How to Let Go and Move on – The Ultimate Guide to Letting Go of All Past, Painful Things

Table Of Contents

1. Symptoms of Not Letting Go
2. Identifying What You Need to Let Go Of
3. The Power of Letting Go: 3 Crucial Benefits of Letting Go
4. Myths About Letting Go
5. 12 Strategies to Help You Let Things Go (Broad)
6. 17 More Quick Strategies (For Later Use) to Help You Let Things Go
7. How to Let of a Painful Past
8. How to let Go of a Toxic Relationship
9. How to let Go of Someone You Love
10. How to let Go of Anger
11. How to let Go of Grief
12. How to Let Go of Regret
13. How to Let Go of Negative Self Talk
14. How to let Go of Negative Beliefs
15. Choosing A Way to Move On

1: Symptoms of Not Letting Go

The Cambridge Dictionary defines the term “letting go” as: To stop holding something. Or. To stop thinking about or being angry about the past or something that happened in the past.

Whichever idea you relate to, it’s generally about something that has happened in the past. Or. It could be something you are experiencing now: a relationship; negative thoughts; sad, bad or awful emotions. Or. Feeling ill or distressed from gut issues, depression or anxiety.

Symptoms don’t just suddenly appear out of the blue. They are an accumulation of thoughts, habits and patterns of emotional, mental and physical behaviours.

My experience is, that if you have had trouble letting go of anything, even issues which appear to be in the present, that there exist, underlying issues that keep that issue current, and therefore, keep you repeating patterns of behavior that keep you stuck. We need to get to these underlying issues.

Your overall task in letting go and moving on is to be able to deal with those underlying issues.

To do that you need to be clear about several aspects of letting go: of what, why and how can you recognize symptoms and behaviors that might be relevant to your particular situation.

But first. Let’s look at the symptoms you may be experiencing. Signs that you have been unable to let go. These symptoms have consequences. The trigger activating the symptoms, leads to habitual responses and patterns of behavior.  How to Let Go and Move on The behaviors can often destroy the very thing or person you care about most. We now know there is a trigger. There could be many. We need to get to the underlying issues, in order to be able to let go of anything. The underlying issues cause the symptoms. (We will discuss the trigger in Section 2)

What Leads to Behaviours That Keep Us Trapped?

Why do symptoms arise? Why do we struggle to let go? Being aware of the list of the most prominent symptoms, will help you decide which category you fall into. Understanding self and where you are at, your current starting position, helps enormously when beginning any new undertaking.

What is the SOMETHING that can activate the Behaviours? The triggers?

Images in our Heart

Pierce Howard, PhD, author of The Owner’s Manual for the Brain indicates that we encode data as images. “These images become the hard drive of how we operate”. These images come from past experiences:

… “thoughts are conscious reasoning about something”

… “feelings are subjective experiences of something”

… “beliefs are interpretations of something”

… “behavior is goal-directed action to achieve something”

and

“the images of our heart are THE SOMETHING”

This means there are faulty images in our hearts that govern our present-day behaviors. The behaviors stem from triggers in the past. 

The behaviors can: help ruin relationships, help us lose jobs and friends, keep making us sick, that keep us from becoming well and feeling happy once more. 

If it were not for the images that we hold on our hard drive, and which are stored in our hearts and minds, we would be free of noise and interference, on many levels. Similarly, initial feelings have helped you create images.

The images trigger feelings. These feelings, our emotions, communicate with our body/mind and guide our behaviors.

The triggers can be someone or some event that reminds you of those old images that you have stored in your body/mind.

Emotions are the key

Because, this is the language of the body to the mind. We mostly cannot let go because of our emotions. How our heart is feeling.

We derive and construct these “images” from our early childhood. Most often these images hold incorrect and destructive data from our thoughts, feelings, beliefs and behaviours. And. Our interpretations and incorrect conclusions about these past events.

So, we will only be able to ” let go” when we deal with those underlying images and issues, and what comprises these images.

How this List of Symptoms is derived is, that, when people act out in certain ways, and repeat patterns of behavior, behind those actions are emotions expressed negatively, towards self, and others. All fear, doubt judgment, toxicity, self-blame and so on, can be viewed through this approach. When patterns of behavior are repeated, this then impacts on a person’s physiology and on their heart.

A List of Symptoms That Indicate You Need to let Go of Something

1. Someone who lacks LOVE in their lives – for this to occur, this means that the person does not love themselves. If you do not or cannot love yourself and are constantly criticizing yourself or others, then this is a sure sign of lack of love. 
2. If you do not love yourself your capacity to love another, fully, will be diminished. Your relationships will tend to be dependent, rather than interdependent.

This means that the person will experience resentment, be jealous or have feelings of insignificance. They will also be unable to forgive and move on. 

This will manifest as someone who criticizes others first, and then themselves. They have a deeply held notion of self-hatred, which they project onto others.

This person will feel shame and guilt. Yet they cannot see what part they play in the downfall of their relationships with others. They come from a position of victimhood and blame. Their self-talk will be negative.

The signs to look out for are symptoms of: criticism, having addictive personalities and not being happy. Constantly seeking reassurance.

Physical symptoms of distress and illness will include tendencies towards: adrenal issues, thyroid, pancreas. These people will generally have low energy. Low sex drive. And. Have excessive sugar cravings.

They could also have a tendency towards: diabetes, headaches, PMS, insomnia, insulin dependent weight issues. And. Vison problems and low sperm count.

2. If someone lacks JOY in their lives – it means they have feelings of worthlessness.  They will then experience depression, sadness, of feeling inferior or flawed. This then means this person will exhibit symptoms of feeling worthless, on some level. 

They will feel doomed. They will experience feelings of betrayal, abandonment and loss. They are constantly putting off being happy often expressing: “I will be happy when….”

If you are depressed, you are constantly suppressing, pushing your feelings down. You are not expressing who you are on any level. 

You most often will have lost a sense of who you really are. You will feel flawed. You will withdraw, not engage, because you don’t feel you can contribute meaningfully.

The physical issues can revolve around the skin, and oiliness of the hair.  You can experience burning, itchiness, cysts.  You might have eczema, acne, rashes or baldness. You can experience overwhelm and also apathy.

3. If someone lacks PEACE in their lives, it means that they are constantly feeling that something bad will happen in their lives. They will show symptoms of anxiety and worry.

They feel they don’t deserve peace. It’s useless to try. They can get angry about not being able to achieve peace in their lives. 

They often deflect their lack of peace deriding its’ importance. Because they often experience feelings of anxiousness and worry, they often feel flawed in some way. They exhibit control issues.

On a physical level they will experience gastrointestinal issues: stomach, bladder, liver or mouth issues. These people can also have: acid reflux, indigestion, diarhoea, heartburn or constipation. They can also experience bloating, and Crohn’s disease.

All of their problems revolve around the solar plexus area. The seat of power. How you experience yourself in the world and how you expect others to view you.

4. If someone lacks PATIENCE it means they will experience anger, frustration, insecurity, and have a desire for love substitutes e.g. drugs, alcohol, sugar and so on. These people display impatience in the hope that this will make things happen.

They are self-critical. They experience pain and loss when waiting around for anything to happen. They have to push, push, push. They try to force others to do what they want. Yes. They are constantly preparing for disappointment. They cannot rest. The priority is what they want. They want it now!

On a physical level these people experience the most immune issues. Stomach, bladder, colds, infections, auto-immune issues. These people can get blood clots, cold sores, bronchitis, or Parkinson’s disease.

5. If someone lacks KINDNESS, to themselves or others – it means they think that people will take advantage of them in lots of situations. 

Therefore, they exhibit symptoms of rejection, hurt and fear. When these people are in relationships, they often create drama – this typifies a lack of kindness. 

They are constantly manipulating the other person to get them to prove that they love them. If not, they feel rejected, and then they create other drama.

People who lack kindness in their lives have thoughts around this: “If they knew me, they would hate me”. As well as not being kind to themselves they perpetrate unkindness on others. Sometimes they are cruel. 

They fear that if they express kindness then they will be taken advantage of.  They often feel they deserve kindness but think there is not enough to go around.  So, they limit their offering.

Physically, their central nervous system is affected the most. The types of illnesses they have include: brain, spinal cord, peripheral nerves. 

