6 Steps to Let Go and Move Forward

Why can’t I just let go?

Have you ever asked yourself that question?    Many of my clients have asked themselves, and me, often with more than a hint of frustration.    It is the kind of question a person asks when they are at the end of their tether, when they have worked so hard on letting go of something like an emotional pattern they keep returning to.    It could be a way of letting their partners treat them or feelings of being unworthy.    Why, oh why, cant they just let it go already!    Especially when they have spent countless hours, therapy sessions, and days of obsessive thinking on this issue.

Obsessive thinking

Someone who is finding it difficult to let go of an old habit or pattern will find that they are occupied with thoughts of it, night and day.    They find themselves rehashing the places in which these detrimental patterns and behaviors show up, and constantly over-think on it.

The irony of obsessive thinking

Obsession happens when we become hyper-focused on a desired outcome and instead of producing the desired outcome, the obsession locks us into a pattern of perpetuating the very thing we are obsessing about instead of the freedom from it.    Therefore, release seems to evade us.

Get support with obsessive thinking HERE

The opposite of release is accumulation.    Therefore, the less you are releasing, the more you are accumulating.    So if you are not in a state of release, then you are, by default, accumulating.    That might sound like a good thing but as you will see in point number 5, it is a hindrance that binds us in a spell of confusion.

These are the six primary stumbling blocks to release and getting caught in any one of the six will leave you feeling a failure when there is a simple remedy for each one.    Read on and let me know in the comments section how many applied to you.    Was it all 6 or just 1 or 2 of them?

1) Not Being Ready

The first one is the simplest and the most challenging one.    It is a dose of hard-hitting truth that many will hear and often be triggered by.    Truth can be triggering and that is not a bad thing if you understand a trigger to be a catalyst and a catalyst to be a needed component to healing.    So here it is:

The reason you have not been able to release that thing you have been working with for all this time, no matter how desperate you are and how devoted you are and how deeply you want to be free of it, is because you are not done with it yet.

Yes, I know it is simple and a point that many will argue by saying that they are more than done.    When I ask them why they feel that way, they say it is because they are exhausted from carrying around either old stuck physical weight or old stuck emotional weight.    They are so tired and so done with all these old patterns that keep sabotaging their relationships or their life in so many ways.    But being tired and being done are not the same.    You are only done with something when you are at the point of knowing that you no longer have a choice, when the only way to move forward as you in your life is to drop the old patterns now, regardless of whether you feel ready, capable, worthy, or able.

Remedy – You are done when this is not about choice but about, how do I do this instead of, should I do this?

2) Resistance

Resistance will not create release.    Resistance, which is the not-so-fine art of pushing against and being in opposition to whatever you are experiencing right now, will not shift anything.    It’s the same as thinking that to move through an emotional block, you simply need a big enough bulldozer.    No matter how big the bulldozer is, when it’s up against emotions, it will not win, at least not in a way that is healthy and permanent.    It can suppress an emotion but suppress and release are not the same thing.

Remedy – To step out of resistance, step into acceptance.    It sounds simple but requires practice and your active participation.    Acceptance is often encountered with misunderstanding so before anyone asks me if I am implying that they should condone their suffering, no, this is not what acceptance means.    Acceptance means no resistance and an openness to experiencing the emotional reality before you.    Resistance means opposition and a closing-up towards the same thing.

3) Trust

Who will I be once I have let go of this emotion and is it safe to do so, will I be safe?    This is a question asked by someone who is not in trust.    This usually happens when the emotion they are wanting to release has been a part of them for so long that they cannot imagine who they will be without that emotional entanglement.    Although they may be curious to know the answer, the fear is louder than the curiosity.    A person may also feel that they will not be supported by the Universe/God-Source-Consciousness as they go through this release process and thus get stuck on not feeling safe enough to proceed.

Remedy – connect to your breath, breathe gently and consciously into the body until you feel more relaxed, even if it is just slightly more.    Any relaxation will give leeway for the breath to move into and as it does more release and relaxation will happen.    Interwoven into the breath is the universe itself and by working with this conscious breath you will be interacting with the universe as an ally and a living presence inside of you.    Work with this until trust feels more possible and you feel supported.

