Letting Go

Letting go can be so very hard, yet so very necessary. Why is it so hard to let go and how do you actually let go in the right way to heal and start over? I have some ideas for you!

Podcast Transcript

Letting go of… well….you fill in the blanks. Letting go of bad feelings, letting go of a dream, letting go of a person, letting go of a situation, letting go of an old story, letting go of past hurt. There is not shortage of things we probably need to let go of. It is so easy to tell someone, or even yourself to ‘just let it go,’ but actually letting go can be much more difficult. 

I love to go back to the image of a child standing in front of God with a little teddy bear. God is asking the child to give Him the little teddy bear. The child doesn’t want to ‘let go’ of that teddy bear because they are afraid that they won’t get it back. However, what the small child can’t see is that Jesus has a HUGE teddy bear behind His back, and that if they would just let go of the little teddy bear they would get a much bigger and better teddy bear. This is one scenario for letting go. Or fear of letting go. Wondering if there will be something in return or if you’ll go without. 

So back to this ‘letting go. It is so much easier said than done. And there’s so many types of letting go as you might have figured out by filling in your blank. No matter what you fill in your blank with, they’re all hard in their own way. There’s been a lot of letting go recently in my world. And it’s come in a lot of different forms. One of the most emotional ones lately isn’t for me, but for my mom. If you’ve been watching my Instagram post and kind of looking you may have seen that my grandmother has reached the point in her life (she’s 90) now where she needed to go into assisted living. She has lived on her own for a very long time. My grandfather passed away about 9 1/2 years ago now and she has lived on her own since. Her health has declined. My mom is one of six children, but lives the closest to my grandmother and has really taken responsibility for checking in on her and making sure she’s OK. So letting go of that responsibility as the daughter and having your mom (my grandmother) going to assisted-living – that was hard to let go up for a lot of a lot of reasons. Some of you listening know my mom. She is an amazing lady and I am truly blessed to have her as my mom. She is kind, patient, loving, smart, self-less, loves God, and the list could go on for days. She is truly the best mom and grandma we could have ever asked for. Taking this step, even though it is what is best for my grandmother, is really hard for my mom and her siblings. They all have to let go in their own way. This makes me think about the full circle of birth and caregiving and all the steps in between that you let go of. As a mom when your child begins to walk you have that fear of them falling and then when they learn to walk and run you have a whole new set of worries with them running around and getting into new cabinets and dangers you didn’t think about before. But you still had to let go of them being babies and welcome them into the toddler stage. And now as my kids get into middle school and start to be busy with activities and friends, I have to let go of the fact that they don’t need me as much and embrace that I am “not that fun or cool.” So we had to let go with that too and that’s going to continue on throughout their lives. They’ll go to college. I’ll have to let go of that and let them go to college and be the amazing people God has designed them to be. But all of that is going to be really hard to let go of. Again great things, all great things, but it doesn’t make it easy. That’s just one situation of letting go. 

Let’s talk about letting go of the way you thought life was going to be. This could probably be a podcast all on its own. I know there are some of you shaking your heads on that one! Letting go of literally what you thought you dreamed as a child, may not be your reality anymore. Or maybe it is, but it doesn’t feel like you thought it would. I never thought growing up that this would be my reality. Please don’t misunderstand me. I truly do love my life and where God has led me, but this is not what I had planned as a little girl. I didn’t sit down as a little girl and say I’m going to finish high school, go to college, get into broadcast, get out of broadcast, get married, divorced, married again, have kids, divorced again, be a single mom and start a side business. That was not my plan at all. My plan was to go to college for broadcast and become the next Katie Couric when she was on the Today Show. That was my entire plan. I didn’t plan to get married or have kids until I was an established journalist winning awards. So….you can see, I had to let go of what I thought my life was going to be like to really dig in and sink into my actual life. Choices I’ve made may have been right or wrong, but they’re still my path. God’s path is always the right path. The trick is, we don’t always listen, but He knows that and He knew when I would and wouldn’t listen. I think He is probably shaking his head at me most of the time, because I am a slow learner, but he still loves me and keeps guiding me. I keep listening and trying to do my best for what he has in store for my life. But letting go of that preconceived notion of what you thought your life would be is hard. It is really hard and you do have to let it go because it’s not doing you any good to hold on to what you thought should have been or could have been. You need to live in the now. 