They get head pains, numbness, viral infections and have memory issues. They are prone to: Alzheimer’s, dementia, Parkinson’s, hearing and ear problems, vision, nose and tinnitus issues.

6. If someone lacks the quality of GOODNESS it means that they feel “not good enough” – which we all do at some stage throughout our lives. In fact, this particular value/quality is at the heart of most of our relationship issues with self, or with others. These people will exhibit fear and shame.

These people think they are pathetic. They feel flawed because they feel they have tried everything. “I am a bad person.” “I will be rejected if people knew I was not a good person.” They feel the need to take everything by force. 

They often think that everyone is faking goodness. That most people are phony. They feel the need to be blunt – by being brutally honest.

Physically, the body system most commonly affected is the respiratory system, the lungs, the sinuses. They have breathing problems, mucous and inflammation. They are also prone to emphysema and asthma coughing.

7. If someone lacks the quality of TRUST this means they think people are out to get them. They tend not to have faith that things will work out. They definitely will not trust others, so they exhibit values such as distrust and judgment. They are very judgmental of others – which really means they are very judgmental of themselves because their primary care givers gave them reason to be.

“I deserve punishment because I am an awful person”. “I don’t know what it feels like to trust someone”. Because they have been let down severely in their early childhood by a significant other, they are not able to experience trust, on most levels. 

“If I trust then I get pain”. “Everyone is out for themselves”.  So, they do that too. They trust what they can see, feel and know. In essence, what they can control. They experience lack of faith and are judgmental.

Physically, those body systems most affected include: the urinary tract and the reproductive system. The types of health issues include: kidneys, uterus, vagina, prostrate, urethra. 

Most often they are infertile, have low sex drive, irregular periods, itching bladder and breast issues. Quite often they have miscarriages; have bed wetting, have kidney stones, leaky bladder, and menstrual cramps.

8. When people lack HUMILITY, it means that these people are saying to themselves that “people must think well of me for me to be okay”. So, they display signs of guilt, shame and envy.

They lack humility. They tend to think they are better than everyone else. Wrongful pride. They think that every time they feel good about themselves something bad will happen. 

They put off being humble to a later more successful period in their lives. They operate from a position of shame, guilt, envy and wrongful pride.

Physically they have issues with circulation. They can also have issues with: the heart, aorta, veins, arteries and lymph system. 

This can lead to heart failure, hypertension, aneurysm, and blood clots. The other types of health issues they suffer with include: deep vein thrombosis, irregular heartbeat, varicose veins and oedema.

  9. When people have lack of SELF-CONTROL it means they think that life is not fair. For example – “Why is my metabolism not working as efficiently as his/hers?” They are constantly comparing themselves to others. They will have a tendency to laziness and have a sense of entitlement.

“Why continue trying to do things because they don’t usually work out”. Self control is like an opponent that you have to constantly fight. They find it difficult to relax because, if they do, then their dark side takes over. Diets are difficult. 

They say things like: “I can stop x any time I want. I just don’t want to”. They delude themselves that it is more fun not having control. They think excess is a choice, not a weakness. They are lazy. They experience helplessness.

Physically, they experience muscular and skeletal problems. This includes: bones, cartilage, connective tissue and tendons. They get fractures, tumors, aching joints, inflammation and pain. Most often they get: arthritis, carpel tunnel, RSI, sciatica, bunions and osteoporosis.

A personal example of symptoms of not letting go:

I have suffered feeling “not good enough” my entire life. (My mother obviously experienced this throughout her life and has passed this on – in a big way).

My body system – the respiratory system – is what I have trouble with most. Sinus, sore throats etc.

How I react is that if someone criticizes me, initially I will turn it outwards and say that they are in the wrong. However, very soon afterward, I will turn this inwards and berate myself mercilessly. Always wanting to know what I did wrong.

So, that’s my behavior pattern.  In any kind of relationship. It’s a perpetual base of fear and shame, that, I am not good enough. I know this now and work to overcome it daily. You see, when someone has told you over and over again, throughout your life that you are not good enough, criticizing, rejection and so on, you tend to believe it. So, the only solution is to release the underlying belief of “not being good enough”, so that the behavior can normalize, and that criticism is not so potent. In essence, releasing the charge over that belief. It takes time and effort. However, eventually, you do feel better and stronger.

Your Task – if You Choose to Let Go and Move on

• Your job is to assess which negative emotions and behaviors you exhibit, and relate to most strongly. 
• To acknowledge that and accept that, not deny it. 
  then
• Choose to do something about it.   

In that way, you can start the letting go process.

Symptoms lead to consequences

Holding onto these values/ beliefs and repeating certain patterns of emotional response and behavior will lead to specific dis-eases or disease, especially if you have not been able to release the relevant underlying belief. This leads to you not to being able to let go.

If you want to move forward you need to be able to identify what beliefs you hold so that you can let go – of anything – more easily, and grow and change.

If you do not do anything about those symptoms you will create further health issues. So, you can see that repeating behaviour such as not being able to let go can lead to progressive ill health. Why? Because these erroneous interpretations of past experiences, have been stored in your muscles, tissues and organs and have heat attached. Negative energy. This negative energy is that which creates inflammation which is the beginning of disease, if untreated.

In summary: People exhibit certain symptoms when they hold specific values or beliefs and negative emotions about themselves. These issues lead to destructive behaviors. 

These negative issues can lead to dis-ease or disease, if we continue to repeat the patterns of behavior, which result from having those underlying issues. People will experience specific negative emotions and act out of these feelings, most often, not knowing why.

Quite often we do not understand what we do or why we do it. It takes courage to stop and assess, acknowledge and make a choice to let go and move on.

In the next section we will look at how and why we arrived at those specific symptoms. The objective is to show you what your major challenges in life are. 

These issues have an effect on your mind, your heart and your gut. Being able to let go of some of these issues will help you move towards those positive qualities of someone who has been able to let go. (See Section 3)

2: Identifying What You Need to Let Go Of

The Letting Go Framework – Uncovering the Reasons Why Symptoms Appear

My experience is that emotions and patterns of thought, feelings & behaviours lead to actions. Holding onto certain beliefs means that the energy attached to the relevant emotion, and the memory attached to that experience, that image, is being stored somewhere in a body system. Like stores with like.

If we understand some of the limiting beliefs that people continue to hold throughout life, we will be able to pinpoint what our own beliefs are. We will be able to make more rational choices.

How Triggers Work

If we experience a current event, or someone says something that triggers/brings up a memory, mostly, we will interpret that as being similar to a previous event (one of our deeply-held images).  What happens is that we pull up our coping strategy that we developed during early childhood. And. Without thinking about it, we repeat that old pattern of responses and behaviors, as if we are autonomans. Our old patterns are so in-grained that we have little control over these automatic responses.

This is how we respond to most situations in our current life. Yet we are unaware that this childhood coping strategy may now not be relevant, today. That means we continue to operate in an inappropriate way. We seem not to be able to change these habits of responses and behaviour, because it is so ingrained.

Change and Growth

People who are espouse “letting go” as being an important topic, generally have experienced great changes and growth in their own lives. Therefore, they want you to short-cut the pain, the grief, the sadness etc in your life, by helping you follow a certain path. By adopting certain strategies. Or. By following certain tips.

Let me tell you. Letting go is just not that simple to do. Why? Because most people have been hanging onto stuff forever. The thought of change and letting go is really scary. So, they generally opt for the safe option, and do nothing. They continue to live in quiet desperation.

Why? Because not only are the symptoms of not letting go not generally recognised, people quite often, don’t know what they need to let go of. Hence this framework, which will give you an insight and understanding of what you need to let go of.

The Framework behind understanding why it is so hard to let go – of anything – will show you your “why”. It will give you evidence that there is more happening underneath why you are finding it difficult to let go. Also, too, it will give you the impetus to finally be able to take action.

Your End Goal

Keep in mind the end goal of what you are trying to achieve and why it has been so hard. Generally, most people want to feel better in some way. However, most people do not know how to go about this.

Your greatest position of power as a human being is in the present. 
When you are conscious. When you are fully aware of what is happening and why things are happening. Only then, can you make sensible decisions about what action to take. That’s your end goal. That is how you will feel better.

