Will I ever be able to LET GO?

By Serene Mind Body and Souls




“And as the night started to appear closer, those thoughts would start to haunt and scream louder than before in my head. 

Moving my way from left to the right, twisting and turning throughout the night, trying to shut the mind off so I could sleep at least for five minutes; when the sun will arise, I had no idea”. 



Letting go is one of the hardest lessons or perhaps for many of us, it is ‘the’ hardest lessons that we have to learn in life.

I am sure for most of us at some point in life, we must have experienced the painful bits of letting go. That letting go can be for anything; for someone, it can be a material thing, for someone else it can be of a successful career or for someone it may be a relationship.  

But in all this, I can be certain of at least one thing that whoever has gone through and walked the journey, they will vouch for this and confirm that letting go is definitely nowhere even close to being as easy as it may sound to our ears.


“The terror of another dreadful night would scream in my head as I would make my way each night to my bed as it started to get darker. I remember the whole night just and only just trying my very best to switch off my mind's batteries so I could at least be able to charge them enough to be able to function the next day. 

But, the more I was trying, the harder I was failing”. 



What is letting go?


How many times you would have come across someone saying to you ‘just let go, darling’. And you reply; ‘yes I am trying to but it is not that easy’.

Letting go is releasing things that are ready to be released from our body, mind and soul. 
To let go is definitely very important because that is the only way by which you will be able to make space for the new in your life.

The past or the things that have been very dearly attached to us sometimes do not hold any more relevance to our lives and in order to restart our lives fresh, we need to get back to the restart mode and for that, the old data needs to be let go of.

But is it all that easy? I am sure not.

I have been there for almost 4 years of my life. And I can confidently vouch for this. It is mostly as dreadful as killing yourself to death.



Why is letting go so hard?


Our attachments and more than those attachments, it is our clinginess to those attachments which becomes the perfectly horrendous disaster recipe for most of our suffering.

Our minds get so attuned to our so-called love for our personal belongings, relationships, possessions or people that we just do not want to loosen the grip and let it all flow out of our hands.

For most of us, the reason for being so clingy to our attachments is the fear of change.
For, the mind only knows the present. It only knows the feelings or emotions that it has felt based on the present or the past. To let go of anything that has brought temporary pleasantness or happiness to the mind at some stage is not something that is acceptable by our minds and our ego.

We become so obsessed with those happy, comfortable and cosy feelings that just the thought of living without them invites an immediate rush of fear spreading throughout our nerves across our entire body. Our natural body’s flight or fight response behaviour takes us into thinking about all the worst imaginary scenarios that can ever possibly happen to us on this planet. We straight away think from life to death in a fraction of a second.

But just remember that the only place it is rising though at this moment is; in your mind.

“Throughout those dreadful nights, I was cheating my own self by constantly repeating in my ongoing own inner dialogue that I know I have already let go of things then why cannot I still be in peace. Why is peace still a far-away fancy looking fantasy?

I kept my journey going and Meditation became my only saviour. And then one night after, there was a moment that happened. At that moment where I found my first answer, a very first insight into my own self. And that was just ‘accepting’ within myself that I still have not been able to let go.

It was facing it right on head to head when for so many years your ego or whatever you may want to call it has been telling yourself that it is not your fault that you cannot sleep and you have made all the efforts to let go of this, but suddenly you have a wakeup call and you get your answer that NO my dear friend you have not even tried close to it yet”.


ACCEPTANCE- The most crucial step in letting go. 


'Acceptance', as easy as it may sound, is the most important step before we are even ready to start our letting go journey.

We constantly say to ourselves that it is not our fault that we have to be in this suffering. We think that we have made all possible efforts to let go but it is still not happening.

We think from all the possible negatives from the north pole to the south pole; from ‘life is cruel’ to; ‘god hates me’ and to; ‘I hate my own life’.

We do everything but to slowly and silently peel off our own thick layers of ego and carefully and courageously seeing what is lying underneath.

And this is the only thing that you need to do that will truly help you to begin your journey of letting go no matter how strongly impossible it may look to your mind.

When you have tried hard from all possibilities to release things that you do want to get rid of and despite all your efforts, everything has still failed, you have nothing left to lose but to try one more time.

Perhaps now is the time to just accept and acknowledge to yourself that all the groundwork may not have been completed yet.  I am not saying that you have not tried putting your efforts in. But, maybe for all this while, you have tried to fix things from the surface but not from the roots within.

Unless we fix the roots, the plant cannot grow healthy. We need to first put stronger foundations and make a pleasant atmosphere for a healthy plant to be able to grow.
This is exactly the grounding work that you need to do.

And now the big question “BUT HOW”?

Yes, I know for all this while you have been looking for the answer.

After you have accepted to yourself that YOU are responsible for your own happiness and YOU are responsible for your own miseries, that is the time you do not remain a slave to your mind. At that moment, you become the master of your own destiny.


