Are You Willing to Let Go?

As I evolve in life and well on my way through my Sassy 60’s, so too does my perspective about everything in my life. This was brought about by a series of events which made me ask myself, are you willing to let go?

The answer had to be yes, as the past was yesterday and no longer served me and I had only held onto those things and those lessons which were of value to me for my future.

This means I now mingle with people I love, doing activities that fill me with joy, surround myself with “my” style and those items which are beautiful to me in my most intimate environments and my home. 

The change wasn’t easy, but necessary.

Many of us don’t understand the importance of our clothing, our homes and our environments in contributing to our happiness and success.   We become stuck in our ways, and get bogged down in our habits, old ways of thinking and forgetting we regularly need to re-assess and move on.

As I’ve moved on in my 60’s I’ve made some changes personally.  Not huge, but they have been noticeable.  I changed the colour of my hair. As a result I looked at the colours in my wardrobe, refreshed my personal style, decluttered my cupboards, rearranged my furniture and totally changed my energy and my environment.

It’s given me a new lease on life as a woman and as a change-maker.  Not all these changes were made overnight, some were made with me kicking and screaming, and some were made with grace and ease, organically over a period of time.   I gave myself the space and time to see whether they are right for me.  In the end, without change, there is no change.

The experience we have is just an experience.  It won’t kill us and we either learn from it for we benefit from it in some way.   Some of the changes to one’s life are made as a result of plans and dreams being snatched right out of your hands.  Ultimately it is a process of surviving, healing, letting go, reassessing, and finding new and exciting opportunities which may never have been explored if it wasn’t for that life-changing event.  We may just need to go into a quiet place with it. 

It is a major shift in your reality and rates right up there at the top of the list right under the death of a child in the top 10 most stressful events you could have in your life time.

Your whole life changes in so many ways, so in order to move on and create another one, there is a “letting go”.  It’s time to reassess, reevaluate, restyle, recycle, and reduce all your baggage which was represented by so much:  belongings, expectations, goals, feelings and dreams.

Let go of stuff. What does that look like?

Let go of the drag. 

The more we put in it, the more we have to drag behind us. Think of a parachute.  What do we have that is creating “drag”, and what do we do about it. It need not be about walking away.  Letting go is taking you to a fuller place. If you don’t let go, you are dragging all of this stuff with you and it’s dragging you down. 

Where do we start?

First place is to identify it.  It may be physical or emotional, or we may have toxic people in our environment.  But the most immediate impact is to address it physically.  Get rid of your congestion and clutter and that’s really difficult for a lot of people. What are you keeping and what is the purpose of that?  Get into the process, again, of shedding another skin.  If it’s functional, memorable or beautiful, then keep it.  If not, then let it go.

Take a photograph of it, create a memory chest of the most precious things.  The rest of it, whether you sell it or give it away, but put it back into circulation and prosperity.  We certainly do that with people, don’t we?  Sometimes not, but we will get to that. If you are hoarding something, as harsh as that may sound, if you have a cupboard full of something, or a spare room that you only use for stowing a stash of dysfunctional stuff, then set a date for its departure.  It’s going this month. If you’ve had something a year without doing anything with it, just leaving it in the storage, and you weren’t up to doing something with it because of the attachments that don’t serve you any more, then make a date to move it along.

There’s a release of energy that happens. And building up to that release is challenging, so ask yourself, can I get rid of ten things?  Ten pieces of clothes, ten books, ten files, ten kitchen items.  Then the conversation starts in your head, “I paid so much for this.  I’ve had this for ages and I still might need it.  My Auntie Bess gave this to me. It’s so hideous, but I’ll feel so guilty if I let it go.”

Try it out and see that you can really survive, and indeed thrive without those 10 things.  The sky didn’t fall in, and it actually feels good to see the space in which they once resided.

But instead, what if we asked ourselves, “Why don’t I just put it in the donation box?  How would that feel to know it’s not deteriorating, gathering dust or rusting, and someone else sees it as a treasure?” Sometimes we just have to do these little things, take the leap and just go with the flow and walk away from it for a while.

Sometimes it’s just baby steps to start letting go of stuff.  I have a box in the bottom of my laundry linen cupboard that I started putting things in 12 months ago knowing that one day I will be moving, and I took a peek today because I’m writing this and remembered it was there.  I have no attachment to them at all. I didn’t miss them and couldn’t even remember what was there.

I’ve heard letting go described as visual silence.

If I can see a big space of floor or bench that has nothing on it, that’s visual silence.

We’ve all have things that we’ve had for a very long time, especially if we have lived in the one home for several years, or even packed them up, wrapped up all safe and sound and taken them with us from home to home, only to never use them.

Perhaps you’ve moved your office, or relocated to another home, and have put furniture and records into storage for six or 12 months. Put that time limit on it, not one day over, and stop paying money for storing things you will never want or need again.  You know it’s time to release them, clear the clutter, create that space and enjoy the silence.  But there is that question.  Is it actually adding to your life or taking up space and when you don’t have visual silence you are looking at something all the time.

It’s about editing your life and editing your space.

Not every wall needs a picture.  Some people can’t stand an empty wall, and it’s tempting to fill it up with picture frames, clocks, murals and tapestries.  Just treat yourself to having that visual silence, and when something turns up you can’t resist you have the perfect setting to make it special and a feature of your environment that is energizing and positive.  How does it feel to create a bare wall and breathe in the visual silence?

In the meantime, it’s OK.  Be OK with it and enjoy the simplicity of it. Sometimes, too much is just too much.