From my experience as a stress and wellness specialist, the majority of people are not fully conscious, most of the time. They are going through the motions. Not being fully conscious, they are not aware, not present.

What does this mean?

Being present means that there is no past or future to worry about. You are in the moment. When you are able to keep your focus in the moment, your life will change. However, it takes getting rid of some stuff and retraining your body/mind to achieve this state on a regular basis.

Why are we so unconscious, not present?

Dr Bruce Lipton in his book titled: The Biology of Belief, indicates that humans are operating about 95% of the time, on automation. They have relegated tasks to their subconscious part of the brain, and therefore are only making actual decisions, 5% of the time.

So, if we know this, then that means the number of people who are present is very limited. Have you noticed yourself zotting away, looking out of the window, not paying attention often? It is very common.

Why do we keep zotting into the past and not being present?

The conscious mind desires creativity and creating new things. So, what happens is that daily tasks such as: showering, having breakfast, getting to work, checking emails and social media, responding to tasks, all get relegated to the subconscious. The conscious mind moves all of these things to the subconscious brain, as they are too menial for it to cope with. Your conscious brain is on stand-by waiting for the intuition, the creativity, the opportunity to get involved in something new and exciting. Daily tasks are not exciting. We may think we are making decisions every minute of every day. But we aren’t. We are going through the motions and repeating ingrained habits.

So, if you look at that explanation, then you can see why so many people can get bored with their work. There is no creativity. There is no control over what they do, or the outcome. Responsibility has been taken away.

You see, being present, making conscious decisions takes effort, concentration, focus and clarity. This is very hard for most people.

Your Wall

Now. The other thing is that there is a Wall, your nemesis, your great challenges in life, which have been created during your formative years. These challenges are what you need to overcome in order to let go and be more productive and present.  (I have coined this term: Wall – for easy understanding.)

At the core of our being, we all want to be in control. Or. Not feel we are controlled by others. We want to feel love and be loved. We want to feel secure and be able to trust others. So, if you are overwhelmed by issues, any kind of issues which involve letting go: pain, grief, loss, relationships and so on, it means that whatever is in your Wall needs to be resolved, let go of, so that you can move on.

Your Wall contains all of those things that keep holding you back.
In the framework below I will show you what is in your WALL. In Sections 5 and  Section 6 – we will look at proven strategies that work. These will help you overcome some of these challenges.

The Framework

– The Development Of Your Mindset

Mindset evolves from what you hold in your brain/mind. It is made up of your thoughts, words, feelings and behaviours that have been hardwired into this CPU – Central Processing Unit – your Brain. That is the brain’s primary function – to process.

This CPU processes those thoughts etc and interprets these events, then matches them up against other past experiences, then makes decisions. These decisions become beliefs. They help create how you view the world, your reality and your attitudes.

So, this CPU creates your prism for viewing the world, your lens, your perception – your life-time framework against which you assess everything that you feel you need to compare. And. We are comparing non-stop daily. Thousands and thousands of bits of information come into our sphere of influence daily, over which we make a judgement. Is it important? Is it not?

The prism, which was built – and very solidly – by the time you were six years of age, is the framework by which you measure current day events and situations. The quality of this lens will determine how you view the world. The quality is determined by the appropriateness of your beliefs – are they rational or not? Are they easily defendable? Are they for the good of all, or for evil?

Necessarily this means that how you view the world will determine which events you perceive as being opportunities or which events you determine as being unfruitful. In essence, your perception limits your opportunities.

Perception is different for each person. So, this means communication between entities can be fraught with pitfalls and danger, especially in personal relationships. We expect people to see things the way we see them. But we don’t.  Disharmony in relationship is primarily determined by perception. Perception is determined by what other things comprise your Wall.

Mismatching lenses and not being present, conscious, is what causes many of the current issues today.

So, how do you arrive at your individual perception lens, the prism by which you judge events, situation and people?

It is via the journey you have taken throughout your life in order to survive the environment in which you were born. I call this Your Stress Journey. Because the prime objective of a child born into a specific family is to survive that environment, to download the programs deemed necessary for survival, to learn and grow, to develop, then go into the world ready to operate independently.

As you can see from the diagram below your stress journey starts with your family of origin. This group of people are primary influencers throughout your life and in particular when you are downloading programs for survival, copying behaviour, and learning how to respond, and so on.

– Your Stress Journey

The job of the parents or primary care givers is to teach you how to survive. The child then downloads programs of survival that these parents are teaching them because they think they are relevant. The child observes. They copy. They experience. They feel. They group like experiences with like. They develop coping strategies to survive that environment. They interpret. They make instinctive decisions based on emotions. They create beliefs – “if that happens it means this – therefore every time that happens it means this and this is how I will react, because that coping strategy worked before”.

Looking at the diagram above, p 1 of The Stress Journey, you can see these things about a child’s perception lens, and how it is heavily influenced by:

• Their family of origin, their opinions, beliefs and those racial memories handed done through the generations
• Their environment – personality traits, what programs these families think and feel are important
• All of the experiences they have, what they learn, what they think and feel about those experiences
• The interpretation of those experiences – which will also be influenced by the opinions, experiences and beliefs of their primary care givers
• From that they develop coping strategies of how to survive those people; that situation; that environment they find themselves in; those experiences that are unique to that family of origin.
• They assess and reassess these coping strategies through repetition. This leads to habitual responses, patterns of behaviour, and best strategies.

An example: say a child had learned a particular way of responding in an environment e.g. by being aggressive and angry and creating drama. This coping strategy will be stored in an image. And. Later in life, when the person is triggered, they will bring up that image and compare it with a current event, and necessarily, unconsciously, react the same way they did when they were small. They repeat “learned” responses and behaviour from their childhood.

This then cements beliefs about themselves, their environment and how they perceive themselves and others, in the world.

So, this means that, later, as an adult, they will continue to react/respond to situations that they judge to be similar, throughout life, the same way they have been repeating their entire lives.

Therein lies the problem. If someone continues to react/respond in an habitual way, and is not aware that they are doing this, this then will create havoc in relationships. All relationships. With others and with self.

So, you can see people behaving childishly yet not knowing that they do, and therefore not knowing how to change, because that is what they have always done.

– The Stress Journey (continued – page 2 diagram)

Page 2 of the Stress Journey shows how this early childhood development, generally up to the age of six, affects, and continues to affect, our current lives.

On page 1 of the diagram we arrived at patterns of behaviour. In times of threat, we operate out of habit, out of fear, out of those old patterns we have developed.

We go through life experiencing new things with our original perception lens. We don’t change it readily! Or easily.

Everything is made up of energy. We humans are also bundles of energy. Energy vibrates. In life we vibrate at a certain frequency, generally the frequency we adopted when we were little, unless we have done some work on ourselves. This frequency mirrors this early environment.

The signals that we emit and project mean we will continue to attract into our lives, people, situations, events and experiences that mirror that early environment. Why? Because we perceive that early status as our “normal”. That’s what we’ve been taught. What we are used to. What we easily identify with. If our “normal” is abusive we will tend to attract people and situations that are like this. These situations and events and people will be vibrating at the same or similar frequency.

So, if we meet new people later in life, most often these people will not have had the same experiences. They will be dissimilar. They will have different perception lenses. If we are not able to get our needs met easily, or our expectations met, this will result in us feeling threatened in some way. When we feel unsafe, it is as though people are threatening our very survival, our existence. All relationship can be fraught with feelings of danger or fear.

This is a basic stress response mechanism. We feel threatened then we react in a certain way. It is automatic. We often feel insecure or threatened by people who don’t have the same perception lenses.

If we are not able to resolve those stressful events, triggers, or are not able to express how we feel at the time, this then gets bottled up. In order to release the stress, we then start to abuse our body/minds with: thoughts, feelings of worth, attitudes, food, alcohol, sugar, drugs, medication and so on. This means our Stress Barrel – how much stress we carry around – gets filled up.

In order to reduce the contents of the Stress Barrel, we need to take something out. We need to let go of something.

If we don’t do this and learn new strategies, we will continue to have a full barrel. We will be affected by the contents of the barrel.

There is a tipping point in the Stress Barrel when it gets to the limit of what you can cope with. When that happens, you will tend towards illness and disease.  If you do not learn how to resolve stress issues in your life you will continue to impact on your health, emotional life, your mental health and your spiritual life. So, you need to resolve some of the stuff that is in the barrel and release it in order to cope more effectively in your current life.

