Episode 21: The Art Of Letting Go

Letting go of what no longer serves you is imperative if you are going to truly heal. But there's an "art" to it. You must consciously desire letting go while at the same time being aware that your commitment to letting go will require you to do things that you’ve never done before, that scare the hell out of you and that create a lot of tension and apprehension within your mind, body and emotions. And through all that, you still have to jump in and swim even though you may be terrified of the metaphorical waters. You can’t drag all your old stuff into your new reality because a lot of that old stuff is why you’re sick, broken, lost and stagnating. Letting go is very difficult if you’ve been holding on for dear life to people, belief systems, aspects of your personality, patterns, fears and so much more. But I assure you as someone who has done this, that once you get past the first few times of letting go, the release and the relief that is felt is the gift and reward you’re giving yourself and that will continue to incentivize you to keep that releasing pattern in motion. In this episode, I teach you various ways to let go that you can immediately put into practice.

Disclaimer: This podcast is for people who are ready to heal body, mind and spirit and are willing to take full responsibility for what that involves. I am not a doctor. I am not a therapist. This podcast contains adult language and themes that are not suitable for young children or those who are easily offended or triggered. The views discussed in this podcast are my own, based on personal experience and of those I have known and worked with for my entire adult life. This show is not meant to take the place of sound medical or mental health advice. You and only you are responsible for the choices you make based on the information you hear on this show. 

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Transcript

            Welcome to Episode 21. Today’s topic is: “The Art of Letting Go.” 

            There are a lot of things you must do when you are the path of alchemical transformation of body, mind and spirit. And the art of letting go is in the top five. I say the art of letting go, because you must consciously desire letting go while at the same time being aware that your commitment to letting go will require you to do things that you’ve never done before, that scare the shit out of you and that create a lot of tension and apprehension within your mind, body and emotions. And through all that, you still have to jump in and swim even though you may be terrified of the metaphorical waters. Letting go or surrendering, as it’s often referred to, is a vital component of doing this intense, life changing work. Because you can’t drag all your old stuff into your new reality because a lot of that old stuff is why you’re sick, broken, lost and stagnating. Letting go is very difficult if you’ve been holding on for dear life to people, belief systems, aspects of your personality, patterns, fears and so much more. So it’s a decision you have to consciously make and often put a lot of energy into in the beginning. But I assure you as someone who has done this, that once you get past the first few times of letting go, the release and the relief that is felt is the gift and reward you’re giving yourself and that will continue to incentivize you to keep that releasing pattern in motion. And if you do it right, the art of letting go will eventually become easier for you and almost addictive because you will clearly recognize the value and the often instantaneous relief of physical symptoms you’ve been dealing with when you release whatever is no longer serving your highest and greatest good. I’ve seen everything from muscle tension to headaches vanish, simply from letting go of whatever is contributing or outright causing the physical issue. It’s an absolute truth that you can’t move forward if you are burdened by the emotional and mental weights. You have to clear it out and create a healthier space for all the new opportunities that are waiting for you on the other side of your healing journey. 

The Art of Letting go is one of the most important lessons you can learn in life. When you cultivate it and it begins to be a natural part of how you live and run your life, I’ve experienced, and I’ve watched in others how it brings a type of freedom in one’s life that is priceless. And I’ve also seen how costly not being able to let go is. How it destroys not just yourself, but everyone you love and everything you’ve worked for. It will destroy all the dreams you ever had. It will shorten your life through the unending stress it builds inside you. By not being willing to release whatever is not working for you or whatever you are holding onto from the past that is either eating away at you or stealing your ability to live in the present moment, you are preventing yourself from creating the space that is needed to heal and then eventually regenerate. 

I think for a lot of people, the resistance to letting go is because of their focus on ‘loss.’ It can be staying in a bad relationship because it’s comfortable even though it’s hurting you and afraid to lose what you know versus the unknown that has the potential for tremendous healing but can’t be defined. They’d rather hold onto someone who is obviously contributing to their stress or health issues simply because it’s a stress they have grown used to. But when they finally can see how that person is intricately woven into the tapestry of their own destruction and they decide to fully commit to their own healing and wellbeing, that desire to drive themselves toward that healing overrides any discomfort or concern about letting go of what is holding them down. 

