What happens when instead of Letting Go you hold on to your rage, fear, jealousy, shame, grief or some other emotion?
Firstly it’s not just a repetitive dialogue that you’re having with yourself in your head. Emotions and feelings live in your body, they hibernate in your connective tissues when ignored and suppressed. ‘Your issues live in your tissues. ‘https://www.mauihealthnetwork.com/pdf/97-what-are-the-issues-in-your-tissues.pdf
When you experience and hold on to your rage the body holds it in your connective tissues and viscera. You may experience it as a lot of tension and contraction inside your body. You may not initially notice it if you are not used to sensing inside your body and how it feels in there.
If you have a story that you cannot let go of, some conflict or situation that you keep telling yourself about then you are adding to that tension and contraction inside your body. As you repeatedly tell yourself about the conflicting situation, the body feels that the story/memory is actually happening in that moment and so tenses and contracts. It’s living the story that is actually a memory.
If however you can manage to create a ‘space’ in your story/memory to practice the gentle art of letting go of it, by eg taking a simple conscious breath in and a conscious breath out then you can slowly build resilience to being sucked into the negativity and judgement.
While consciously breathing in and out feel the simple joy of being present for that wonderful moment. The freedom from your story, the lightness of simply being. This is treating yourself with compassion, peace, kindness and joy. You are not suppressing your emotions instead you are finding a compassionate way to handle your suffering or conflict. You are learning the gentle art of letting go of emotionally charged tension in the body.
To avoid watering the seeds of suffering you need to practice generating a feeling of joy. This is called ‘Resourcing’ in Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness. You can do this by taking a simple, conscious breath in and conscious breath out or by being in nature, or meditating. These are the most common ways of resourcing or building resilience to negative, judgemental thoughts.
Once you learn to generate a feeling of contentment, peacefulness and joy then you can create an environment where the feeling of pain can be held and embraced. At this point the suffering no longer overwhelms you.
So, for example, while being present in nature, or with the breath, or in meditation, you can have a felt sense of the tension and contraction you are already holding in your body and give it the grace to just be held by you, without any attachment to your story/memory. This is mindfully practicing the art of gently letting go.
Generating joy is the practice of alleviating suffering. When you know how to let go of the pain of your negative emotions then you are taking care of yourself by caressing that pain.
This isn’t difficult to do it is so simple, the only thing required by you is to listen deeply and with kindness to your body as you consciously breathe in and out or as you meditate or when you are present in nature. Then notice the tension and conflict inside but then as you let go of it sense your freedom and allow yourself to receive new ideas and express new ways of Being.
Letting Go
Pause… Take a breathe… Read…
See what arises.
She let go.
She let go.
Without a thought or a word, she let go.
She let go of the fear.
She let go of the judgements.
She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.
She let go of the committee of indecision within her.
She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.
Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry,
she just let go.
She didn’t ask anyone for advice.
She didn’t read a book on how to let go.
She didn’t search the scriptures.
She just let go.
She let go of all the memories that held her back.
She let go of all the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.
She let go of all the planning and all of the calculations
about how to do it just right.
She didn’t promise to let go.
She didn’t journal about it.
She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.
She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.
She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.
She just let go.
She didn’t analyse whether she should let go.
She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.
She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.
She didn’t call the prayer-line.
She didn’t utter one word.
She just let go.
No one was around when it happened.
There was no applause or congratulations.
No one thanked her or praised her.
No one noticed a thing.
Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.
There was no effort.
There was no struggle.
It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.
It was what it was, and it is just that.
In the space of letting go, she let it all be.
A small smile came over her face.
A light breeze blew through her.
And the sun and the moon shone
forever more…
Reverend Safire Rose
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