So, this is about taking something out, not adding to what you are already doing with new tasks and new behaviours. People have busy lives. They generally do not have a lot of time to add extra tasks to their daily schedule. For this reason, I believe it is too hard to add more to your already burdened busy schedule.

So, the content of your barrel could be:

A. – Past Components

* your negative emotions/feelings

* your attitudes

* your behaviours

* your learned coping strategies

* your thoughts

* your opinions

* your interpretations of events

* your “learned” response to stressful events

* your habits

* your patterns of behaviours

In addition, other components of your Stress Barrel could include:

B. – Current Events

1. Family relationships
2. Romantic relationships
3. Your job/work environment
4. Someone at work
5. Addictive behaviours:
   • Alcohol
   • Excessive coffee
   • Excessive sugar
   • Excessive fatty food
   • Drugs
   • Medications
   • Other behaviours and habits

Please note: If you want to live differently and feel better, you have to take something out of the barrel. This is not about putting in or adding anything. It’s about letting go, releasing those things that are holding you back so you can move on.

Hint: List A are deeply-held issues that have created your perception lens and how you view the world.

List B are things that you can do as a secondary consequence, after you begin to feel better.

Alternatively, you can take 1 or 2 items from List A + 1 or 2 items from List B, and do them together. (I will outline a suggested strategy for you later).

To encourage change and growth you want to do the easiest, most simple thing first.  That which will give you the greatest impact.

I prefer the easy way. Don’t you?

Why is it so hard to let go?

The key to understanding issues, why it has been so hard to let go, is to uncover those underlying issues/limiting beliefs you hold. By understanding what comprises your Stress Barrel, and your Wall, will give you a more direct approach.                  

The Stress Journey Framework, is the basic framework helping you discover what underlies any issue around letting go, especially if you continue to wallow in self-defeating emotions and behaviours.

For those who are more auditory check out this short video on how specific beliefs affect specific body systems. – an audio on the Stress Journey.

Actions You Can Take

So, your job is to find out the major, the most important limiting belief, that is holing you back. Hint: everyone has, at some level, felt not good enough. If you go back to the symptoms above and see what body system is being affected most, e.g. sinus issues, and you can then take comfort that this symptom tells you that that particular belief, is related to that body system. Where you store your beliefs gives you clues as to what negative beliefs you hold.

The key to a better life, a life of growth and change is, being able to answer these questions:

Do you want to change and grow?

Do you feel strongly enough to change?

Are these repetitive behaviours and responses which elicit such unwanted outcomes, (outcomes that you no longer desire), sufficient for you to take charge of your life, and do something about letting go of whatever it is you need to, in order to move forward?

Those are the relevant questions.

From my point of view most people are unaware of these underlying issues. They do not realise these issues control their behaviours and response patterns and habits. Therefore, they are not capable of taking positive action. And. The really scary part is, that there is no magic pill to make them go away.

Letting go and moving on is a process that takes time.

It takes as long as it takes. There are pitfalls. And backward steps. And sometimes only tiny steps forward. However, the rewards can be very positive and meaningful. Taking these kinds of steps can lead to happiness, joy and contentment.

We outlined how and why you arrived at your Wall, those challenges that persist throughout your life. We looked at the accumulation of “stuff” in your Stress Barrel. If you do not deal with some of those issues and overcome these challenges and let go. You will never be able to move on in a meaningful way.

A List of the Main Underlying Beliefs You Need to Let Go Of.

These beliefs are the cause of the symptoms you are experiencing and which were, broadly, listed above. How they are worded may be different for you. However, the context is similar.

Stress triggers our responses and patterns of behaviour.

This stress is what we experienced in our early childhood. What we captured as images and what coping strategies we apply to help us survive threats, is at the basis of ALL current and past issues. The only difference is what triggers each response. Each person’s trigger will be different based on their prior learnings.

 The following beliefs, you may have all of them, or some. We will each have, at least, three major ones. As I said earlier, everyone has the underlying belief of “not being good enough” at some stage in their lives.

1. No LOVE = the underlying general belief is:  I am unlovable.
2. No JOY = the underlying general belief is: I am worthless.
3. No PEACE – the underlying general belief is: Something bad will happen.
4. No PATIENCE = the underlying general belief is: Patience doesn’t make things happen.
5. No KINDNESS = the underlying general belief is: People will take advantage of me.
6. No GOODNESS = the underlying general belief is: I am not good enough.
7. No TRUST = the underlying general belief is:  People are out to get me.
8. No HUMILITY = the underlying general belief is:  People must think well of me for me to be okay.
9. No SELF CONTROL = the underlying general belief is:  It’s not fair.

In summary: If you are finding it difficult to let go of anything – emotions, patterns of behaviour, relationships, bad career or something else, this means that underlying this “non-action” by you, are certain beliefs that continue to govern your current life, even though they have passed their use-by-date, and are no longer relevant to you success in your current life. This is your Wall in life. That which you need to resolve in some manner, in order to be able to change and grow. You have to be able to release these things to feel better.

Unfortunately, most people are not sufficiently conscious, aware, or present, to understand which of these self-limiting beliefs continue to control them. Writers talk about letting go of something in your past so that you can move forward, change and grow. However, they generally do not outline what these things are.

In the next section we will look at the qualities of someone who has been able to “let go and move on”, and the benefits of doing so.

As we said in the beginning, letting go is not easy. Yet. The benefits derived can bring you great joy, purpose, and a newly fashioned identity.

3: The Power of Letting Go: 3 Crucial Benefits

Necessarily, when someone is able to let go of things in their Wall, primarily, some of those old beliefs that keep them stuck in repetitive negative behaviours and responses, they will begin to experience a new reality. This reality will enable them to feel more positive. Be more powerful, make better choices and decisions. And. Hence, be able to live a more productive and happy life.

Traditionally, many people have indicated that in order to let go of these old, negative, limiting beliefs, all you need to do is to be able to identify them and do some rituals, and all will be well.

This is simply not so. Because the underlying issues that help keep you stuck (in the past) are so ingrained, you will need extra help to be able to let them go more easily. And. Because I hate pain, I personally use any tool, technique or therapist who will help me get to a state of being “pain-free”, as soon as possible. You might feel the same way too! We will discuss those later in Section 6)

As humans, we operate from three main perspectives. These were identified in Hale Dwoskin’s book, The Sedona Method, as:

• Love
• Trust/security and
• Control

When dealing with this topic of crucial benefits, we need to make sure we cover these perspectives, otherwise we are not doing service to how humans operate, and what their underlying needs are.

Amanda Blake, in her book titled: Your Body is Your Brain, articulates that the brain developed from evolutionary pressures around the human need for:

• The need for physical safety
• The need for emotional communication and
• The need for social navigation

Reconciling these with Dwoskin’s three points, they equate to:

• Safety = trust and security
• Emotional connection = love
• Social navigation = our need to control

So, that’s why we are dealing with these aspects first.

Love

Humans want to be loved by others and be able to express love for others. One of the biggest single impediments to a fulfilled life in adulthood, is the withdrawal of love by a parent or a primary care giver during early childhood viz. “Mummy will not love you if you do….”

The fear that is engendered within a child could well be of seismic proportions. It is traumatic. (Contrary to what people understand trauma to be, for a sensitive child, withdrawal of love is traumatic. Obvious trauma such as physical abuse or being shot at, is very traumatic. However, in the world of a child who is trying to survive their environment, being ostracised can leave deep scars.)

So, if the child has experienced an “actual” rejection or even a “perceived” rejection, or threat to their survival, this memory can become deeply embedded as an image which will be stored for future reference of how to deal with situations later in life.

The adult will most probably find it difficult to show love or to trust sufficiently to accept love. Why? Because they have experienced “pain” of some kind when they did try to love. They will have feelings of abandonment, which can lead to feelings of loss, grief and depression.

Trust/Security

Humans need to feel secure within themselves, within relationships and within their work environment. They need to be able to rely on those around them, especially their loved ones, from whom they need to feel supported and nurtured. If the child has experienced betrayal by a parent or primary care giver, then this memory is also stored as an image. This image will be accessed if the adult feels betrayal later in life.  