It can be staying in a job that you absolutely hate but you’re afraid to put feelers out for a better job that excites you because you perceive that as a risky move. I can tell you from experience that if something or someone is not feeding you and essentially starving you of your energy, your passion, your motivation, it’s going to create the soil for any number of stress-related illnesses and chronic health problems. When you hear the word “chronic,” think of long term. Lots of years either building up or suffering from whatever it is. I know that letting go of these types of situations, while often incredibly difficult to sort out and then put into action, always leads to a cleaner, wide open pathway of energy that flows versus feels stuck and stagnate. And it’s that flowing energy that you ride like a wave toward your next opportunity. 

So there’s lots of different types of letting go I’ll talk about on today’s show that are all, in my opinion, necessary for anyone who is dedicated to true, deep and meaningful healing that involves body, mind and spirit. I’ll start with what I think is the easiest letting go exercise and work up to the more difficult, challenging ones that require a lot of courage but deliver the more profound benefits to your psyche that allow you to move forward and truly see lasting and beneficial changes to your health and wellbeing. 

The first one is something we can all do and it costs absolutely nothing. And that is breathing. Yes, I know you’re doing it right now, but I’m talking about intentional breathwork that can be done three, four or more times a day for five or seven minutes each time. Most people who are under stress or have a lot of trauma and PTSD are shallow breathers. Shallow breathing does nothing to heal you because you need to ‘take in life’ and release it and take in life and release it and when you are only taking in shallow breaths and letting out minor exhalations, you are not taking in your life and you’re also not releasing what is stored and needs to be released. This type of breathing was developed and programmed into you as a coping mechanism, often subconsciously or intuitively, based on pure survival instincts. It’s completely understandable because it was a learned technique that we did to protect ourselves and I think contain or preserve our breath because we had a subliminal understanding that at any given moment, the other shoe was going to drop. And so we remained hypervigilant and ready for whatever that thing was and when it happened, we’d really give ourselves a workout with lots of anxious breathing that matched our racing heartbeats. But once the explosion died down and we were again away from the event, we could return to our shallow breathing as we waited for the next round. We didn’t feel we could take in life because on some level, taking in life felt oddly dangerous to us. Besides, there was that constant weight we felt pressing down on our chest and our heart and even when we were forced to take a deep breath, it hurt but not physically. It hurt emotionally but it registered within us as a heaviness and a pain we couldn’t define or extrapolate because we were young and didn’t have the maturity of perspective and experience to lean on. But the point is that inhaling your environment at that time was not something you wanted to inhale or embrace nor should you. You were rejecting it just like anyone with eyes to see would reject it. So you were damned if you were going to drink that turmoil into your body but, man, holding onto old stuff creates shallow breathing, and damn does it that take a toll and when you do that for a lot of years and then drag that technique into your adult life, it’s no wonder you are not doing great and need help. Thus, you are a shallow breather to this day. And if you can’t breathe deeply, you cannot train your body to learn it’s okay to take in life and it’s okay to exhale and release whatever part of that life doesn’t serve your highest and greatest good. Nothing bad is going to happen. And I’m trying to be snarky when I say that. I mean it. Those of us who went through this understand that there is an embedded forgotten fear that goes way back where we equated breathing deeply with something bad is going to happen so don’t do that. Conserve, conserve, conserve that breath because you’re going to need it when you have to run or fight or negotiate a deal that doesn’t involve you but profoundly affects you. But it’s the fear of something bad about to happen that drives it. So you have to release that fear that by letting go, something bad is going to happen. And the opposite of fear is love. It’s not hate. It’s love. So the way you begin to train yourself to tamp down and eventually eliminate the mind chatter and chaos is by connecting intentionally with your heart centered energy, learning to cultivate or build that energy and then weaving it up to the now trained calmer mind for healing reflection and focus. 

I learned that part of the art of letting go involves reconnecting with one’s emotional heart. Most of us have built a heart wall to protect us against the pain of loss or life in general. But you can’t truly let go and let the Divine energy recalibrate you if you continue to shut down your emotional heart center. Just like alchemical transformation involves an awakening within oneself, there also must be an awakening of the heart, especially when that heart has been shut down with an idea that you are effectively protecting yourself against hurt when, in fact, you’re just preventing yourself from embracing the beauty of life. It’s a slender tendril to walk, I agree. Opening yourself to love only to risk the pain of loss or grief. But to shut down your heart to protect it causes many other problems. Tightness in the chest. Breathing issues. Heart problems. Stiffness in the joints. Headaches. Awakening into joy and love and beauty is felt in the center of the body. That passion is extended out into the thing you love to do or the animal or person you point your heart toward and that energy builds and magnifies and blossoms and changes and as it does that, it changes you and them as well. The act of love is an act of transformation where that connection will shape you and build you into a different person where every part of your Being is transformed.