So, we do need to know where to have silence so something can come in.  If you holding onto something really tight, and you are offered something of much higher value, you can’t take it as you are holding onto that dysfunctional morsel so tightly.  What choice would you be comfortable making?

If you holding onto all this stuff you can’t accept more.  That may help you release things.  Just imagine having an empty shelf, having an empty cupboard in your kitchen or bathroom.  There is no reason or rule that says everything in your house has to be full.  It seems that the normal these days is to fill a vacuum.  I believe the thing to do is to create a vacuum, create a space, it’s like having a blank canvas, and so if you wanting something to shift in your life you need to have the room for it. it’s an energetic nod to the universe or your subconscious to bring it on.

So how would you feel if someone stole something of yours, here’s the challenge when you see the space.  Would you feel the victim of robbery or would you see it as someone putting it back into circulation?  Do we go there?

Do we have audio silence?

Can you just sit comfortably with the silence, and not have the space filled with mind-cluttering sound all the time?  are you comfortable sitting in the silence by yourself, or do you have to call somebody?  Can you enjoy a sunset alone, or it’s just not worth it unless it’s shared?

There are just so many things to find joy in.  When we can let things go, there is so much more space in which to bring other enjoyable things.  There is just so much more energy available, and more space for energy to flow.  You may have a stale relationship, you may think it’s companionship. But do you?  If you can’t shift the energy up, then you may have to let it go and go dancing with someone else.

When we have things weighing us down, and we have to get some help to get some light, get some help.  It’s important because we are precious and we matter.  If things appear that we can do for ourselves, we have to ask ourselves, if this will make my life better, am I willing to do it?

When we get this sound space, this visual space, it allows us to listen, to ourselves, ideally.  What was the biggest craving for me when I was growing up?  it was to be heard, to be understood.  But we have to hear ourselves first.  it’s such a gift to be heard, but we have to hear ourselves first. do they acknowledge they have heard, and do they respond to it?  WOW, they heard and understood what I was saying.  I must exist if they heard me, right?

So now you can do this for yourself by creating this space.  You don’t have to clutter up your space with things, people who create this dysfunctional clutter in your essence.  It may seem a little bit deep for you right now but try it.  Just a little bit of physical silence or audio silence.

We clutter up our lives with “should, have to, must” and that’s all hype out there.

Going to seminars, social media, watching this webinar, going to this function, you must do it my way, and by the way, give me $$$$$.

If you don’t create the space to sift and sort, you will become burdened once again with paralysis of not being able to decide what you want to bring into your life, what do you not want, and what do I have that I am ready to release.

That could be a thought, it could be a belief, and what if you could let that belief go, and say that everything is possible?  I’m open to receiving and I know anything is possible.  You could find that belief was a made-up thing that you put in your head anyway, so let’s just put that aside and open up for receiving other energies and see where it goes.  You could apply this concept to anything and anyone.  “I’m ready to meet the person who is willing to treat me in a loving, respectful way and who will cherish me until the end of my days”, instead of “there aren’t any good men around.”

It’s about being willing to be open and put the foot on the gas and take it off the brake, or even go into neutral for a while.   So instead of just making things happen, just respond to life.  You have nothing to prove, and let it evolve, sift and sort and open your mind to possibilities, let them sit for a few days and see where they are and not even take any action.

Letting go is liberating.

Some are connected very much to their negative energy and it holds them in tighter and tighter.  I think we are all drawn into that way of being, but when we can say, “hmm, not so sure about this one”, but if you are still holding on to that one which is not serving you, you can’t reach out and take the higher value one.

Instead of saying “I can’t do that, or I can’t make that happen,” say instead, “I wonder how or I’m willing ….”   and just open up that crack just a little bit.  I can find out, or I’m willing to explore, and it is possible.

Welcome to the willing and wonder.  What if you were willing to welcome something new into your life. Maybe this is the moment you are willing to hear this, and free up some energy, do something different, entertain cleaning out your wardrobe.

Overwhelmed with clutter and congestion?  If this is the moment when you can be open to doing something new and entertain a new idea. Try the 3 m rule.  For every day for a week, everything that is from your height down to the floor and 3 square meters a day everything you touch goes into it’s resting place, whether it’s the donate box, the keep it box or back in its place.  It gets put where it needs to be.

You will get your home back.  You will start to lose weight, because you won’t be living out of your microwave, you will start using your kitchen, sorting your wardrobe, becoming inspired to cleanse and clarify.

It will be undoable.

It will empower you.  You can choose to let go, especially if you want things to transform in your life, in your relationships, in your health, your wealth and happiness.

I invite you to explore letting go.  Be willing and it will be different for everyone.  In your kitchen, your pantry, your sock draw. Just make a start on something.

It could be just a matter of getting unhooked about being mad or upset about something.  Just before you go down the rabbit hole of ‘why is this happening to me?’ just ask yourself, ‘For what might this be good?’  Just shift your brain with this question, and you will see it in the light of possibility and not in an ending.  If you have a belief in your head, and you are reluctant to let it go, just ask that question and look at the possibilities that will come your way if you let go, and it will become very attractive. You will draw other possibilities and good people to you.  That’s a good energy to play in.

Getting unstuck and creating more flow.  There can’t be flow when there is a dam.  You can open up the flood gates, and you can let go a little bit at a time or you can spend some time in the quiet by yourself and just ask, ‘What do I want? What am I welcoming?  I wonder if this could really be a good idea?’

Get really curious.  Are you willing to let go?

If you need help to achieve this, contact me and let’s have a chat.