For example, if the parent has promised the child they will attend their school concert and the parent never turns up, constantly makes excuses and is generally untrustworthy on other levels, the child will come to feel neglected, and will tend to develop feelings of lack of trust of this person, who is so crucial to their early development.

The child will develop feelings of insignificance. They will feel betrayed, insecure and will have on-going trust issues throughout life. If they don’t feel secure then they will feel that their safety is being threatened. They will be in a constant state of fight or flight. They will be stressed.

Control

As a child who is downloading programs of survival from their parents or primary care givers, they have little or no control over what is being fed to them. However, as they get a little older, they develop coping strategies of how to survive that environment in which they were born. So, they test out survival strategies.

For example, the child might think: When my Mum does this (perhaps yelling at the child), the child interprets it as x. So, they adopt coping strategies: “I will go to my room, I will not say anything. I will sulk. I will get angry”. Or. “I will tell her something positive to make her happy”. The child has found that one or more of these strategies will make the yelling stop.

The act of yelling is a threat to their survival, their life. They adopt coping strategies so that they can protect their lives. So, they can have some modicum of control over this environment.

Later in life, depending on the severity of the “control” lessons learned, the adult will experience the need to feel in control of their own lives. Additionally, many people will try to control others.

Severe control issues lead to OCD, (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) anxiousness and over-concern about the smallest detail. They will be difficult to live with because of the need to control their environment to keep them feeling safe.

So, from the previous section above, which identified nine major beliefs to be let go of, necessarily, when these are let go of, they will lead to these nine benefits listed below.

And. Necessarily, these benefits will cover aspects dealing with those three perspectives: love, trust and control.

The nine major qualities of someone who has let go

In essence, this list results from letting go of those nine beliefs, above.

The qualities you will increase when you learn to let go include:

• Have love of self and others
• Have joy in their lives
• Have peace
• Have patience
• Are kind to themselves and others
• At their core they have goodness, and feel good enough
• Have trust in the relationships they have with self and others
• Exhibit humility
• And exhibit self-control

And. Once you have filled your life with more love, joy, peace, goodness and so on, you will necessarily gain these additional benefits below:

• Are consciously aware
• Are present
• Take responsibility
• Acknowledge issues and can take appropriate action
• Are constantly increasing their knowledge, tools and skills
• Have the value of life-time learning
• Do not create drama
• Are inter-dependent in relationships
• Are able to grieve and acknowledge death and loss and let go when the time is right
• Do not take themselves too seriously
• Are willing to change and grow

… and there could well be many more.

So, if you choose to go down the “letting go” path then some, or of all of these benefits can be gained.

So, when we look at the framework of making sure we cover the three aspects of human needs: love, trust and control, we come up with those benefits which are described as being crucial. Why? Because they bring more of those aspects, more easily.

The Three Crucial Benefits of Letting Go

1.Loving yourself first

At the heart of insignificance, of failure, of not feeling good enough because we have kept repeating non-productive patterns of negative behaviours, is this: that we do not love ourselves sufficiently well. Because of our early experiences we have put ourselves down constantly, misinterpreted meanings and generally made our WALL insurmountable. These things lead us to feeling a lack of love for ourselves.

By doing the work of letting go, if you only achieve this one thing in your life, and that is, being able to love yourself, then you will have achieved more wealth in self-worth than you could imagine.

Loving yourself means that you start to take care of your own needs first, before helping others. If you don’t love yourself how can you have a meaningful romantic relationship with another? This is not a selfish act. It is about being the best version of you, you can be. It’s about nourishing and nurturing yourself. It’s about growing and learning. It’s about having fun. It’s about creating joy in life.

Because you are the most important person in your life, this is the number one crucial benefit you will gain, when you learn to let go.

2. Increased awareness

When you are able to let go of those negative responses, behaviours and habits that have been holding you back, you will find yourself becoming more present. What that means is that you are not constantly zotting back into the past or the future. You are staying put because that is where you have the greatest control over your own life, thoughts, emotions and actions.

If you are constantly blaming others for your plight, you are not present. You become a victim and hold onto resentment and unforgiveness. You will be stuck in insecurity and lack of trust.

You have to take responsibility. You will be able to do that when you are present. Necessarily, you will be loving yourself more.

3.Empowerment

This is a crucial benefit of letting go.

Take a look at the diagram below.

If you are stressed you are out of control and you are stuck in negativity: fear, doubt, judgment, criticisms, blame and so on. These are all fear-based emotions. They keep you stuck below the line, in negativity.

However, when you can let go of “stuff” (whatever that is for you) you will begin to move out of fear and into love. You will feel more gratitude, more appreciation, more kindness, more goodness towards yourself and others. You will be able to change your DNA from negative to positive. Your attitudes will change. You will feel different. You will act differently. This new base is positivity. Positivity is where your greatest position of power is. It is above the line. Being above the line gives you total control over your life. It gives you more love. You gain greater focus and clarity, and hence you become more aware.

Yes. When you release any negative beliefs, patterns of behaviours, habits or attitudes, you gain ALL of the other benefits listed above. However, to my mind, the absolute three crucial benefits gained are:

You will be able to love yourself more. This will lead to greater awareness, helping you move above the line into positivity. And. Necessarily, this leads to your position of true power, being present. When you are present you become empowered. Then you will gain trust in your ability and begin to feel more secure in your own identity.

From my perspective, when people gain more knowledge about what is really happening in their lives, then they can take proper action, and not before. You simply cannot follow tips and strategies unless, and until, you have cleared some of the gunk that is holding you back.

Then it will be a real choice for you, because you then will have the information needed.  You can choose not to do anything. Or. You can choose to change and grow.

In summary: The qualities of someone who has let go or who continues to pursue that path is someone who is a decision-maker, who wants to change and grow and who is a life-time learner. It takes courage and commitment. They work on themselves so that they can become more aware, be more present, and love themselves more. They exhibit positive qualities and continue to strive to get better, so they can change and grow.

Knowing where your position of power is and what you need to do in order to be at that place is now a choice. In that position, being present, you will become more conscious and aware. This means that you will be back in control.

In the next section, having looked at symptoms, definitions and benefits of letting go, and gaining an understanding of what we are letting go of, we will now look at some of the myths surrounding this topic of letting go. Sometimes the issues involved in the topic of letting go and moving on, have been glossed over, misunderstood or taken too lightly. This leads to misinformation and lack of knowledge. This can lead to failure to let go of “stuff”. Because of this, sometimes, it can mean that people find it just too hard to do.

4: Myths About Letting Go

In the sections above we learned about your Stress Journey and how your Stress Barrel gets filled with stuff as you go through life, trying to cope, to survive your environment/s, to feel safe from “actual” or “perceived” threats to your life.

When the barrel gets filled to the brim, necessarily you will have a major stress reaction.

In order to feel better, you need to take something out of your barrel. You need to stop doing something. You need to change behaviour in some way.

Proponents of “letting go” say you need to let go of something: a habit, a belief, a person, a situation and so on.

The question for you is: do you just want to “feel better”, which may be temporary? Or. Do you want to “heal” on some level?

If your objective is to “heal” and be free of those issues that bring you down, you are regularly dealing with, then you will need to make that decision.

You see. Going down the “healing” path is, and can be, a long, slow process. Yes. You can do non-harmful things to help yourself “feel better” along the way. However, in order to gain lifetime change, improvement or growth, you do have to make a choice between the two options, temporary v healing.

My Personal Experience

Over ten years ago, I was in a work situation that was not conducive to my personality profile. This meant I had to push, push, push, mentally, emotionally and physically to stay on the job and appear competent. This “pushing” destroyed me spiritually. My soul was crushed because I was unable to put up my hand and say I wasn’t coping. I felt if I did, I would be considered a failure.

So, instead of speaking up and expressing my concerns, I sacrificed my health for the appearance of competence and success.

I was in burnout. This state is vegetative. A very negative state.

Needless-to-say, by pushing myself mentally, I became emotionally and physically overwhelmed. My health suffered enormously.

I did not know where to turn. Who to seek advice from because all the doctor would say was that I was depressed, and give me some medication. I needed to rebuild my health, repair, not suppress anymore feelings.

Part of the coping strategies I adopted included: alcohol abuse, coffee and sugar overload, junk food, cigarettes and wallowing in self-pity, hurt and pain.

