Letting go is like the sudden cessation of an inner pressure or the dropping of a weight.
Or more softly, the way a tree releases a leaf in Autumn.
It is accompanied by a feeling of RELIEF and LIGHTNESS and an increased sense of HAPPINESS and FREEDOM.
It is an actual mechanism of the mind we have all experienced. For example, maybe in the middle of an intense argument , it suddenly all strikes you as absurd, ridiculous and the pressure is relieved. You suddenly come from anger, fear and feeling attacked, to feeling happy/ laughing.
Practice letting go consciously and frequently at will. Breathe into a feeling as it manifests in your body. Focus on the feeling which is ‘beneath’ the thought, rather than allowing the thought to take centre stage. Thoughts and external events are rationalisations created by the mind in an attempt to explain the presence of the feelings. They are self reinforcing and endless.
INHABIT the feeling by bringing your awareness into that area of the body and breathing into it, BE IN THE BODY…. Stay with it unless it is too much, in which case you can back off and try another time.
Surrender and release the feeling in the body with the out breath. Again and again. Release…….surrender……. let go.
Every out breath is another opportunity to let go a little bit more.
Letting go is a daily practice and like anything we practice, we get better at it the more we do it.
( Adapted and added to from “Letting Go, The Pathway of Surrender” by David R. Hawkins, M.D, PhD)
“When the ego weeps for what it has lost, the spirit rejoices for what is has found”.
Photo by J Giacone. Sea leaving the beach from the Isle of Wight.