Practising not holding on


One of the lines I loved immensely during my reading of the Yamas and Niyamas – exploring Yogas ethical practice” is that we need to practice more of NOT holding on and not such much Letting go

For a moment, Hold a pen in your hand? And then leave the grip and let go of the pen? How were you able to achieve that? By leaving to hold on, you were able to let go of the pen. 

This is exactly the trick of the mind. The mind cannot practice letting go by itself. The mind has to first practice not holding on to the thing, whatever it may be before it learns to let go. The moment you realise that in order to let go you first have to stop holding on to the pen is the exact moment where letting go happens.


Many of us have so far had the principle of letting go sitting deep into our heads. But honestly, how many of us have been able to achieve it during the tough moments of our life? Not many, unfortunately.
 


Let’s give this one a go this time. Just for a day even. If you don’t like it, you come back to your normal way and drop this one right here. You have nothing to lose like I always say. Practice not holding on and see how easy it becomes to let go of things that are ready to be released.

Replacing each negative thought with at least 3 positive thoughts


However easy this one may sound, this one surely is a hard one too when it comes to practising it religiously.

An honest confession, I still struggle at times. But as long as you set the intention in place to do it every time you find yourself surrounded by a negative thought, the results are actually amazing and I can definitely say that it works.

Every time you are trying your hard to let go of something in life, it is imperative that without fail the negative thoughts or your old thought patterns will come up. As and when they come up, teach yourself not to let them have power over you by counting 3 things at that moment that you feel blessed to have.
Slowly and steadily, this does become a part of you and the old start getting released.


Reminding yourself that our thoughts are only a consequence from our past.


Our mind is habitual. It forms habits and patterns very easily. The moment we even try to break some of the chains that have been strongly formed in our minds, the mind fights back.

Without fail, your old patterns will appear and come back and it is very tempting for us to fall back in the old pattern. It is tempting because that is the comfort zone that we have been in for a long time. It is cosy and easy to be there because we do not like changes as change brings with itself the fear of the unknown. That is why the harder we try, the stronger the pull of our conditionings get. Knowing that this practice and chain will be broken as long as you maintain the discipline and consistency required will definitely bring a sigh of relief.

Understand that all habits and patterns have proven to be changeable as long as a strong desire to change exists.
Once the intention is set towards your goal, half of our task gets done. We then set a strong foundation where we are now capable of building a stronger building.

Acknowledging the existence of fear and having the courage to embrace it 


It means just doing it anyway, even when your mind constantly repeats to you that there is fear associated with it.

When you start to go past your fears, you unknowingly start to take control of your own mind. The process is so subtle that you do not realise when it happens and one day a moment happens where you think everything has become so fearless. 

And that day, give a thought about all that groundwork that you have been doing and be proud of yourself that because of your consistent and sincere efforts in helping yourself, you have finally been able to release yourself from your own rusty iron bars.


Do not Give Up


And I cannot emphasise enough on this one.

We all must have experienced in at some point in our lives that each time we are trying harder to get past our own failures or patterns, sometimes all that happens is we get knocked down again.

And painfully enough, most of the times the intensity of those knocks keep getting stronger and harder than the last time.

Your only reminder to yourselves in those moments should be to pick yourself again one more time join all your broken pieces again just one more time.

Each time you get knocked down, only make one promise to yourself that this time again I will stand up no matter how many times I have fallen in the past. Make the failure a reason for fighting back again and not to let them make you feel like a failure.

The only and only way, success will happen is by NEVER GIVING UP! Do not give away your own determination to fight your own mind and your own fears.

By consistently practising ‘not holding on’ and ‘not giving up’, you will make your way even closer to LETTING GO.


…….

“And one day, as the night came closer, I realise within myself that I was looking forward to some nice and restful sleep. I stopped dreading the dark nights and started to embrace the peace and sound rest that I had while I slept. I finally started sleeping and my mind became clearer. 
The dark nights faded and peace did not look like a fairy-tale anymore”.

Most people in life give up at some stage especially because they are unaware that now they may be almost close to winning.

Only a few of them pass through their hurdles and sufferings. Constant practice of meditation brings you peace, harmony and control of your own self.

Having YOU to control your mind and not your mind to control you is the most beautiful and serene gift that you can ever give to yourselves.

I initiated ‘Serene Mind Body and Souls’ with a very clear and positive intention to share with all of you, the gift of meditation that I learned during my journey.
Sometimes, the peace and healing that you can bring to even one other person in this life make your whole life feel complete and successful.

I will not say that I have totally been able to let go. But I know I am almost there. Every day I remind myself of two things that fixing my life is only 'my' responsibility and every time life will knock me down I promise myself not to give up. These 2 mantras have become my golden mantras of life and something that brings serenity to my mind and soul.

I wish everyone to find their own inner mantras that you can strongly connect with.
Healing and Joy will not be far for someone who determines takes control over back in their hands.

“Determination will break all barriers”. – Kajal Soni






WRITTEN BY:
Kajal Soni















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