At some stage you will need to make a choice, as I did. I wanted to feel better and to heal because I decided I could no longer indulge in the self-destroying habits, behaviours, thoughts and coping strategies I had used. Otherwise. Eventually, I would have become an alcoholic, and would have moved towards diabetes, arthritis, heart disease or something else.

So, the first point is that you need to decide to change your life in some way. Only then can you move towards healing and experience a happier, healthier self.

Okay. So, you’ve chosen to go down the “letting go” path. Let’s look at the major myths around this topic.

Myth 1. That you only need to let go of one major issue, belief, habit or behaviour once, and you will be healed.

“Letting go” is a process. It can be a long and slow process. And. It can be on-going. You have to keep revisiting the same old wounds because emotional hurts don’t just go away, simply because we have made a decision to follow that path.

In the section above, we learnt about images of our early childhood experiences that we capture and store in places within our body/mind. These images are made up of energy. These images can also be very ingrained into our psyche.  Why? Because we have repeated the thoughts and behaviour, over and over throughout our lives. In effect, we are adding more negative energy to that original image. And. Or. We are adding other, newer, similar images on top of that original image.

It has been suggested that we have about 50,000 thoughts each day. Most of them are repetitive. Most of them are negative. For example: if we think we are not good enough and experience these thoughts daily, we will be constantly adding more fuel to that initial energy within that image.

So, when we start on our journey of wanting to let go of, say, a belief, we will need to be doing this “letting go”, many, many times.

The corollary to this is that energy does not change form. It can be dissipated. Reduced. At best, what we are doing when we start the “letting go process” is, that each time we work on an issue, we release the charge around that issue. So, over time, when we are triggered to respond again, eventually, we won’t be bothered responding.  Why?  Because the heightened charge, and therefore the meaning within that image, and which can be, attached to the current event triggering a response, will have been already been reduced.

That is what we are doing when we “let go”. We are reducing the charge around an issue, so that eventually most of the charge is dissipated, and we forget about that issue and focus on something more important. 

You see, you can’t get rid of feelings or images or memories. The “letting go process” involves reducing the heightened charge around the issue.

So, keep that in mind. All we are doing is reducing the negative charge. We don’t actually “let go” in the sense of it forever disappearing out of our body/mind. When we use the “letting go process” we are helping ourselves heal from constantly focusing on that particular issue or belief, such that it will no longer continue to create distress.

Myth 2: “Letting Go” means you won’t have full control over your life

We learnt earlier that needing to be in control or to control others is a big issue for humans. It is a need. Primarily, because we feel stressed or threatened, with an actual or a perceived issue, we necessarily seek to control things around us.

When in reality, it’s the opposite. When you let go of issues and beliefs that keep you focused on harmful actions, thoughts and behaviours, this “letting go process” helps you move out of the subconscious mind, where you operate out of fear, threat and automatic behavioural responses, and into the realm of the conscious mind. When you can operate out of the conscious mind, which is the home of planning, strategy and decision-making, you move into a position of being able to control how, when, or if, you will respond. Being unconscious means lack of control. Being conscious means more control.

When you are able to reduce the charge on an image, you, in effect, gain back control, because you will be able to shift focus, and move consciousness, back onto things, that you really want to do.

I’m sure you’ve heard of this saying: “Let go and let God.” The greatest form of control you can experience is to offer up your pains, hurts and worries to a higher power (or the Universe) and say: “It’s yours. Do with it what you will. I trust that all will be well. I will be guided by you.” That’s called: faith and trust. This can be a scary proposition. No more worries. But. It is oh, so liberating!

Myth 3: That by “Letting Go” you will suddenly become more successful

That would be a miraculous effect. However, success is cumulative. What can happen is that if you do not suddenly feel magically different, just like all those people who have successfully achieved growth, change or improvement by following a specific list of tips, you can still feel guilt or shame. Why? Because some of these examples of successful “let goers” try to imply that it’s you own fault if you are continuing to struggle.

They imply you are not doing it right somehow. Or. You don’t have the commitment. Or some other reason of blame.

A better approach might be that the particular strategy you adopted may not be as effective for you. That perhaps there’s a better therapy or model you need to follow.

The other hidden issue could be that you have hidden guilt and you benefit in some way from holding onto that issue. Why? Because it’s something you can talk about, gain sympathy, or gain attention from. This is called a secondary gain. If you gain some benefit of some kind, say sympathy, then, if you give that issue up, you might not get that comfort and attention. People often find comfort in being a victim.

Myth 4: Continuing to feel old feelings is bad – it means the “letting go“  process, has failed for me

What we learned above is that images contain energy. The energy of the negative feelings such as pain, hurt or rejection and so on.  These feelings come up when we are reminded of past experiences. As a Western culture, we have learned to suppress these feelings. We push them back down. How? We usually put something into our mouths: we eat, drink, take drugs, cigarettes or medication. These temporary measures may make us feel better in the short term. However, if we continue with this process, it can lead to illness in later life.

So, starting the “letting go” process, whereby you release a belief, a habit or behaviour, will necessarily help release some of these underlying feelings. In order to heal, get well, feel better, you need to be able to sit in those feelings and experience them again, when they arise.  In order to be able to have more control over releasing these thoughts that arise, what you can ask yourself is: “what does this mean?” If no obvious answers arise, go inwards and feel the feelings within your body. Locate them. Then, breathe through these feelings. Doing this will help you dissipate the charge around them. Or. Simply feel the feeling. Stay with it. But be brave enough to sit there until the charge has been released.

Myth 5: If I “let go” of how I feel – angry or resentful about a person, if I forgive them, they will remain unpunished. I have to remain vigilant and focused on this person and continue to assign blame to them.

“Letting go” does involve forgiveness on some level. Sure. For the person who did you wrong, you may have very good reasons for feeling angry or resentment towards them. They may continue to haunt you in some way. They may not have received the just punishment within the community or at law.

However, forgiveness is not about them. It’s about you being able to disconnect energetically from the ties that bind you to that past hurtful experience or person. Such an event keeps you stuck in blame, revenge, anger, resentment and victimhood. This means you will experience these negative emotions and will continue to harm yourself with those feelings. The other person may not even think of you, ever. So, your energy is being wasted.

When you ask for forgiveness, you are asking for forgiveness for yourself, that you allowed yourself to become stuck in that space of self-defeating mire of muck. When you forgive yourself first, you will allow yourself to be free of that energetic tie.

Myth 6: You will suddenly become more loving and lovable

No. You won’t. Why? Because you have trained yourself to be stuck below the line in negativity. In fear, doubt, judgment, criticism, guilt and so on. So, because negativity has been your default position for responding to stressful situations, when you commence the “letting go process”, necessarily, this will bring up resistance. Resistance to change. To the unknown. To feeling insecure.  All the fears you could possibly imagine will surface.

Be aware that a decision to change, whether great or small change, will bring up resistance. This resistance can be heavily disguised as: tiredness, illness, feelings of sadness, or lack of self-worth. It can be sudden busyness and lack of time. It can manifest as outside dramas or family issues.  Just be on guard.

Myth 7: Following lists of tips will guarantee your success

I’ve seen short lists. Long lists. And. Extra long lists of tips. Most of them have been written by people who have been able to let go of their own issues (well, some of them, anyway), and who have found that, this particular list works for them.

However, they may not work for you. Why? Because, in my experience, people who are at the beginning of their self-improvement journey, are generally so overwhelmed, exhausted and stressed out, they simply cannot find extra time in their day to add more things to do. My experience indicates you need to take things out of your Stress Barrel first. Then, later, as you start to feel better, by all means add things like: exercise, more vegetables or drinking more water. Remember. It’s about easy!

Myth 8: I should be able to solve this “letting go” stuff within a few months/or couple of years

Ok. You may be the exception. However. I wish it were that simple. That has not been my experience. It’s a life-long journey.  You have some work to do on letting go of stuff. It may go something like this. You let go of stuff. You feel better. You stop. You plateau. More stuff comes up, perhaps the same stuff as before. You do the work. You stop. And so, the process continues like that, indefinitely.

