We often hear the words “let go” or letting it go. What do these words mean, and is it easy and simple to let go?
Psychology, self-improvement, and spiritual traditions speak about letting go and the benefits of embracing it, but what is it?
Let’s find out!
What Is the Meaning of Letting Go?
Let go meaning:
This term means letting go of painful memories and painful thoughts, harmful desires, and unhealthy habits. It also means stopping dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.
Letting go also means detachment, the removal of attachments to anything that makes you suffer or unhappy. It implies a lack of attachment and non-involvement with matters that do not concern you or make you suffer.
Another Letting It Go Meaning
Here is another let go meaning:
It is the act of detaching yourself from unpleasant, meaningless, or harmful thoughts and feelings. In this process, you free yourself from emotional burdens and stop taking things personally. In this process, you remove from your life anything that keeps you in the past and which does not let you move forward.
Letting go is the process of freeing yourself from obsessing thoughts and unhappy feelings. This might seem difficult to do, but with some training and practice, it becomes possible.
If a particular item of clothing is old, torn, or useless to you, there is no need to hold on to it. You just go and buy a new one.
This should be the same with useless and negative thoughts, unpleasant memories and bad habits, unhealthy lifestyles, and even with people who make you suffer or unhappy.
Sometimes, you need to let them go out of your life and even forget them.
“You cannot sail when the anchor is holding your ship. You need to pull it up. Letting go is like pulling up the anchor of your ship and starting to sail.”
The Negative Effects of Not Letting Go
Most people are afraid to let go. They are attached to beliefs, habits, possessions, and people and find it difficult to cut their unnecessary and harmful attachments loose, even if they are causing them to suffer and be unhappy.
Anger, grudges, resentment and envy are like ropes that tie you down. You gain nothing from them, but you lose a lot by holding on to them. You need to learn to let go of them.
Too much involvement with negative people takes too much of your time and energy. This involvement agitates your mind and feelings and causes a lack of peace. That’s why letting go of people who make you feel stressed and unpeaceful is essential.
Letting Go and Spiritual Growth
Letting go is important for spiritual growth. It is one of the most important steps towards spiritual awakening.
The ego, this entity comprised of your thoughts and your feelings, beliefs, and habits, does not allow your awareness to rise higher. It keeps you within your day-to-day awareness, habits, likes, and dislikes.
To experience a broader consciousness, a sense of freedom, and happiness, you need to rise above your ego. You can do so by letting go of the thoughts, feelings, and memories that hold you down and keep you imprisoned within your ego.
You must cut loose the rope that ties you down like shackles to negative habits, meaningless thoughts, and painful or unhappy feelings and memories. You need to cut the attachment to them.
Developing the skill of letting go can help you do that.
- When you do not let go, you allow attachment to grow.
- When you let go, you allow detachment, freedom, and happiness to grow.
Attachment is like an anchor of a ship. Letting go enables you to lift the anchor and allow the ship to sail. When no negative thoughts, feelings, or habits tie you down, you can move on to a better and happier life.
Letting go and detaching from the causes of suffering brings relief, joy, and inner peace.
Letting go is like turning your head forward and marching on instead of being stuck in one place and looking back.
6 Tips for Letting Go
1. Strive to Be More Aware of Your Thoughts
It might seem strange to you, but often, we let thoughts pass through the mind without paying close attention. We often let these thoughts affect how we feel and act.
It would be best if you strived to be aware of the thoughts you think and often ask yourself whether they are necessary and useful to you. If they are not necessary and useful, refuse to have anything to do with them.
2. Shift Your Attention to Positive Thoughts
If you discover that you often think negative thoughts or dwell on difficulties and worries, try shifting your attention to positive and happy thoughts so that the negative ones lose their power over you.
If you do so repeatedly, in time, you will be able to reject the negative thoughts and free yourself of them.
3. Strive to Be Aware of Your Feelings and Emotions
In the same way, as with your thoughts, try to be more aware of your feelings and emotions and avoid unhappy, angry, and resentful ones.
You also need to be vigilant and not allow the negative emotions people transmit to you, the movies you see, or the news you watch to affect your feelings adversely.
When becoming aware of negative feelings, anger and resentment, worry and fear, ask yourself whether they are helpful to you in any way. Do you gain any benefit from them?
You do not need to hold on to them. Trade them for happier feelings.
4. Make Peace with Yourself and Other People
Make peace with yourself and with other people. Anger, frustration, resentment, and grudges are useless.
It might not be easy to eliminate them, but when you repeatedly think about the harm they are causing you, you will eventually stop allowing yourself to wallow in them.
5. Don’t Dwell on the Past
Stop dwelling on the past. With practice, you will eventually be able to do so.
It is useless to live in the past. You cannot bring it back, and if the past was bad, why relive it in your mind?
Living in the past is like throwing an anchor in a dangerous sea with bad weather. It is absolutely not a necessary thing to do.
6. Don’t Take Things Personally
Stop taking things personally. Not everything people say is about you. You might be interpreting what they say incorrectly, they might be just joking, or what they say is unimportant.
You need to develop some self-esteem and inner strength and stop allowing people’s words and thoughts to disturb you. This has been explained in detail in the book, “Emotional Detachment for Happier Life”, mentioned below.
“When you choose to let go of negative past events, not to obsess yourself with fears and worries, and to display emotional detachment toward them, you choose happiness.”
“Letting go of your heavy burdens makes you feel free and light and brings happiness into your life.”
Read our collection of letting go quotes.
Image source – DepositPhotos
Emotional Detachment for Happier Life – The eBook about letting go.
Discover how to let go of anything that stresses or disturbs your peace.