This is known as heart coherence. Heart coherence is defined as a “psychophysiological state [which is the mind/emotions and body] characterized by optimal order and harmony between the mental and emotional and physical body.” When in a balanced state of heart coherence, one’s heart, brain and lungs work in tandem and create an effortless and consistent ebb and flow. And the way to tap into this is known as Heart Coherence breathing. This technique regulates the autonomic nervous system which is involved with the acute stress response and acts to prepare the body for fight or flight. Kick in the adrenaline. “Something bad is about to happen”. So we have to flip that script of fear and transmute it into something the body craves, which is love, and do this via the breath and visualizations while holding one or both hands over your heart area. Do this breathing exercise with the focused understanding that you are reprogramming your brain and your nervous system and your blood and potentially the rest of your body and give it permission to release. I was blown away after doing this for the first time. Truly blown away. I did not expect to feel the profound calm and centeredness that engulfed me. Learning how to regulate your autonomic nervous system is a big powerful advantage for you when you are focused on your healing. It’s a technique that will help to stabilize and center you during periods where you feel shattered or in need of an energetic food that only you have the power to generate. And that food is your willingness to do this exercise with the intention of learning how to self-regulate and not become resistant to the experience by not focusing precisely on what is required.  

So when you do this, get comfortable in a chair as upright is said to be better due to the placement of the diaphragm, and take slow deep breaths through the nose breathing in for five seconds and then exhaling through pursed lips for five seconds. Keep a rhythm going not too fast or too slow. Focus on your breathing and visualize it originating from your heart as you breathe in and out. Place your hand or both hands over your heart area and while maintaining the measured breathing, now visualize something that brings you joy or peace. It can be a child, a pet, a partner, or it can be a visual of a glistening lake, a serene pasture or any calming scenery that soothes you. Whatever you choose, focus on it and project your love and serenity into that visual. Do this for about three minutes to start and then stop and check in with yourself. I was totally stunned how centered I was the first time I tried this. Like so very centered that I was aware of how centered I was and it was like walking in someone else’s shoes suddenly. Like this is not how I usually roll or feel and I’m absolutely dialed in to a point that I’m patently aware of it. So I became the participant and the observer simultaneously. I will say do not do this when you are driving, I mean, obviously you wouldn’t have your eyes closed, but even doing it with your eyes open and being aware of the road, there is a seductive calmness that comes over you that can create a state that is not good for driving and being aware. There is some belief that working up to an inhalation of five seconds through the nose and an exhalation of six to seven seconds creates even greater heart coherence. I’ve tried it and I can say that at least for me exhaling for six to seven seconds is more profound and I could feel a strong heart connection on the third exhalation. But I’d always start with the five/five rhythm and then maybe shift into the six or seven second exhalation and pay close attention to how it feels and where in your body and head its affecting you the most. I actually felt a low buzzing inside me that continued for an hour or more. It was this very gentle but palpable buzzy frequency that was so dialed in and equally balanced and propelling a kind of energy all its own that elevated and evened out my relationship to the environment I was in. And when I did this the first time, I was fortunate to be at a hot springs and had the whole place to myself and it was like an internal connection while simultaneously extending that coherence to my environment that then fed that back to me on this interesting loop that all activated and actualized itself through my heart area. It was like a unity I hadn’t felt in years and I was not under the influence of any drugs or alcohol so that wasn’t informing my experience. The whole point of starting with a powerful breathing technique is that it creates a better foundation for what needs to be released on other levels of your life. The freedom your body responds to when you release and realize it’s indeed safe and necessary to exhale and even therapeutic to the point where you train your body and mind to want more of this experience. And that experience is also teaching you to get a vibe for what it feels like to let go. So as I work through the next exercises or requirements of letting go, always remember to call up this Heart Coherence breathing technique and incorporate it into your life as you are faced with many different challenges and emotional experiences that would benefit from you self-regulating. 

