Can You Let Go?

Categories: Blog Sep 27, 2017

Have you ever frantically searched all over your house for your car keys, late for an appointment, mad because you can’t find them because they’re not where you were certain you put them, only to find them in the palm of your hand?

Please tell me I’m not the only one who does this.

I have “torn my house up” (country boy saying) looking for my keys, only to discover that I was holding them with a G.I. Joe Kung-fu Grip the entire time. This usually ends with me saying sarcastic, demeaning phrases to myself. Anyway, if you haven’t done this with your keys, I’ll bet you’ve done it with your shades or glasses.

Like my car keys, I think there are things in life we cling to very tightly even when we don’t know that we are. We don’t necessarily do it on purpose, but yet we hold onto ideas, beliefs, notions, fears, anxieties or whatever - even when we don’t want to. For example, many of us want to be stronger and healthier, maybe we want to move better, but we have these deeply buried beliefs about “exercise” that we can’t let go of to grab hold of the simplicity and power of the original movements designed to give us the very strength we desire.

It is really hard to grab onto something new, to receive something you really want, when you are already clinging tightly to something. To embrace anything new, or foreign, to receive the things we really want to have, sometimes we simply have to let go of what we are clinging to. Often the things we hold onto are the very things that hold us captive and prevent us from becoming who we want to be or achieving what we want to have.

Again, for our above example, if subconsciously I believe the only way to get strong is to lift weights, or exercise like Jane Fonda, It may be extremely easy to dismiss the strength waiting to be discovered from simply crawling on the floor. I’ll never embrace the power of crawling if I’m clinging to Arnold’s Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding as my internal reference for strength training.

Ok, so, how do we let go of something we don’t know we are holding onto? If I don’t know I have it, how do I let it go?

That’s a great question. The answer is the same as when you discover you are holding your keys in your hand while you search for them; you look at your hand. If there is something keeping you from being who you want to be, or achieving what you want to accomplish, perhaps it is worth a look inside to see what you are clinging to. This can be about anything, by the way.

Recently, I was angry at a friend, a saint of a friend, a truly beautiful person (who is probably going to read this, can you tell?). I was just so agitated. The sad thing is, I really didn’t fully know why. Later, I got aggravated with my wife and she really didn’t do anything either (she probably wont read this. Can you tell?). Anyway, I was walking around “on edge.” I didn’t like it. I knew I was mad at people, but I didn’t know why. I only knew I didn’t want to be agitated with people. It feels good to feel good, and I wasn’t feeling good, at all. I didn’t understand what was going on. Until, I decided to look inside. Do you know what the root of anger is? Fear. I was afraid of something, and that’s personal, BUT, I didn’t know I was afraid until I looked. Once I looked, I could see I was holding onto something that was not only out of my control, it was also irrational, and it was a thorn inside of me. A thorn that was festering…

The point is, If you are not where you want to be, if you are struggling with something you don’t understand, if you feel like the world is against you, if you can’t seem to have meaningful relationships, if you are not WHO you know you want to be and can be, I encourage you to look inside and see if you are holding onto something that you really need to let go of. Maybe it’s a belief, a memory, a grudge, an imagination, a lie, whatever… Let it go. Look in your hand. Look in your heart. The things we cling to often keep us from grabbing the things we want most.

If you need help, this is a great way to let go. Just Press the RESET button. It works for just about everything. This is what it looks like:

- Breathe
- Look inside your heart - “Am I holding something I don’t need?”, “Am I the problem?”
- Nod your head
- Forgive
- Roll
- Trust
- Rock
- Smile
- Crawl
- Give

It’s a simple as doing these things.

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