4) Loyalty to the past

So often there is an unseen loyalty to the past, who we were in it and the people in it.    We can feel as if we are betraying them by letting go of the past and disentangling ourselves from it, particularly if there are people still stuck in that past energy.    The healer within wants to go back and save all those people.    They fear that by moving forward, they will be abandoning them, so they either want to wait for these people to catch up or go back to the past to fetch them.

Remedy – Remember that by freeing yourself from the past you become an anchor point in the future for those people still stuck in the past to reach towards.    You become a guiding light to them by being outside of the past and outside of the stuckness you once existed in.

5) What if I release too much?

I know this one sounds odd but it’s a very real fear.    “What if I release too much?” We have been conditioned that the more we have, the more we are and so the subconscious seeks to accumulate.    Letting go is not its default setting so we have to implement these ideas consciously.    As silly it may sound, there is a very deep fear of being empty and without, and along with that a fear of doing things wrong.    It is much like I see my mother and many in her generation not wanting to use a cell phone or computer, she’s mortally afraid of technology and when I ask her why she says what if I push a button and wipe everything out.    The fear of irretrievable loss is real and not confined to her generation.    It lurks in our subconscious and in those dark, hidden spaces lies the fear of irretrievable loss, as if we could somehow let go of too much or of the wrong thing.    Fueled by the idea that accumulation must be a good thing, these misunderstandings have a fertile landing space.

Remedy – Take a moment and a deep breath, breathe deep into your body, and connect with it consciously.    As you do this, let your body know that you are the authority, you are in charge.    This removes authority from it as the subconscious and asserts you as the leader of your life.    Continue to breathe consciously, feel your presence, be aware of it and affirm the following to yourself: anything true to you will be an integrated part of you forever and this cannot be lost or given away.   Additional comfort can be given with the following reminder:    the more you release that which is cluttering your emotional path, the more you are left with the fullness of the true you.

6) What is the cost?

Most people will be subconsciously aware that to gain healing, they must give up something and this is what we call the price, the cost of healing.    It is not usually a monetary value.    Although it can be, it is usually more along the lines of what payoff or benefit they have for their suffering because as hard as it is to see, there is always a payoff for our suffering.    Sometimes a person may not feel ready,    wiling, or equipped to do the internal work.    Usually, the payoff has to do with a person not taking responsibility.    For example, a person in illness or poverty will sometimes unwittingly keep themselves there because they feel too small and unworthy to be powerful, healthy, and prosperous.    Taking responsibility is often confused for taking blame and most people are already holding far too much of that to contend with anymore, so they don’t even look at the possibility.    Without realizing it, these people are in a limiting belief that they must be where they are to not risk stepping up and out in the world as the more powerful version of themselves.    Sometimes there can be a fear of being seen, a fear of failure, a fear of responsibility and in some way, a payoff for locking themselves in suffering.    Even though the payoff is never beneficial or easy or something a person would consciously choose, we have lived in a world where the unconscious and subconscious have been running the show for too long.    We are becoming conscious of the unconscious and thus moving back into the driver’s seat of our lives and easing all of these self-defeating beliefs.

Remedy – put things back into perspective and correct any misunderstandings you may have.    The more responsibility you take (responsibility is not blame), the freer you are to reconstruct your reality and shift it into one that aligns with you.      Without responsibility, you will forever be at the mercy of    someone else’s authority, because you not owning yours.    And finally, there is zero cost to letting go but holding on will cost you dearly.    The more you let go, the more you receive!

And how do we know when we have really let something go?

An important thing to consider is this:      If you complete working through all 6 points including the preamble on obsessive thinking, how do you know that you will really let something go?    The answer is this:    you do not.    You see, you will never know intellectually if you have or haven’t. You will only feel complete or incomplete, and that you have met yourself as fully as you were able.

In a day or a year, it is possible that another deeper level becomes available for you to work through.    If that happens, rather than sigh with frustration, consider welcoming the next level as a sign of your readiness to meet your God-Self at an even deeper level.