Taking the Leap

“Everything has seasons, and we have to be able to recognize when something’s time has passed and be able to move into the next season. Everything that is alive requires pruning as well, which is a great metaphor for endings.”

— Henry Cloud

Sometimes, your only job in a situation is to let go and allow a thing to exit your life. Depending on the circumstances, actually accomplishing this can be one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. There can be numerous reasons why we struggle with letting go, and it’s worth taking a look at them, because shining a light on the resistance usually helps us to find some clarity about what we’re doing and why. Once we have clarity, it’s easier to see what we need to do, and commit to doing it. When the task makes sense, we tend to feel better about taking action.

Here are the most common reasons we resist letting go of something (or someone):

• Fear. If this is the best we’ve had yet, wouldn’t we be crazy to let it go? What if it’s our last chance? What if never find something this good again, let alone better? What if this was a fluke, a once-in-a-lifetime chance? This is fear talking. While it’s true that change is one of life’s only constants, and nothing will ever be exactly the same as this opportunity, just think about this for a minute. If you’re reading this, you live on a planet that is home to roughly seven and a half billion people, every one of those unique. Each of them wants roughly the same thing—safety, love, understanding, acceptance, validation. Each of them is constantly having new ideas about how they can be most successful at, and have the most fun in the process of, getting those things. Doesn’t it make sense that there are a lot of other people out there who want to go about those things in ways that you would appreciate? Let’s recall that seven and a half billion is a LOT of people. Some of those people you’d really like have available jobs to offer or recommend, they have hobbies, they want to be in relationships, they want to find ways to make the world a better place. When you’re holding on tightly, desperately, to something that isn’t right for you, you’re not out there finding your people where they are right now.

• Deserving. On some level, not always immediately conscious, you may think you still need to “fix,” understand, or resolve something about your situation before it’s ok to let it go. Now, sometimes that’s a great idea. Feeling complete with a situation before you move on is a beautiful thing, and sometimes with a little thought and consideration, you can gain skills and wins for everyone involved. Honestly, though, in my experience, this is rare. Often we hope for concurrence from and peace with all parties involved in a situation, and getting to this may not be possible, because the only person you’re in control of is you. It takes two (or more) to tango, and to make peace holistically with a situation. Sometimes the best thing for everyone is for you to exit despite collective discomfort. In this case, you can be as clear and loving with your behavior as possible while still staying firm about your intentions, and then vote with your feet. The rest is not up to you. As far as the understanding piece, understanding and wisdom accrue in layers. Don’t you find that your understanding of situations from your past is exponentially more dimensional now because of the life experience you’ve amassed since then? This process will continue throughout your life. If there’s some key information you feel you need in order to make a good decision, fine, but you’re never going to resolve every possible loose end before it’s time for a change. And you deserve to make the best possible decision for yourself. Everyone does as long as they are not hurting others or violating their basic human rights—that’s what the concept of free will (balanced with a few moral considerations) is all about.

• Disappointment. We tend to resist processing the reality that things we wanted did not materialize in the way we hoped, because if we really let that sink in, we’d have to feel the resulting sadness and loss, and then reimagine the future. It can be exhausting to go through all of this. On the other hand, it’s also exhausting to repress these feelings, we’re just not trained to notice this kind of energy drain and appreciate how it is aggregating over time! The answer is to learn tools that can assist you with breaking your discomfort into manageable chunks and handle releasing it in an appropriate manner. Enter EFT! This is my absolute favorite tool for the job. Not only does it help you get the job done efficiently, but it can also make the process more enjoyable and empowering than you might think. It can also facilitate better creative problem solving and faster leaps to new insights.

• Beliefs. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we tend to encapsulate what we learn from a situation as a belief or two that we will hold as guiding principle going forward. If the new or reinforced beliefs are positive, as in, “I can and do choose to be in relationships only with people who are kind,” this is helpful to our development. If they’re limiting, as in, “People are jerks when you really get to know them,” we can wind up having big problems with trust, building new relationships, and having a social life that feels supportive. Often, these beliefs sneak by our conscious minds such that we don’t even realize that we could change our experience by rewriting them. Affirmations and mindfulness are excellent tools for working with mental habits and beliefs, but to address the deep emotional reasons why you formed those deep beliefs in the first place, we need tools for interacting with the subconscious, like Tapping, hypnosis, or NLP.

Real change takes work, but in my world, it’s always worth it! When you’re willing to do the work of becoming aware of, and releasing, the internal clutter produced by past events, the return is clarity, relief, increased energy, and greater wisdom. You may still need to go through various steps in transforming your relationships to the past, the present, and people (because no one’s development is ever complete), but you’ll be able to get unstuck and see more clearly along the way. Once you’ve handled your resistance to allowing positive change to happen, greater possibilities open up for you, and life stays fresh and interesting.