            The best way I found to ease into the art of letting go is to start with something tangible. Before attempting to let go of the heavier stuff in your life, my suggestion is to strengthen that muscle of release by throwing out or burning things in your life that are taking up space in your home or in your memories. I was overwhelmed when I began this task because I’d accumulated a lot of things over the years that were tucked away in boxes with this idea that I would ‘one day’ (you know, the ol’ ‘one day’ mantra) drag the box off the top shelf and go through it. But that never happened and at that time, I had plenty of boxes on top shelves that I hadn’t open in eighteen years. While hard at first to let go of a lot of what I thought were cherished memories and items, after I reconciled that “stuff” is not what makes you happy or satisfied, it became easier to throw it out. And I almost became obsessed with seeing how many big black trash bags I could fill with things. What began as a sort of a sorrowful endeavor ended up becoming a source of relief and I was not grieving or regretting tossing any of it out.  The deeper I got into the process, the more I looked forward to it because I realized that I was drowning in the debris field of my past. “Stuff” carries energy. Old stuff carries a lot of energy. Heavy weight. Letters. Photos. Letters of break ups. Letters from old lovers that are out of your life or dead but still exist in the energy of that letter. I felt this need to not just throw out certain old photos and letters but to burn them because there is something about letting go with the energy of fire that transmutes whatever you’re burning into ash. Where we lived at that time, we had a fire pit and since it was winter, I could burn a lot of stuff with no fear of starting a wildfire. And I did just that. It took days to turn it all into ash and as I threw another photo or letter into the flames, I thanked it and said goodbye.  

            Another letting go exercise that we used to do every New Year’s Eve is write down all the things you want to burn up in your life and release so they don’t follow you into the New Year. I’ve mentioned this to other people and I think it’s cool how others have adopted this tradition. But you don’t have to wait until New Year’s Eve. Any time you want to burn up an old belief system, a way of being, etc., write it down on a piece of paper and finding a safe and sheltered environment, light it up and toss it into a large coffee can and watch the paper burn to ash. 

            Another excellent way to get your body conditioned to letting go is to find a bodyworker who does myofascial release therapy. Fascia is a layer of connective tissue right under the skin that covers everything from bones and muscles to organs, tendons, ligaments and even cells and nerves. It is what holds everything together and it’s what also becomes restricted through chronic long-term tension and stress as well as injuries that did not heal properly. Fascia holds memory. Just like fat holds memory. Fascia also holds trauma. So when you have myofascial release therapy, there is a pretty good chance that you will also feel emotions coming up that you maybe hadn’t thought about for years or decades and suddenly it all rises to the surface as that fascia breaks up. So it’s not uncommon to have a myofascial session and on the third day after the session you have a “sudden” memory flash or a dream that replays an event that has been lodged in your body’s energy field and really wants to come out and be seen and then released. If this therapy sounds like something you want to experience, my suggestion is to go online and look for bodyworkers who are trained in the John Barnes method of fascial release. I will put a direct link in the show notes that takes you to John Barnes’ website where you can plug in your location and see what pops up. 

Now I’m going to dig into the aspects of personality that you must let go of in order to create the space you need to heal. The first one I wrote down is control. Everyone suffers from this issue to one extent or the other and the longer you’ve been acting from a place of needing control or controlling others, the harder it will be to agree to eliminate that personality aspect but it is imperative to do so if you are going to heal. You may have head the statement, “Control is an illusion”. And the only people who don’t believe that are the ones who actually buy into the idea that they are in control of their lives and possibly other people’s lives as well. But as someone once told me, “The more control you go for, the less control you have.” And that will become evident to you when you crash and burn.  If you still believe you are in control, I realize how you are going to fight this idea. Because just entertaining the idea that you really have no control elicits a fear where chaos reigns and turmoil is around every corner. But what you have to understand is that you are in chaos and how you perceive control is more about believing you can manage chaos in a way that eliminates it. But that is also an illusion. You are living in a three-ring circus that you built or was built for you and you are trying to play the ringmaster and keep the lions and the elephants and the tigers in check. But eventually, the lions are going to fight with the tigers and the elephants are going to successfully escape and you’re going to running around in your little ringmaster outfit waving your little baton and having a meltdown because your circus has erupted into a full-fledged shit show. You will hang on with white knuckling terror to what you perceive as “being out of control” and not realize that all those people you are trying to control are just like the circus animals and they are going to figure out how to escape your circus. But that doesn’t stop control freaks. That just makes them double down on their efforts to maintain a white knuckling grip on situations in their life that continue to fall apart or blow up. And the harder they attempt to prevent this from happening, the more internal rage and resentment they will feel and the more rage and resentment they will generate from others who they are attempting to control. I’ve watched these types of scenarios my whole life as I’m sure a lot of you have, and I’ve participated in them, believing at one time that I had the ability and the justification to control a situation or a person. And when I look back at the ludicrous ways I tried to control situations in my life, I cringe. So what happens when the controlling person crashes and gets sick? What do you think they try to do? If you answered, “attempt to control their health problem by forcing their will onto it,” you win. Good luck with that one. Yes, the controlling person believes they know everything and what’s best for them. But as I’ve said before, if you know so much, why are you sick? But go ahead and tell yourself that you can heal thirty, forty, fifty or more years of trauma in a quick seven-day workshop. You are out of your damn mind. And until the controlling person understands who they are up against, which is themselves, and resigns themselves to the truth that “control is an illusion,” they are just going to be shadow boxing with their unchained ego.  

