t I be back at square one? Then I thought about it, those who truly love us understand our need to be who we set out to be . Surely they may get a little irritated when we don’t perform the way they expect us to but in the end it’s the understanding that matters. If we respect the fact that we absolutely cannot tell others how to live their lives and still live our own lives at the same time then we most certainly will reduce(not eliminate) a lot of friction.
I would be lying if I say that I don’t argue anymore or that I’m always calm. Because I’m not, and besides I think that it would be rather boring to not be angered at times. What letting go has given me though is the voice to say how I see things and move on. I used to be troubled by arguments often obsessing over them long after they’d passed. If I didn’t win an argument I used to get flustered because I believed that my actions weren’t interpreted in the way I meant them. When it boils down to it what you think about me is truly none of my business( not even being sassy). Its true, what we think about others is our business not theirs and they shouldn’t be bothered by it.
I’ve had to practice letting go not only with my arguments or with the expectations others have had for me but with situations that I’ve expected to go differently for myself. I’ve had failed relationships and job prospects that didn’t see how much of an asset I could have been. But with every rejection comes the opportunity to sharpen my ability to let go. I respect that others believed that I wasn’t the best option for them and thus they (risking sounding corny) … let me go. Why then should I harbor feelings of hatred and resentment? I’m still working on letting go of the feelings caused by rejection but what I do know is that the best decision I’ve made for myself is deciding to work on my ability to let go.
1 comments:
Letting go is hard ! Letting go implies that we have held something or someone tightly to our bossom, claimed ownership of it, guarded it jealously, so of course we feel bereft when it is time to give that up and there is a certain emptiness because we do not know what will take its place,when,or how. Loss, loss is one of the most traumatic things to us as human beings, loss of a job, loss of a loved one, loss of an epoch, loss of our hair, our youth...we enter into melancholy. We feel bereft of our love, bereft of our dreams, bereft of even our anger. Just yesterday I said to a girlfriend, " I am angry! But don't rob me of my anger because it is all I have that is keeping things together." This happens even when we are the ones who let go of a relationship or let go of an idea or an object. The comfort lies though in knowing the strength it takes to let go and chosing not to wallow in the comfort of the status quo (that's easy! anyone can do that!). Where would we be today if so many remarkable men and women had held on to their fears, their perceptions of self, the comments of their detractors, and the many negatives in their lifetime. There is something life-affirming about being brave enough to let go and have that empty hand waiting to grasp all the good things that will be ours.
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