LETTING GO

Why we hold on to what hurts and why releasing it feels terrifying.

It’s currently 2:30am, and for the first time in a long time, I feel incredibly sad. Not the kind of sadness that comes with a clear reason, Not from heartbreak or anger or loss, just sadness. The kind that makes my chest and head feel 10 times heavier. As someone with a strong mental fortitude, or at least what I tell myself, in this moment, I felt very weak.

The story is, before this year began, I promised myself things would be different. I told myself this would be the year I take huge strides in my upward trajectory, the year I worked relentlessly toward everything I sought to achieve. I was ready for that quantum leap. But the year didn’t start the way I imagined. Setbacks showed up early, old habits – the ones I swore to leave behind, followed me into the new year like shadows. January passed and I wasn’t really doing much to bring my thoughts into life as I had promised, at least not yet, and then tonight in one of the least poetic places imaginable, shit went down, reality caught up with me and everything I’ve been carrying made itself known.

For years, I’ve tried to hold on and adapt to certain situation and habits and people and relationships, I’ve tried to live with them. To manage them. To become “better” so I could handle them when they inevitably came rushing back. And in some ways, I did get better. I had periods of abstinence. Periods where I improved myself enough to believe I was finally in control. But today it dawned on me, Some things don’t get better because you manage them better, they only get better when you let them go. And that realization hurt, because letting go isn’t just difficult, it feels impossible especially when an entire personality and identity wrapped up in what you are trying to walk away from. It feels like standing at the edge of something familiar, and choosing uncertainty instead.

But then i asked myself, why tonight? why now? and why am i so sad about it?. I mean these are things that have been in my head for some time, so why decide to burden me tonight. And to answer this, a quote from joseph Campbell comes to mind ” the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek”. I mean it makes perfect sense, because the closer we move towards attaining our biggest dreams, the more the fear intensifies, because we now have something to lose. So we end up in limbo, defined in this situation as a space between knowing something is not good for you and actually letting it Go. And the longer we stay in limbo, the more life feels stagnant and that all stems from the Fear of the Unknown. So to answer my question, what makes me sad is not the act of letting go, but the fear I might never be able to.

But as stated by Campbell, I feel like this is a final test. The last hurdle between who I am and who I know I can become. It feels like there is something better out there for me, something freer, more aligned and all that stands between us is my ability to let go. and like many people out there, I don’t know how exactly to go about it, but I think I owe it to myself to try AND I WILL.

So if you’re someone who keeps going back to bad habits, or find yourself stuck in a toxic relationship; with a person, a behaviour, or even a version of yourself, even when you know it’s holding you back. You are not alone, and “Letting Go” takes time. More time than people admit. And no one gets to tell you that you’re not doing enough or trying hard enough. Moving forward isn’t always noisy. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes it’s slow. Sometimes it’s just choosing, again and again, to take one step away from what hurts.

By the time these words are read, I don’t know if I’ll have fully let go of what’s been holding me back. But if I have, I hope I’m in a better place. And if I haven’t, I hope I’m still trying, because that, too, counts for something.

If you relate to this, drop a comment and if you overcame something like this, share your experience.