What I have experienced and seen in so many people who maintain the idea of control, is that the degree of how much an illness "shatters" them is in direct proportion to the energy of resistance and control which builds the layers of suppression they stuff inside. I had plenty of opportunities over the years, starting at age thirty-eight, to do the deep dive and heal. But even though I was confronted with some health issues at thirty eight, I didn't use the experience as a chance for reflection. I just needed to "get over it" and "get back to life." I had another potentially serious diagnosis at age forty-five but once again, I was all about fixing it and controlling the outcome so I could get back to my stressful life. The problem is that with each new opportunity you are given to heal and with each rejection of that opportunity, the distortions inside you gestate and grow like a tumbleweed picking up the debris as it rolls along the prairie. After awhile, there's just so much your body can hold and the "big breaking point" occurs. So now the control freak is cornered and they perceive that as “being out of control” when in fact, it’s really more about the years of suppression and distortions rising to the surface and showing themselves for the first time. 

When you have been a control freak for your entire life, it’s extremely difficult to learn how to let go. My experience of being a control freak in the past proved to me that the only cure is to be incredibly humbled by whatever issue you are going through and not fighting that humbling or conflating being humbled with being a loser or weakness. I truly speak from experience on this one because my eighteen months of resistance that I’ve mentioned before in other episodes was directly connected to my belief that I had answers to situations I’d never experienced in my life. And realizing that statement was one of my humbling moments. So I can say all day long that part of the art of letting go is releasing the belief that you are in control. But the reality is that getting to that place of understanding is going to take time and I don’t think a true control freak is going to agree to release control until they are basically on the metaphorical mat and have no choice but to relinquish control. And that’s usually when they surrender to a higher power in whatever they believe is greater than them. 

The next thing that is critical to let go of is belief systems, especially belief systems that do not belong to you. What I mean by that is having a belief that you inherited from your parents or your family that you just go along with and never analyze whether it is actually YOUR belief. There are also beliefs that we take on because somebody in authority who we looked up to said to us. “You’re an idiot.” “You’ll never amount to anything.” “You don’t deserve this family.” I’m planning a show sometime this year on the main core beliefs and how they limit your ability to heal. It is very difficult to let go of a belief system that you were brought up to believe and that is not working for you and causing you nothing but pain and suffering. Too many people would rather be destroyed physically and mentally by their belief system than step back for a second and consider how it’s ripping apart their lives. People become so identified by what they see as their ‘right’ to be bitter, or hold grudges, or seek constant vengeance that it overtakes every part of their life. It destroys their marriages. It annihilates their friendships. And eventually it isolates them because nobody wants to be around them. But there are a many other belief systems that prevent one from letting go. Suffering is noble belief system. You can’t get well if you believe that. “I don’t deserve to happy, healthy or alive.” I’ve met and talked to many people who carry that belief system and if you believe you don’t deserve to take in the air around you, I’m not sure how you expect to heal. A lot of very religious people strongly believe that for whatever reason, God hates them and has condemned them to a life of pain. That’s a very tough belief system to untangle because it is typically programmed into them by a family member who they trusted and possibly respected or maybe feared. And erasing that programming is not easy but I think the best way to approach it is to first, admit that you carry that belief system and then explore therapies or a therapist who you feel a connection to who can ideally help you see the fallacy in what you were told and retrain your mind to accept and believe something that is healthier and leads to your recovery. 

