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3/28/2008 - Learning to just let go.

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Letting go is a difficult process no matter what you are trying to let go of. It could be addictions or harmful behaviors, situations which no longer serve you nor anyone else, or anything in which no longer has a place in your life. First one must decide to let go and do so once and for all, meaning they must make a commitment to saying goodbye to the person, place, or thing they are trying to separate from. They must say to themselves , 'No, I will not let you impact my life like this any longer'. Then they must stick to this course of action or else it does no good at all. Then after letting go you must not return to that person, place, or thing no matter what. You must trust that this was the right choice and whatever happens will happen but it will not be because of action taken on your part. Of course for the addict .alcoholic, or person who suffers from mental illness then this task is much larger and will take more work but It can be done. Especially the person with such illnesses as Borderline personality disorder, Obsessive compulsive disorder, or any illness that makes the person more impulsive and have difficulty controlling their actions then the task is much more difficult and the road ahead is more of a challenge, these folks need to be more vigilant and do things to retrain their minds to replace these obsessive and compulsive thoughts with healthy, counteractive thoughts. Either way the process of letting go for anyone starts with a choice, that is a choice that you will no longer let this thing or whatever control you and rule your life. After having made that all important choice the next step is to stick to that choice that you made , do not let anything convince you to go back on it. Remember that there is nothing you can do ( most times ) to change the reality of the situation, you cannot control what is out of your hands. People just have to do their best with what they have and give it up to God or whatever they put their hope and trust in. For those with the above mentioned disorders they must constantly remind themselves that there is nothing they can do that will ever be enough. There will never be enough drugs to get you high enough where you will be satisfied, you will never do repetitive, obsessive behaviors enough to feel OK about that in which you are worried about. You will never feel you have done enough to fix the situation because you cannot fix what is not broken but you can make it broken. Letting Go is something that is necessary in order to be at peace, to be able to say to yourself 'I did my part and now it is up to my higher power' . Letting go is about stop trying to fix everything, everyone, and just be. Although Letting go is a process it is also as I mentioned a choice, a time when you say 'I have done all that I can, now it is up to another or the universe' . A time when you say, what will be will just be.One must be willing to ask for and accept help as It is all too much for us without help. We can never do it alone, we can however say to ourselves that I did my best and now I hand it over to someone who can possibly help. Letting Go is not just about turning something over that is too much for us but also knowing when we have given it our best and the situation is what it is and nothing more we do will make it better or change it. There are many ways to let go, but in my opinion one must look at the situation and ask themselves the following questions. 1. Is this situation more than I can handle alone ? 2. Have I done all that I can ? Can I do this on my own ? 3. Will further action do more harm than good ? 4. Am I in control ? 5. Is there a problem or is it in my mind ? Of course not every situation in which we need to let go can you apply all of these questions. There are so many things that we can let go of and in which times we need to let go, but just some examples. In a situation where people suffer from a disorder like OCD (Obsessive compulsive disorder ) there is no set way of letting go of thoughts that continue to cause one to repeat behaviors based on those irrational thoughts. One reason is that the thoughts are so powerful that the person actually feels they have to act on them and that there is a problem at hand . Trying to retrain their mind is one way and another is to obviously remember that it is their illness talking although that is a less likely to work approach. Then there are addicts who by themselves cannot stay clean and sober and need to surrender in order to make it, they need to often surrender to themselves first and then to the program of whatever 12 step they are in, then to health care professionals and finally and most important they must give it up to a higher power and let go of their ways of doing things. There are many other situations and examples of letting go, everything from people who lose loved ones to death who need to let go of the pain and guilt and move on in the healing process to any situation in life where you give it your best but it is no longer in your control or where it never was. Letting go is not an easy task, we all want to do it our way, to fix it now but there comes a point when we have done all that we can or we are faced with things that there is nothing that we can do. We live in a society that has slogans such has 'just do it', 'No fear', and many more positive 'you can do it, you don't need any help ' ways of thinking but the truth is that is not always true. There are times when we have no choice but to toss up our hands and say I need some help over here and that is OK. That does not mean we are powerless to act, quite the opposite actually. Admitting that one needs help is power, the greatest power. We do all we can and then we let someone else try or we Go for something , sometimes we want to be superman and do it all ourselves but sometimes we just need to Let go !

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