However, since you are the most important person in your life, going on your own self-discovery journey can be the most rewarding thing you achieve, ever. You never cease to learn and grow. It is a life-long journey. However, the good news is: that the periods between stopping and starting, doing the work again, becomes longer, as you experience greater benefits, because you will have implemented new, more positive habits, thoughts, and attitudes. In effect your DNA will have changed from a negative default position to one that is more positive, above the line. 

And. That is the place we are heading. To be above the line. Where your energy will vibrate at a more positive energy rather than a negative energy level. You will become more empowered as you become more present and you will learn to love yourself more, naturally. 

In all cases, unless and until you deal with the underlying issues which are the real cause of your distress or unrest, you will continue to spiral further downwards, becoming more sensitive emotionally, mentally and physically. So, your goal is to stop that from happening.

In summary: You can see that letting go is a process. It may indeed by a life-long journey. Letting go is about taking the charge out of the images that govern our experiences, habits and behaviours. When you can do that you will be able to move forward. Being present and in the moment, instead, is where your greatest power lies. From our framework above you may now see that perhaps, if you are having a hard time letting go, this then means, that there is something in your Wall, that is blocking your success.

It takes decision, commitment, perseverance and courage. It takes ongoing practice. Find the tools, techniques or tips that will work for you. Because you will not suddenly be more successful. It takes work.

In the next section we will look at some broad strategies that do work. These have all stood the test of time. These may not be obvious. However, from my experience and training and what I teach, these broad strategies are some of the easiest ways for you to break down some of your Wall. I have used all of these methodologies and continue to do so. Why? Because when you download programs for survival throughout your early childhood, you, as a child, adopt and take on board those “learned” coping strategies that have worked for you, and have helped you cope in life. This means that you will have repeated these coping strategies many times.  They are ingrained patterns of behaviour. This then means that they have become embodied within your body/mind, and are part of how you act and respond, on an on-going basis.  This means that you will have to do the work to release these patterns, and continue to release issues many times over, along your journey, in order to arrive at your position of power.

5: 12 Strategies to Help You Let Things Go

In my own career and throughout life, my Wall has continued to give me grief. The patterns of how to cope and survive in my early childhood environment that I learnt, were deeply ingrained. This has meant that I have had to work on myself, on an on-going basis. This does not mean that there are not joys, and happiness, and peaks. It means there are level-offs, and dips, and sadness and grief, as well. So, it is on-going.

However, because I have deliberately chosen to go along on this path, I am willing to do that work.

My goal for you is, to give you tools and techniques that have been proven to work over thousands of people world-wide, over a long period of time, so that you too, can benefit.

Some of these methods, you can do on your own. Others you will need a therapist, a coach or mentor.

As part of my framework for helping people heal, I approach this from a different perspective. For example, many people say: start with your end goal in mind and then develop and plan and a strategy and then take action.

This is a big no, no for beginners in the self-improvement journey. Why? Because your ability to set and achieve goals will be practically zilch. And. We do not want to add further feelings of failure to your basket of negative emotions you already have.

So, for those reasons I developed My Model of Wellness – From Stress to Success. Theorists say, you have to heal your mind first. You need to consciously “get it”, the “aha” moment, before you can move forward. However, I have found this to be too hard for people who are exhausted, stressed, overwhelmed or low in energy. How I approach wellness or wellbeing, letting go, is from an holistic approach. Some of the steps in my Model can be taken concurrently, or out of order. However, steps 4 and 5 need to be taken in order. ( You can download a Free Copy here: https://www.stresstosuccess.com.au/free-resources/the-from-stress-to-success-model/ )

These five steps of the From Stress to Success Model of Wellness are:

Step 1: REPAIR

When you perceive that you have an issue that you need to deal with, the first step is, you need to lance the boil. Yes. Sounds gross, but it’s true. You have to take something out of your Stress Barrel. Necessarily, this will leave a hole which needs to be repaired. You can repair with the following methodologies below.

Step 2: RELEASE

I liken inappropriate negative beliefs as being like a stake in your chest. You walk around with these stakes but you don’t know they are there. Everyone is walking around with them. In order to start the healing process, you need to take out that first stake. This will most probably be a major negative belief – one of the nine we listed above. Doing so, can make you feel empty. So, you will also need on-going repair work to help you heal these new holes.

Step 3: RENEW

We’ve lanced the boil and taken out one of the stakes and we have been instigating release and repair work on ourselves. We now need to renew, nurture and nourish our body/mind so that it will heal faster.  How do we do that? We now top up your barrel with good food, water, vitamins and minerals, good sleep and exercise. Plus, any other technique that nurtures you.

Step 4: RECREATE

This step is about clarifying who you are at your core. Your true identity. This step helps you get back onto your true path. It will help you utilise your true, innate skills, talents and abilities. It is simply a waste of time doing Step 4 before you clear up some of the earlier gunk. Then,

Step 5: RECLAIM

Having repaired, released and renewed and recreated who you are at an identity level, then, and only then, will you be able to set meaningful goals, that are truly aligned with who you are.

If you try to set goals prior to these cleansing processes you will most likely fail. Why? Because your body/mind will still be stuck in negativity because you will not have released anything useful.

So, when we go through this and the next section, and you have made your decision that you want to go down this “healing” path, rather than the temporary “feeling better” path, how to start off, is, by making intentions, not setting goals, per say.

Intentions

You intend to heal.  You intend to repair.  You intend to release some gunk and so on. As opposed to setting a target, a goal, e.g.” It is December 15^th, and I am now 70 kgs.” Far too stressful. Take itty bitty steps that will guarantee progress and success.

So, when I am assessing a tool, technique, strategy or tip, I weigh them up against my Model of Wellness – From Stress to Success, to determine where it might fit, and whether it would be appropriate to use during the cleansing process or afterwards. Why? Because the overall goal is to help you improve in some way, as easily as possible.

Here are the Broad Strategies that deal with love and fear and all of the negative issues based around those two categories of emotions:

a. The Sedona Method

If you have a chance to read the Sedona Method by Hale Dwoskin, you will gain more of an understanding of this. At the basis of his methodology are three main behaviours that affect everything we do.

1. We either have love or we feel rejected
2. We either have security and trust or we feel insecure
3. We either have control or we feel out of control

So, if you examine everything you do in fine detail, you will see that these three principles do in fact, have great merit.

One of the methodologies, when you become more present more often, is, to engage in this strategy, when confronted by a Wall issue. You have to ask yourself: Is it an issue of love/lack of love? Is it an issue of trust/security? Or. Is it an issue of control/being out of control? Then go through the Sedona process to help you let go of the issue.

That is an advanced strategy after you have released some of the underlying issues that keep you stuck and are not able to let go.

When healing, the objective is to release the energy, the charge around your major negative belief, so that the minor ones will tend to fall over, or become less important.  You will be able to do this when you start to observe your behaviour and the patterns and habits you repeat. For example, your observation might show this: “When this happens what I do is…”. Or. “How I respond is……”

b. The Work – Loving What is

Another methodology, similar in style to the Sedona method is by Byron Katie called: Loving What Is – How Four Questions Can Change Your Life, whereby you ask questions of yourself to gain a better understanding of what is troubling you and with the process you become more aware and more conscious, and hence more in control.

I have used this and found that I have become clear on a situation that I was blind to the reality of what was actually happening versus what I thought was happening. We all distort reality based on our perceptions that we learn in childhood.

Here is a practical example

Say you are at work and there is someone who constantly pushes your buttons. No matter what you do, or you decide to react differently, you still react the same. So, in this situation you have to observe your reactions: “When he/she says (it will be a particular thing) I then get angry. I feel inadequate. I feel superior. I feel frustrated that they cannot see my position. They are stupid and I don’t want to have anything to do with them.” These kinds of reactions/thoughts/feelings/behaviours, will be repetitive.

If you are reacting to an external trigger like this, this means that you have an underlying negative belief about yourself, that is causing you to react that way. So, unless and until you can release that belief, then you will continue to repeat this reaction.

Other Broad Methodologies/Strategies That Work

There are several methodologies that can be used for this release work, (and repair work) and these include: Hypnosis, Kinesiology, Forensic Healing, Rekindled Ancient Wisdom, Psyche K and Kinergetics. (I have learnt these techniques myself, but get others to help me release when I need to.)

c. Hypnosis is about going back to the source of the issue and changing how you respond to it. You confront the person or situation and say what you needed to say so that the outcome is different. This means that the charge you had around that issue will deplete. Taking the charge out of an issue or diffusing it, releases that instant negative reaction to these kinds of events, and helps you stand back, and be able to respond better. What this means is that when you release the charge you will be more in control – and that is what we are after. Control over our emotional lives.

