Quite apt for World Mental Health Day….
I realise I can’t assume that most people know that much of our unhappiness is not caused by what actually happens to us but by how we look upon, and frame, whatever happens. Our minds have the potential to cause us a lot of bother and training them not to takes practice.
‘Letting go’ just sounds positive to me. My metaphorical image of it is a laid-back person accepting the reality of what’s in front of them, shrugging with acceptance and saying, ‘Oh well, that’s unfortunate but let’s see what we CAN do.’
Our brains are not naturally very good at letting go. Our ability to fixate on what’s already happened can consume us – sometimes extensively – with troubles that are no longer actually in front of us. This is the delight of having evolved such a developed pre-frontal cortex. Let’s take a look at some examples of where not being able to let things go can cause suffering:
When we lose something
We’ve all done it. Lost our keys, some money, the one thing we really needed at that very moment or something with sentimental value. Now it’s bad enough (really) that we’ve lost something but that’s often not the worst bit. The worst bit is the hard time we can give ourselves in the wake of losing something. In the worst cases, we can berate ourselves for our stupidity and catastrophise about all the potential negative consequences. We can even quite persistently torture ourselves by revisiting the ‘loss’, what we might have missed out on, exaggerate the inconvenience or sadness that will be caused, over and over, added to a painful yearning that the thing had not been lost.
The thing is, (little) life inconveniences are almost like an inevitable smooth-running-life tax. They are bound to happen and we’re almost better off expecting them now and then than going to great, time-consuming lengths to over-vigilantly reduce their chances. With full acceptance that these things sometimes happen, instead of ‘kicking ourselves’ we can instead use our brain power to work out how to best solve any problems that arise because of the loss. OK, it was a setback we didn’t anticipate we were going to have to overcome, but the sooner we can ‘let go’ of the negative thinking that surrounds losing something, the more resources we have to work out what to do about it.
Things not going to plan
Some of us are more controlling and in need of certainty than others. We might be capable of a strong emotional investment in pinning all our hopes and expectations on the ‘safety’ of things going as planned. Inevitably, things occasionally don’t go to plan and it’s with the test of the uncertainty this can create that letting go becomes the best course of action. Focusing forwards on where to go from this unexpected point in the light of unplanned changes is far better than dwelling fixatedly on what didn’t go to plan. The ‘new’ situation will probably be OK if we allow our thinking to go with it and not against it.
Decision making
Most of us struggle to make decisions. People can trap themselves in indecision: to act or not to act, to keep the status quo or take a leap of faith, to endure what we know we don’t like or to risk the unknown, to go that way or this way, to challenge or leave it as it is etc. People can torture themselves in a tangle of pros, cons and ‘yes buts’ to create quite stubborn dilemmas. But of course, dilemmas are only dilemmas because they are usually a close call. Being a close call in itself probably means that it doesn’t really matter too much which decision is made. What matters is what you do once the decision is made to make the most of it. We tend to put excessive focus into the decision-making, when it might be better to have faith that we will cope with whatever is decided.
Part of the cruelty of the dilemma seems to come from an element of not being able to let go of the choice we didn’t go for – whichever one that is. It seems better to readily let go of the unmade choice and allocate that focus on the choice you will or did make. We don’t always manage this and can torture ourselves with the ‘grass being greener’.
Taking offence
I always think taking offence is a choice. There’s quite a lot to hold on to if we are going to remain affronted. We have to:
- assume, and be sure of, someone’s negative intention and their wish to deliberately harm us (and add a strong belief that it’s totally unjustified),
- decide they knew exactly what they were doing – no errors of judgement for example,
- guard against and resist allowances or understanding that might lead us to forgive,
- believe we are in the ‘right’ and they are in the ‘wrong’,
- possibly whip up some indignation over the idea they should have known better,
- hold on to the idea we were the victim and they were the perpetrator – with no room for nuance,
- to recall the affront in our minds repeatedly to maintain our resentment.
