Are you hanging on to something that really you should probably let go of?
How to let go and move on?
as I was watching the news, I heard a story about a man who was visiting from
out of state here in Utah, he was an adventurous fellow by the name
of Aron Ralston and some of you may know his story as I bring up his name but he
was doing some exploring in southern Utah and during his adventure, he got
into a position where a boulder shifted and pinned his arm against a rock wall.
Some of you will know the story just from that much information. I think
he's got a book out called, Between A Rock And A Hard Place, something like
that and there's a movie that highlights this experience, as well. He had, I think,
enough food and water for a couple of days. After about four days, he did
something that many of us would think is unthinkable as he he cut off his own arm
to free himself and get out of that predicament.
Why would I share this with you at Live On Purpose TV?
sunk so deep into my mind from that experience and it has to do with the
word decision, decision. Compare that word for a moment to the word incision or
excision or scissors, aright? They all have the same root and the root of that
word means cut. Cut what is an excision. I get those
all the time at the dermatology office because I grow funny moles and then the
dermatologist will excise those moles, he does an excision, he cuts it out of me.
What about an incision? A surgeon does that as they cut into you with the
scalpel. What is a decision? A decision is cutting something off.
Aron Ralston made a decision in a very literal use of that word.
How could he do that? Because cutting something off is frightening,
sometimes it's painful. When we talk about letting go and moving on,
what we're doing is making a decision. We are cutting something off and that's why we
resist it. Think about Aron's situation as he was pinned by that boulder and
through his mind, I'm sure was going some kind of a process of, "Oh my gosh,
my arm is dead, I can stay here and die with it or I can make a decision and
walk out of here."
What might that have to do with relationship? A failed business?
Whatever it is in your life that you're thinking you need to let go of and move on.
of and move on when we lose someone that we love sometimes we continue to hang on
to things that are keeping us trapped there. What if we were to make a decision
that would cut something off? But notice that you can't not make a decision.
I know that's a double negative track it. You can't not make a decision, that means
you have to make some decision and there's always a default.
What was it for Aron Ralston? Well, if he decided to stay there, what was he
cutting off? His ability to live, to survive, to return to his family,
to continue his life. That's a heavy price and when you consider it that way,
you can see that even though cutting off his arm was a very difficult thing to do,
it was a better decision than what default would have been. What is it in
your life that is dead or is no longer serving you well?
You can stay there and die with it or you can make a decision and move forward.
Okay, that's kind of heavy, I know. I'm the positivity guy.
from a little different perspective for a minute and see if this is going to help.
Letting go is not, is not the same thing as giving up. Letting go is not the
same thing as giving up.
way we look at things, the things we look at change.
in some of these other videos the way we think about it matters. What if we were
to think about it as letting go instead of giving up on a relationship, for
example. Let's say that you're in a relationship that is not serving you
well, you know that it's time to let go and move on but it's hard to do because
you know that that's cutting something often cutting something off is usually
painful. Letting go, now look at my hand and the position that my hand is in.
If I am clinging to something and my fist is tightly closed around that and I'm
holding on to it. Compare now that image with an open hand. As I let go,
What position is my hand now in? It's open to receive whatever is next and as we
continue to cling to things that are not serving us well, our hand is closed,
our life is closed, our mind is closed, we're not open to receiving what could be
there if we were to let go and where's that thing going to go if we let it go?
Well, from an abundance mindset, we don't have to worry about them. We can understand
that letting go of something actually frees it too so there's a lot of
psychological tricks that we can do to it to assist ourselves in letting go
and moving on. Here's another thought before we close this particular episode.
Better is always different.
Better is always different, that's not true the
other way around, by the way, different isn't always better, that doesn't work
but better is always different by definition so that opens up some
possibilities and even though we have some fear because we've never
experienced that different thing yet, if we have the perspective that the only
way to create an upgrade is to move to something different because better is
always different, sometimes that will give us some of the energy that we need
to actually power through the hard part as we make these decisions, these cutting
off's and you can't avoid those because you're gonna cut off something.
Let's make sure we're not cutting off our possibility for an upgrade in a better
life by hanging on to something that is no longer serving us well.
Two little examples that might help with the letting go process, I think one of them
is to get the perspective, to get a larger perspective of the decision
because in the moment, with the emotions flowing, it can be a lot harder than if
you were to back off get a little more perspective on it and one of the ways to
do this is the rule of tens. If you'll try this, just think about, how will I
feel in ten minutes if I let go? How will I feel in ten
minutes? Typically, in ten minutes, you're going to
still be in the emotional throws of this thing, right? But let's back off a little bit.
How will I feel in ten hours? How will I feel in ten days?
How will I feel in ten weeks and ten months and ten years? At that rule of
ten and as we back out to a larger perspective, most of the things that have
us tied up in nuts right now are not going to be bothering us in ten months,
especially in ten years. So that helps to put a little perspective on it.
Another thing that I thought I'd share with you is the benefit of practice and just like
a lot of others, this is a skill. Letting go as a choice, yes.
But it's also a skill and you can practice it. Several years ago, I was
cleaning out an area of my closet, now I'm an amateur hoarder, okay? I don't have
anything that would make it on the reality TV shows but I tend to pile
stuff up, not as much as I used to because I've been practicing and during
this particular episode, I found four things that I was keeping in my closet
that I hadn't used in forever but they had some sentimental meaning to me and
that's why I piled them up. I took each of these four items and I gave them
as gifts to each of my four children. This was a really phenomenal experience
for me because not only was able to affirm to them that they are more
important to me than my things are, which is probably another conversation also,
but I got to practice letting go of something that I've been holding on to.
What if you start with something small? Find something that you maybe are
holding on to that you don't need to and practice letting go. If you haven't
experienced anything like the one that I did with my kids, what that opened me to
receive was a rich, rewarding experience that I got to have with my kids and that
tended to be a lot more valuable to me than the thing that I was hanging on to.
So you can practice, start with some small things.
So can you do it now?
Can you let go? Letting go is not the same thing as giving up.
Hopefully those are helpful ideas for you.
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This is Live On Purpose TV.