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How Letting Go Creates Peace of Mind
Please note: In order to access the power of this essential life tool, we must first bypass our left brain's tendency to reject information it labels as threatening or impractical. If your predominant mode of interacting with the world is through linear reasoning, please give yourself permission to briefly open to a different way of seeing things. You can always "figure it out" at a later time if you feel the need to do so.
"The rise of stress-related disorders, depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue, and the 'disease of being in a hurry' is a sign of the times. We tend to forget that peace is the norm."
Have you ever wondered why peace of mind seems such an elusive state? Why just when you begin to feel relaxed and in the flow of life, something comes along and cuts it short? There is more than one level from which to address these questions. In this essay I want to go deep, so let's go straight to the level of faith.
"Faith is a state of openness and trust. Letting go is the fundamental attitude of faith."
From this we can infer that adopting the attitude of letting go activates our power to be open and to trust, which together create a new avenue of experience we call faith. I would take this a step further. We cannot experience lasting peace of mind without faith. Indeed, as our faith grows, it brings along with it an ever- expanding experience of peace. Why? Because both spring from our ability to meet life with openness and trust, as opposed to defensiveness and cynicism.
So if peace of mind is the goal, we are required to begin the practice of letting go instead of fighting against and forcing things to go the way we'd like. We will need to start saying, for example:
"Well, I've done all I can on this project. I need to focus on other things now, so I'll just wait and see how my boss responds."
or
"I know I can't force her to see things my way, so I'll back off and just intend the best possible outcome for both of us."
or even
"I can't believe I let my debts pile up so high. Well, I guess there are worse things than selling one of the vehicles and moving to a smaller place."
The attitude reflected in each of these scenarios can be summed up as, "I've done all that seems reasonable. That's my cue to release the outcome and move on." First you take whatever practical steps are called for, then you allow your intuitive sense to take the wheel. If we let our logical reasoning brain stay in charge, we will never let go but will stay in the "Gotta make sure this turns out right" mode indefinitely.
We are talking here not only about gaining the faith that all will be well, but also about gaining faith in ourselves. As we walk through demanding situations or projects there is usually a point where we get stuck and try like mad to "figure out" what to do next. Practice recognizing that moment when it comes, and use it as your cue to say, "I have no idea what to do now. Inner wisdom, please show me the way."
Then let it go and move on to something else. Even if you find you can't let go completely at first, the very act of letting go at all where you once would have pressed harder for answers will begin to create higher outcomes, and you will begin to understand the central role you play in creating them.
Please don't confuse this attitude with giving up, or being too passive or irresponsible. We particularly tend to equate acceptance of how things are with giving up. In fact, the ability to allow life to show US the next step rather than our attempts to direct it according to our comfort level is a Master life tool.
How often have you had to accept the ending of a job or a relationship, or gone through a major illness or a loss of a loved one, only to realize at some point, "I'm stronger now. There was something worthwhile in that after all." Over and over the lesson brought to our doorstep is that what feels the most chaotic and out-of-control is just life rearranging outer circumstances to pave the way for us to see everything more clearly. Life becomes simpler and feels safer when we choose to stop equating "peace" with lack of chaos.
This level of acceptance and letting go often clashes with the realities of living in a society that does not necessarily support our desire to ease the tight grip with which we believe we are supposed to steer successfully our career, our health, our relationships. The irony is that the more effort we put into making anything in life go the way we think it "should" go, the more frustrated and powerless we will feel when it seems to go haywire, as so much in life does. Why do we do that to ourselves year after year?
Lacking faith, we grope for certainty, the one thing life does not afford.
What if we were to approach life with the assumption that nothing can be controlled? That we can't know which outcome is really best for us in the long run? What if there was a gold nugget deep within every outcome, a chunk of wisdom from which we are meant to benefit, even if it seems counter-intuitive at the time?
The asking of these questions and making the choice to return to them periodically will set in motion the process of clearing away the cobwebs of ingrained, habitual thought patterns that so often prevent us from inviting new experience in, and from seeing everyday life with new eyes.
For now, why not try the following, and be sure to start small: See if you can allow a person or a situation to go their own way without your efforts to persuade in any direction. Just doing this will strengthen your faith in "allowing" as a Master life tool, as long as you remember to distance yourself enough from the outcome to stay open to the possibility that there is something worthwhile in it. That gold nugget. It is always there, pointing the way to freedom from the illusion that control works.
Don't expect to feel different immediately. We can't just decide to have more faith that everything will turn out fine – not like we can get up tomorrow morning and say, "I'm going to be more generous today." It won't work. Having faith is the cumulative result of going through difficult experiences over time, with an attitude that says, "I am going to let go of my need to control how this goes. I'm going to walk through it AS IF I know that everything will be fine." Then you hold on to that attitude no matter how painful the experience, without questioning why or where it will get you.
We become aware that we've acquired a level of faith only in retrospect.
You won't know it while you're still in the abyss, although you may notice that you're coping better. One day you'll look back at the tough times and say, "Oh! I started letting go back there with Gary, and then the next month I just decided to trust that everything would be OK, even if I didn't get the promotion I wanted. And it does feel okay."
When you begin to see that it's not "how it turns out" that exerts the most power over the "feel" of your life, but with how much acceptance you choose to walk through it, you're well on your way to achieving peace of mind. You're also discovering that what some people say about life as an exciting journey is true.
A final note: Please be kind to yourself. As I've mentioned elsewhere in The Soul Garage, don't feel pressured to learn and incorporate all of these ideas at once. It's not possible, and the last thing you need in your life is more anxiety. Choose something here that seems do-able and start by focusing on that for a little while every day. Just be sure you move from the "I'm figuring this out" mental mode to actually applying whatever you choose. That's always where the rubber meets the road.
You will feel encouraged to try out other new tools when you see the positive impact of your handiwork. And the good news is, that can easily happen within days or weeks, not months or years.