Something I teach children, called fogging, is all about appearing to let go of an insult in the moment so it loses power. I explain to children that if someone calls them stupid, for example, rather than react, they can agree. It’s even better with humour. E.g. Yes I know, it’s a wonder I can put my shoes on the right feet. This usually dissipates the energy of the insult, confuses the insulter and makes ‘moving on’ quickly, more likely.
Letting go of offence can be hard, but it’s healthy. It doesn’t mean we have to just ignore what happened (we can still make efforts to express our needs and improve situations) but if we can cut someone some slack for their nasty comment or behaviour and put it down to a bad day or feeling threatened because of something we might be unaware of, then we will have more resource to deal with the situation directly and proactively. It’s good to remember few of us have never offended for one reason or another. We could all do with cutting each other some slack on this!
Obsessive thinking
One of the worst things our brains can do is fixate on negative thoughts – which is obviously the opposite of letting go. Negative emotion has the capacity to drive our thinking to spiral downwards and make us truly suffer.
We might dwell on something we did and assume someone else judged us harshly to fill us with regret, we might replay the scene where we said something we perceive as the ‘wrong thing’ over and over and become anxious about the impact it might have or we might obsessively mull over the comment someone made about our work that sounded unfairly critical to the point of triggering our anger. Our minds are naturally expert in this run-away catastrophising and ruminating.
To be able to let go of these thoughts, we need to learn to have enough detachment from them so we are no longer metaphorically ‘in’ them, fully convinced by their often exaggerated, distorted, narrow-focused and paranoid nature. We need to master observing them with a more rational and discerning eye that can see the bigger picture. But this takes some determined effort and a lot of curiosity. (Many of my posts refer to being curious about the backstory of our reactions to help us break-free of our many automatic responses and assumptions, and increase our options in how we respond in challenging situations.)
The shoulds and should nots
I remember reading about ‘shoulds’ being a dirty word in positive psychology books decades ago. They might be one of the hardest things to let go of because quite often we are totally unaware that we are holding on to them or that they have any impact on us. Of course some shoulds and should nots make sense – such as ‘we shouldn’t deliberately aim to hurt others,’ but there are more subtle ‘shoulds’ that we carry with us that it can be really beneficial to liberate ourselves from as they can stifle us.
And like the books said all those decades ago, the word ‘should’ can be our clue. When we hear ourselves say it, it’s an opportunity to bring these rules into awareness so we can let go of them. Whether we are ‘shoulding’ ourselves or others, there’s usually a rule we can be curious about. We can challenge how helpful it is and whether it’s giving us an unnecessarily hard time. If it is, awareness of it can help us let it go.
And on a lighter note (or is it?)...
My uzband (a plumber) often jokingly says that what people’s under-kitchen-sink cupboard looks like represents their mental health! Now I don’t believe this of course, but it didn’t stop me tidying up that cupboard (!) – and I love the metaphor. ‘Shove it out of sight,’ rather than face a decision about whether it’s really needed or not.. Whether to consciously let something go or hold on to it cluttering things up, bothering you again every time you open the cupboard!
Letting go…
Letting go is something we have to practise. It takes self-awareness and a degree of presence in each moment to notice when we are holding on to a thought, belief or assumption that is doing nothing but making us suffer. Our brain/ego seems wired to almost go searching for the thought it can fixate on to give us a hard time.
I remember a friend once asking herself in front of me, after she had described a situation, ‘Am I holding on to it? I don’t think I am. I’ll have a think and check.’ She was oblivious to me marvelling at how she took her self-awareness so for granted but I remember thinking how refreshing this was. Maybe that’s what we simply need to get better at routinely asking ourselves and remember that any holding on just serves to cause us upset.
P.S. Since engaging in a serious practice of meditating (I know, I know – it’s easy to dismiss as impractical but maybe one day you’ll find time….), letting go has become much easier. In fact I’d go as far to say that holding on to something in the first place, long enough to create a need to let it go, seems to be much reduced.