Next on the list is people. Sometimes you need to let go of people. There are all kinds of people that will come and go in our lives. They either teach us something and test us. There are so many different reasons that people enter and stay in our life, or enter and leave our life. Not everybody is meant to stay. Some people are simply meant cross our paths to teach us lessons either about life or ourselves. Sometimes we’re OK with people not being in our lives anymore. Sometimes we know a person is not right for a situation and it may be toxic. It could be a toxic friend, co-worker, or toxic relationship. Those can still be hard to let go of, however we know that that’s for the best and it’s OK when it’s done. And sometimes you have to let go of people you don’t want to let go of. I am sure all of you have had a broken heart at some point, even if it was losing a favorite pet. Your heart broke. We had to let go with that person because hanging onto them doesn’t do us any good. Or we had to let go of our favorite pet. This is so difficult because it wasn’t your choice. It is easier when it is your choice and you know deep down it is what is for the best. But when it isn’t your choice, and you thought you were in a lasting relationship or that your favorite pet was going to live forever, we feel blindsided and lost. Here is what I know, that person (going to stick with people on this now) had a very specific role, I’m guessing they taught you a lot about loving life and what you like and don’t like and so many other things. But their soul contract with you is up. It was time for them to move on. And you had to let go. I will step back for one second and talk about the soul contract. When I was going through my second divorce I worked with an energy healer. The concept of energies was completely foreign to me at that time and I felt utterly lost. I felt like I talked to any and every kind of counselor or healer. Even after working with her I didn’t truly understand how much energy is in our bodies and how it can help us listen to our maker, but that is another podcast. LOL. One thing she said to me that stuck out was the concept of a soul contract. That sometimes people leave our lives because our soul contract with them is up. For some reason that helped me with letting go. The finality of a contract being up or complete. I also needed to hear that I had permission to be done with the contract. That the contract was up and I could go, or that that contract was up and I needed to let go. 

Sometimes you also have to let go of people you love dearly because of death. I am very fortunate to have both of my parents. And a grandmother. I realize I am a lucky one. I have said goodbye to both of my grandfathers and one grandmother and that has been hard enough. As I get older, it feels like weddings and baby showers are a thing of the past and hospital visits and funerals are more common. And I can’t even imagine how difficult it is to let go of a parent. I have seen my dearest friends lose a parent and there are no words to explain the pain and loss felt. Here too, you have to let go. Not of their memory or love, but of the pain. You have to let go. No amount of sadness will bring them back. Again, I’m not saying to forget. Of course we want to remember and love and live out their memories and make them proud. However I know they would want nothing more than for their children to continue in life and just leave the best possible life possible. Keeping in mind, this is all easier said than done! 

So how do we do this? How do you let go? I feel like I have had to let go of a lot of situations and people in my life. And that’s OK. 

I want to start kind of back at not the beginning, but back at really looking when I had to start letting go. Now I will say in general I am fairly good at letting go when I need to. Not of people or situations necessarily, but the control aspect of letting go. 

Oh wait, let’s go back to that for one second. Control! How do you let go of control? And I am going to give a shout out to the one and only Lindy Tentinger. She loves control and she knows she loves to be in control. I only bring her up because she prays hard to let God take over and be in control and I know that’s one of her prayers and we joke about it. As strong women we often struggle with letting go of control and even for strong, extremely faithful Christian women, letting go of control can be hard. Sorry Lindy I had to call you out on that, but I love you for it because I know that’s it a prayer and a battle we do together. So control, also very, very hard to let go of. It goes back to the teddy bear! God what are you going to give me instead? A chunk of coal? He’s not going to do that! Letting go of that control and the fear of what will happen is really, really difficult so that goes back to why we don’t like it and why it is hard to let go. 

