This idea that trauma will inevitably be with us forever is simply not true.

We might have bodies that are challenging us or economic situations that don’t appear infused with freedom, but that doesn’t mean the mind can’t always be free.

This is terribly hard guidance to follow, and not easy at all.

But that doesn’t make it impossible.

That doesn’t mean we can’t commit to taking our life in the direction of freedom no matter our circumstances, one small release at a time. Because in order to find this freedom in our own minds we need to let go of all of our ideas about what life is like.

The main reason to let go of all our ideas about what life is like, is because they are false.

We will never really understand what this human life is, it is simply too complicated and mysterious. So, thinking we understand how it works is the biggest illusion there is.

So, if we are really crazy and brave we can just let go of everything simply because none of it is true, anyway.

The past definitely needs to be let go of. Are you ready to commit to clearing the old so you can feel fresh and new? Imagine a stand of raspberry bushes that haven’t been pruned. They won’t yield as much new fruit. Your own energy, your own system is overdue for a pruning. The old must go!

How does the old leave? Just willingness. Just self-commitment.

This is done through taking a few sacred moments somewhere special, either in your home or somewhere in nature and telling yourself:

I am committed to my own path.

I am committed to releasing the old and coming into the new.

I am committed to living in flow and not resisting life as it is.

I highly recommend you don’t minimize the power of these words. The great part of committing to being free, to trusting life, and being committed to emptying out all that is no longer needed, is that nothing needs to be decided with the mind. The simple intention will make the energy available for permanent release.

How do we do this, exactly?

We can use this powerful intention: “Any old energies that are not serving me are clearing.”

We think these words, we dream these words, and we commit to these words. We spend time in nature, we meditate, and we take long baths where we focus on our intent to clear and release.

We commit to ourselves that the old pain, the old fears, the old blocks—they are not going to dominate us anymore.

And when we experience setbacks? We have a fight with someone we love? Or we lose a job? Or our body feels a pain that feels too much? What then?

Well, what we do then is we don’t let anything that occurs feel like a setback. We see it as just another opportunity to let go of more stuff we no longer need. It might not feel good, but it is possible.

When we feel ourselves slipping into old patterns of fear and a sense of inadequacy, we acknowledge that there is more to clear, and our path is bringing us challenges to support this clearing, and we recommit to ending the pain and set the intention to clear that energy.

Believing that our pain and trauma is true and real is how we hold too tight to it and seal it into our system.

Of course, compassion is always needed. Always. Knowing that pain and trauma hurts, and is hard, is necessary. But ultimately it is an illusion and can be released.

Remembering this truth is how we become free.

As we keep working with the intention to clear energies that are no longer needed, we will have the experience of becoming lighter. This is because we are releasing the pain and trauma that have been taking up precious real estate in our energy, and now there is more space for the manifestation of goodness within us. As we clear what is no longer needed, we will feel more spacious.

And then here is the important part: Don’t fill this space up with more worries and fretting! Just don’t do it!

Let’s imagine you are mad at someone, and you just keep thinking, “I am so mad.”

This thought of being mad is a temporary experience, or it can be temporary—if you let it be. I am sure there are people you were mad at it in the past that you are no longer mad at now. See, it was temporary.

So, the thought runs through your mind: “I am mad at so-and-so.” The way to let this thought, feeling, and suffering go is not to grab on to the thought too tightly.

One way we can think of this is, instead of thinking, “I am mad at so-and-so,” we can think, “Right now I am having a temporary experience of being mad at so-and-so, and I will have this experience until it can be let go of.”

You see, we don’t need temporary experiences to end before we are ready for them to end—but we do need them to end, sometime.

When we are continually mad, stressed, worried, and jealous at others, the person who gets the most hurt and abused is ourselves. So, this willingness not to “hold on” to passing thoughts and emotions that hurt us forever is a real gift to ourselves.

Imagine that the thought of anger is in the palm of your hand. Do you squeeze the anger as tightly as possible in your palm, swearing to never let it go? Or can you open your palm up wide and set the intention that when the anger is ready to leave, it can fly free?

These are choices we can make about how to relate to our own current of emotions and thoughts.

Nothing is inevitable; we have more control than we think. Hard emotions and terrible thoughts are going to arise, but it is your choice and your choice alone to decide how you relate to them.

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