Next up is letting go of obligations that are not required. This is a big one because just like the art of letting go has a learning curve, the art of saying ‘no’ has the same learning curve. Going to work is an obligation you can’t let go of but not taking on extra assignments that are contributing to your fatigue is an excellent option. I think volunteer work is fantastic and helps one take their focus off themselves but if the volunteer work is creating commitments that drain you or that you are simply not interested in any longer, find a new volunteer gig that trips your trigger and works within your timeframe. Learning how to say “no” and mean it is a valuable tool when it comes to releasing obligations or commitments that are sucking the life out of you. A lot of times, we do things in our adult life because we were trained or conditioned or expected to do these things when we were younger and we just maintained that pattern into our adult life. I’ll give you a simple example from my own life. I used to spend a week or longer designing my own Christmas cards when I was a teenager and send them out to a minimum of forty people. And then I would handwrite a personal message to each person and hand address them and I continued what I saw as a holiday obligation every single year up until about eight years ago. And at that point, I was sending out cards to over sixty people. Some of these people were people I only contacted at Christmas and really had no attachment to whatsoever but I felt as if I had set a precedent and was obligated to maintain it. But eight years ago, when I could barely function, I had to start letting go of whatever was not important to me anymore or was draining me. And Christmas cards were one of those things. And while it may sound not that big a deal to you, it was a tough decision for me because after all those years, people expected the handmade card. So when they didn’t get one, I got a lot of people contacting me at Christmas, not asking me how I was doing but rather, “What happened to my card?” So I learned very important lessons that year. First, who to cross off my card list permanently. Second, I thought I would feel some guilt but I didn’t. And I tried to gin it up but I couldn’t. That was incredibly affirming to me at that time. And the other lesson I learned was that not forcing myself to do a task I really had no interest in anymore was a phenomenal rebel move on my part, as silly as that sounds. But I bet I have people listening right now who feel they are obligated to put on a party or host an event that they now find taxing and a huge source of stress and who are willing to not repeat that obligation for a period of time or maybe forever. Depends on what it is and how you feel about it. And I fully understand that just the thought of making the phone calls to the people involved and telling them that you are taking a break or stepping back or whatever term you want to use creates a lot of tension and stress within you. Because you don’t want to disappoint. Or you don’t want to let people down. Or you don’t want to be seen a certain way. I can tell you that when you are sick, those three concerns don’t matter anymore. Because all you’re trying to do is get from morning until night and trying not to fall apart every few hours or more. Saying no and letting go of excess obligations is not just healthy but it’s also training you to value your time, your energy and your talent and not extend yourself to the point of exhaustion just because someone else demands or expects it from you based on past history or performance. It’s also training you to set boundaries which you must do if you’re going to heal. Gotta let go of that revolving door of people and situations that make demands of you without thinking for one second if that demand is something you want to do or are still capable of doing. 

Next on my list is letting go of expectations. Honest to God, one of the most freeing things you can do is release expectations of people, events, situations and more. I know this is a tough one for a lot of people but it kind of dovetails into the theme of not controlling outcomes. You can do everything in your power to create an event that is meaningful to you and have gigantic expectations of the people involved, the way it will play out and how it will be received and in one fell swoop, a Category Four storm will drown all of your expectations. You can worry all day long about expectations of behavior from certain members of your family and they can happily dash those expectations. I remember when I first heard someone say to me, “Don’t have any expectations and you’ll never be disappointed.” I was aghast but that was because I still had control of other people and the weather and random animals and on and on. But it’s a true statement I learned to embrace and by embodying that statement, I began to relax around my judgments, my fantasies of how something should be and more and life began to really flow better for me. So releasing your expectations around an event or other people’s involvement is important. You can only create expectations for yourself and your own behavior but even then, if you set your bar too high, you’ll be back in that loop of despair and unnecessary sorrow. 

I’ve discussed on many shows how you will have to let go of people in your life when you commit to your healing. So I don’t want to repeat myself on that subject. But I can’t do a show on the art of letting go and leave that out. Because you will have to say goodbye to a lot of people in your life who either don’t relate to you anymore or are simply incapable of making a true connection with you that warrants your energy any longer. 

