Letting go.
Every year as autumn arrives and the trees start to let go of their leaves I think - they make it look so easy, why do I find it so hard?
I'm not great at letting go. If you come to my house there's a good chance you'll see a pile of outgrown or old clothes in bags in the hallway. There's a stack of books on the bookshelf the kids finished reading years ago. Then there's 'the drawer of doom' that somehow even after being cleared out in lockdown and again when I moved house, has magically filled up with cables and junk again! So I often ask myself, why do I hold on to all this stuff?
And then there's the emotional stuff. The nagging self-doubt. Feelings of regret, shame and guilt that have accumulated over the years that every so often rear their head and remind me, nope....I'm obviously still clinging on to those too.
By releasing what is no longer useful, we open ourselves up to fresh ideas, new relationships and a more peaceful harmonious way of life.
Letting go can be hard. But part of letting go is the process it takes to get there. It can't be forced or rushed.
When I first separated from my ex-husband I had a lot of anger and resentment towards him, myself and my circumstances. Years of abuse and a complete lack of self-care had left me in rough shape and I was miserable. When we create pain for other people, it's because we are in pain.
By clinging to old emotions, thought patterns, or relationships we encourage a deep rooted sense of possessiveness. By grasping on to these essentially dead experiences we are not allowing ourselves the space and the freedom to experience something new, fresh and alive!
It was my yoga practice that gave me the tools to be able to shake off my shroud of anger and resentment and start to come alive again.
Most recently and after many failed attempts, I was finally able to let go of my coffee habit. Deep down I had known for a long time that my poor sleep, anxiety and digestive issues were stemming from my morning cuppas. But even though it was affecting my health, I loved my coffee and I was clinging hard. It took a few false starts and lots of forgiving myself for not cracking it this time, before I finally felt able to say, coffee and I have broken up for good. Now I feel so much freer and better for doing it!
HOW YOGA HELPS
Through the regular practice of yoga and meditation and as our self awareness deepens we become much more familiar with what makes us tick. We become physically stronger and more confident in ourselves. We learn how to breathe well, to relax fully and become much more familiar with our thoughts and feelings.
To the beginner these surface level thoughts
and feelings register and are labelled pleasant or unpleasant. As our practice progresses these are merely
thoughts and feelings we can observe. When
we feel less controlled by our emotions we can act from a place where we feel
less bullied by them. More aligned with
deeper intentions and values. We become
more in tune with our gut feelings, intuition, and a deeper connection of self.
Then we can begin to let go of self-defeating
tendencies and things that are holding us back from living our best life. Freeing ourselves from feeling that we are inadequate, unworthy, unlovable, not smart enough, funny enough, or undeserving of happiness.
YOGA PHILOSOPHY
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali give us some guidance too.
Aparigraha, the practice of non possessiveness is one of the 5 yamas. It can loosely be translated as not taking more than is needed and releasing of attachments. We can apply this to people and possessions.
"What we try to possess, possesses us".
By releasing what is no longer useful, we open ourselves up to fresh ideas, new relationships and a more peaceful harmonious way of life.
Part of letting go is the process it takes to get there. It can't be forced or rushed.
To practice aparigraha and bring more openness into your life, you might try clearing out your clutter to free up some space in the house. Delete old photos and videos from your phone or computer. Or try forgiveness and generosity as ways of creating more space in your heart.
Yoga Sutra 2:33 teaches us that when we are disturbed by negative thoughts, we should cultivate the opposite mental attitude. With practice this can be really helpful. The next time you feel disappointment or resentment, try to turn it into something more positive.
Thich Nhat Hanh tells us " Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If in our heart we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free".
We can never erase emotions, but we can let go of being defined or controlled by them.
We can let go of our reactivity. We can create space between the experience and the reaction. This transforms our suffering so that the situation becomes one that offers a compassionate or more creative solution.
There was no fanfare marking the exact moment I realised I was free of my anger. By gradually incorporating the yoga teachings into my life, it released its grip over time. I still get angry sometimes. I don't push it away or deny its existence. I pay attention to it, notice how it feels in my body. The tightness in my chest, the gnawing in my stomach, the frown on my forehead. The hunch of my shoulders, the shortness in my breath, the tone of my voice, the curling of my fingers, the ringing in my ears, the tunnelled vision or darkness that descends in front of my face. It's an embodied experience that affords me the space for choice.
We can let go of our reactivity. We can create space between the experience and the reaction. This transforms our suffering so that the situation becomes one that offers a compassionate or more creative solution.
Trees don't rush to let go of their leaves. There's been a transformative process happening for weeks or months that we're not aware of on the outside. But inside, they've been trusting that releasing the old to make way for the new is an essential part of the cycle of death, renewal and growth. Then when the time is right, letting go is easy.