You’ve heard it before: “Just let go of what isn’t serving you.”

And, yes, this might work in the short term when it comes to cleaning out an actual space full of junk, but it’s still only temporary.

The same thing happens when we say “let go” of something we are holding onto in our physical body, or in our mental space. To say “let go” of something we have lived, though, is suggesting the impossible.

We have to first live in these experiences, and understand what and why we feel what we feel. The work comes not in “letting go” but in changing the way we react to, or handle, these situations.

Instead of letting things pile up, we can learn to find a place for them first. But this takes work. It’s easier to throw something on the floor, or in your closet where you can’t see it, but over time you’ll open the door, and the sh*t will still be there.

We tend to go for the more temporary approach. We take a yoga class, we read some inspirational quotes, we take a pill, we eat some chocolate, we get drunk, we numb out in whatever way we can. But that’s just it, all of these solutions are temporary.

If you’ve lived through something, it will inevitably stay with you. You’ll carry it with you in your walk. You’ll hear a song and it will bring you right back to that place. It will be waiting for you, lurking around the corner when you least expect it.

Instead, we can start facing what’s in front of us. We can move through these experiences, and embody them, because they’ve made us who we are. Once we can come to terms with the fact that we can’t just let something go, it won’t catch us off guard when the memory of it comes back.

It won’t haunt you, because you’ll realize it isn’t a ghost or a thing of the past—it is alive, and can be trusted. Befriend the monster from your closet, the beast that is your past, and regain control.

Relephant: 

3 Steps to Learning to Experience Life Fully.

~

Author: Josie Schweitzer

Image: Author’s Own

Editor: Travis May