Letting go of anger and rage is very important. But you can’t release it until you have completely exhausted it out of your body. And that can take years. One of my pet peeves about the personal transformation movement is this superiority attitude that what is called “base emotions” are to be avoided so that you can create the space for love, compassion and empathy. The problem is a belief that anger is bad and lowers your vibration so that you can’t actualize your true nature. That’s total bullshit. People who believe that are so terrified of their own suppressed rage that they don’t realize that when they blather on about love and compassion, how much bubbling anger is coming through their syrupy voices. In my opinion, there is far too much bypassing of anger and pain in the personal transformation movement and the more it is avoided, the more it shows up in their personality in the way they conduct their lives, their businesses and so on. Long term suppression of anger and pain in someone who claims to be spiritually enlightened is like watching a smoldering fire burn and wondering when it’s going to erupt because it will erupt eventually. Any teacher or guide you’re working with who tells you that anger is counterproductive is most likely afraid of his or her own anger. Because anyone who has done this work knows intimately how much rage is held within the cellular framework of one’s body. Denying you have anger doesn’t change the anger. Denying your pain doesn’t change the pain. Both want to be seen and acknowledged, felt and released. There’s no way around it but through it. YOU must have the experience of letting go of the anger and the pain by FEELING it. Screaming, crying, vomiting, dry heaving, I’ve seen it all. I’ve done it all. You must feel and experience the disorientation of what that release temporarily creates within you. And it’s going to take months and possibly years to release. You can’t unpack and unload all of that quickly because you can’t process it effectively. 

I think an important question to ask yourself in the theme of the art of letting go, is what are you afraid will happen when you allow yourself to let go? Are you afraid you are going to look insane? Are you concerned you’re going to get messy? Are you afraid people will judge you? If that’s the case, don’t let go around people who are judgmental. I’ve never been an advocate of advertising your own deconstruction for social media credit. I don’t think it serves anyone’s best interest to download a video of themselves in the throes of a breakthrough moment that resembles a full nervous breakdown. I can’t imagine filming myself during my worst moments years ago. If you’re doing sacred plant medicine to release trauma and pain and rage, do it with someone who understands and in a private location. You won’t be judged in that type of environment. In fact, you’ll be expected to do some serious releasing. That’s the whole point! You are taking part in this sacred work to release what is trapped inside you and it can get very ugly and very messy when you chose that route. But that’s okay and you must walk into those experiences with that understanding and accept it.

 You know, a lot of people equate letting go with giving up. It’s not. It’s surrendering to a higher power or the reality that you’ve done everything you ‘know’ how to do and you can’t ‘do’ anymore. Or just realizing the pithy, “It’s time.” And after you have that stark revelation that it’s time, you let go and you realize you should have done it a long time ago because the stress of all those years of holding on and attempting to maintain an impossible juggling act in a circus you didn’t want to be in took a huge toll and you wished you’d had the sense to stop the bleeding a long time ago. I can say without any doubt that every single time I finally let go of a desire that wasn’t right for me, or a dream (no matter how beautiful), or a person, or a belief system such as ‘being in control,’ there was that initial kneejerk reaction of loss. But the way I was able to eventually navigate these releases was through acceptance and acceptance is something you hone as you mature because as you get older you see life in more finite terms than when you’re young and think you’re invincible. So the sooner you can move into acceptance and not see what you’ve released or let go of as a loss but more of a necessary release of a weight that was holding you down and not allowing you to grow and heal, the quicker you can get back on your path and move along toward your ultimate healing. Once you perfect the art of letting go and you accept that Life will continually demand it of you, there is a sobering calm that descends and with that calm, the resistance you used to engage in dissolves. And suddenly that peace and contentment you have always craved is able to move into your life and the only question you’ll ask yourself is “Why did I wait so long to let go?” 

That’s all for this week. Thank you for choosing to listen to this show. If you like what you hear, share this podcast with others and follow me. Check out the notes for this episode where you’ll see the links to find me on Instagram and X @laureldewey or thealchemyofnaturalhealing. On all the show notes, I’ve included the companies I personally support and have helped me in my own healing process, so please check that out. And there are coupon codes. Looking forward to you joining me next week when we’ll talk about depression from the other point of view. New episodes drop every Saturday. Until then, remember that “Awareness is a demanding mistress. Once she wakes you up, she won’t let you go back to sleep.”