Let’s look at why it’s hard to let go first and then steps to help us do just that! Let go!

We’ve talked about these different situations, and what they can look like, but we haven’t really talked about why they are so hard. 

1. Number one is change of fear of change. I talk about change and motivation a lot because it is part of our everyday life. Change can be especially hard when we don’t want it and we have to let go – as we talked about earlier. There is a fear there of what’s next. As humans we like to be safe. We love being safe. I love to be safe. It is easy to play it safe and try to stay safe out of fear. But, that isn’t how God wants us to live. He does not want us to be fearful, or worry, or doubt what His plan for us is. So we need to let go of that fear. We need to have faith and trust in our God. If you believe in God, the Universe, energies, whatever your belief is, have faith and trust in that.
2. It hurts. Not all of the time, but it can. Letting go can be emotionally painful. Letting go can be accompanied by lots and lots of tears and sleepless nights. Maybe a few nights of binge watching Eat, Pray, Love and eating ice cream…yes, that is from experience, LOL. This too goes against us feeling safe. We don’t like to feel pain. We like joy, happiness, and love, so walking into pain, either knowingly or not, keeps us from letting go. 
3. We lose something. In every situation we lose something when we let go. The situation, item, person, relationship that we let go of, is a loss. Even though it might be a good thing to let go, it is still a loss which means you have to process what that means for you and your emotional health. If you don’t process it, it will creep back up unexpected, so take the time to really sit with what the loss means and how you truly feel about it. Be honest with yourself!

Now lets try to work through how to actually let go. This is my process. If it works for you, amazing and maybe you need to modify it. You all should know by now I love my lists and worksheets. I like planning all of the things. LOL. This means that when I need to let go I have to write it down. That is number one!

1. I have to write down why I’m holding on so tight and what will happen if I let go. Write down the ‘actual truth’ of what will happen if I let go. You can write down the scary ‘oh my gosh the world is going to crash to a halt I’m never going to see the light of day again’ too, but then next to that write the ‘actual truths.’ After writing down the truths, I do a pros and cons list. Pros list of everything that will happen as a result of letting go – the good stuff. Then a cons list of everything that might be hard about letting go. 
2. The second thing that I do, and this is what is crucial for me, is to pray and meditate. You have to let God talk to you. You have to let your energy guide you. You will feel what you need to feel.
3. Last part. You combine these steps. You look at your list, which if you’ve written down the actual truths and pros and cons, it will be a clear path forward. I didn’t say ‘easy.’ I said ‘clear.’ Then you pray and meditate on your path and listen for any other details or paths or opportunities. Then, this is the worst step. You have to feel it. Whether it is good or bad. You have to feel it. It might be an amazing feeling of weight being lifted off of your shoulders, or it could be a heavy weight on your heart. You can’t say oh I’m fine and let it go. You either need to be thankful and rejoice in the goodness, or you have to sit in the pain. I know it can be miserable to sit in the pain, trust me, I know. But, you have to feel it if you want to let it go. This last step can take a little while and it looks different depending on what you are letting go of. The one thing I can’t tell you is how long this will take. That is up to you. That is up to how quickly you are willing to look at the actual truths, feel all the feelings, and embrace change. 
4. I am going to put one more step in here, because I do think this can be very therapeutic. I have this in my program. On a notecard, write down what it is that you are trying to let go of. After you’ve done the steps above, destroy that notecard. You can bury it, burn it, eat it (no, don’t do that!), shred it…whatever you need to do. The physical representation of letting it go, will help. You might also need to get rid of certain items that remind you of people or situations, and that is good too. Take your time doing this, you don’t have to do it all at once. But you need to do it. 

Whew…that was a lot of me talking! Thank you for sticking it out with me! I pray this helps you my darlings. And please know you can reach out to me at any time for support and guidance. I’m here to help you to your full potential. Holding on to relationships, jobs, things that don’t serve our potential are not worth it. You can do this! You can do hard things my darlings!