People get concerned that under hypnosis they will be forced to do strange things without their consent. This is not so. It is like being in a dream-like state so that your creative mind engages, so that you can find more optimal solutions to your problems.

Over the years I have used hypnosis for: stopping smoking, weight issues, major belief issues.

d. Kinesiology is one of my favourite methodologies, because what happens is that, links to your negative beliefs create emotional responses, physical issues and mental and spiritual issues, and are held within the body, the images mentioned earlier. The energy and memory of those issues, (because they are stored deep within your body/mind), tend to distort your perception of reality.

This methodology is based on the premise that your body knows the answer to the questions that the therapist asks. The memories and answers are stored in various parts of the body/mind. So, how we access the answers, is, by muscle-testing. The muscle either contracts or doesn’t, when questions are asked and hence this then guides the therapist to the area where this memory is stored.

This is quite a complicated process. However, if you trust that your body will help you heal, and, that it knows the answers, then all will be revealed.

The best part about this methodology is that you, personally, do not do anything. You initially tell the therapist what you want to deal with, and then they do the rest. It is almost like the perfect therapy. I recommend this as one of my go-to, first-choice, remedies.

e. Forensic Healing is based on kinesiology and it also looks at specific issues that the client brings to the table. It is very similar. However, it can be done over the phone or via skype. You do not have to be in the same room as the therapist. There are many forensic healing therapists all over the world who can help you.

f. Rekindled Ancient Wisdom is a more spiritual approach and one which I use after I have been to my kinesiologist.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience in a human body. However, we are all still connected. We have many layers of connectivity. Most people are aware of the chakras. They are energy centres. Having energy trapped within a centre, has certain meaning. (For a more advanced discussion on this topic see Dr Mona Lisa Shultz book: Awakening Intuition)

What we see, observe and understand at present, about how we are connected to others, is limited. Instead of having just 7 chakras, there are many, more layers off connectivity, where we are interacting with others daily, or permanently. For example, if you do not forgive someone for a wrong they have done, you will be permanently connected within their layers of chakras, forever. Which may not be a good thing.

So, within those unknown energy/chakra layers, are issues that we have experienced, OR have attracted to ourselves because we are on the same frequency. It could be over many years. And. Come from our ancestors. And from people unknown to us.

This interwoven connectivity dictates our responses, our behaviours and helps keep us stuck in fear, doubt judgment and so on. Releasing these layers, about specific issues, helps us move forward, change and grow. It can help you release the pain, loss, grief, sadness and so on, of any relationship – with self, or with others.

What I also love about this process is that the therapist does all the work. All you do is to write down what issues you want to deal with and the therapist clicks into these unknown layers and helps you release the energy, the connectivity, to that person or issue.

After I have a kinesiology session, most generally, the issue, and the energy and the heat around an issue is diffused. Yet it may bring up, or have a ripple effect on an energetic level. Mostly of which I am not aware. Issues that will keep me stuck, on a different level. So, I tend to have a RAW session after a kinesiology session.

The best part about this is that you can email off your issues and then the therapist calls you back at an appointed time. How good it that?

g. I first came across Psyche K when I read Dr Bruce Lipton’s book: The Biology of Belief. He stated that the work he had done using this methodology helped him write the book. This is because he was able to release issues in his Wall that were holding him back.

The therapist helps you release related beliefs until the charge on that issue has been reduced. You can do this over the phone on skype. There are many therapists world-wide who are qualified in this methodology.

h. The final methodology that I prefer is Kinergetics. This is also based on kinesiology, but incorporates the spiritual; release of energy from other invisible layers, as in Rekindled Ancient Wisdom methodology. So, the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual issues are dealt with in a session. You generally need to be in the room with a therapist. There are therapists around the world who do this methodology.

In summary: All of these therapies/strategies for letting go of stuff, use a therapist, and most are based on kinesiology in some way. They work. I have used them and have been trained in them. They involve little or no effort by the client – which is like eating chocolate forever and not getting fat! The interesting thing is that main-stream people are not generally aware of these methodologies, as they can appear to be too “out there”. My approach is: I hate pain, so I do whatever it takes to relieve myself of that pain, grief and loss. Now. If it is easy, all the better.

Now. Let’s look at some other strategies/methodologies that are pretty much guaranteed to work, but which require you to do the work.  These will, over time, help you achieve enormous results. This is about retraining yourself to be in control of how you respond to stress, rather than being constantly at the mercy of your instant reactions. And. Being back in control, is where people want to be most.

4 Other Proven Strategies to Help You let Go

Given the discussion above, I am not going to go into the background of why and how some of these things work because it would take too long.

Stress is at the basis of all dis-ease and disease that we have manifested. So, I will spare you this right now and get into these other methodologies that also work amazingly well. Because you need to be doing more actual work yourselves, I would classify these as advanced strategies. ALL of these strategies involve repairing your body/mind in some way.

In my opinion, you need to repair things and release stuff, in order to be able to grow and change

i. Correct Breathing

The first one is learning correct breathing.  (I also teach this specifically and have a program on my Stress Blog about this methodology.) This sounds nuts, doesn’t it? Teaching people how to breathe!

Can I tell you that approximately 95% of all humans cannot breathe correctly and therefore they are creating enormous havoc within their body/minds from lack of oxygen, and other effects? You will find professional athletes, trained singers and a few yogis or yoga teachers, who know how to breathe correctly. Correct breathing has been proven scientifically.

Briefly. When a stress event occurs, you gasp for air. You throw your head back and then bend forward. These motions then become a habit. These habitual reactions to a stressor trigger are what keeps you stuck in stress. You make a physical reaction, a contraction, a response to the actual or perceived stress event. Amanda Blake in her book title: Your Body is Your Brain, calls this armouring. Your reactions create a shield around what you are trying to protect yourself from.

This means that you are training yourself to gasp for air and this results in you breathing from the top of the lungs, which leads to permanent, shallow breathing. This leads to lack of oxygen and a whole host of disconcerting health issues that may arise.

When you bend forward you trap the memory and the energy of that reaction in your psoas muscle. This then leads to all kinds of “stuck” issues stored in that muscle. So, part of this approach is that there are 2 aspects: you need to learn how to breathe correctly once again so you can free yourself of this trapped energy. And. You also need to be able to release the trapped memory from your psoas muscle.

These are actually 2 different methodologies.

• Breathing correctly and
• Releasing trauma from your psoas.

I have inserted this particular video so you can see how we used to breathe as a baby, and before we all got screwed up with the issues in our Wall.

Please watch this and copy this method. You will find it easiest if you are lying on the floor. It is about belly breathing. Mastering this will help you move from a position below the line, i.e. from fear, doubt, judgement etc to being above the line, and coming from a position of love. You are either in fear or love.

Because people are unable to “let go” this means they are trapped below the line in negativity. See the diagram below. You can retrain to move above the line with the breathing exercises suggested above.

Re-training your breathing will help you to change your default position from one of negativity to one of positivity. You will see enormous results within a six-week period when you retrain how you breathe from shallow breathing to belly breathing. It will help your mood, concentration, clarity and a whole host more things.

Below the line, you are operating out of your subconscious, on autopilot. You will not be present, and hence, not aware. You will be stuck in negativity. You will have no power, no control over your emotional responses.

If you are above the line, this is your position of power. You will be present, and hence, aware. You will be operating from a position of love, rather than fear. This means you will be in control of how you respond emotionally. You will then become empowered because you will be present, more aware.

To correct your breathing start with: 5 deep breaths in. Then breathe out for a slow count of 5. This exercise is about retraining how you breathe so that you have control over how you respond to stressor triggers. This then leads to control over your emotions. It also leads to you training yourself to come from a more positive position – above the line. And. Your new default position will be one of love, rather than one of fear.

2. Trauma Release Technique

As I mentioned about the psoas, there is a group of exercises that you can do, daily until you experience relief. And. These are contained in the back of this book by David Berceli, titled:  The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process. I do these often. Because I write a lot, this means I am sitting down for hours at a time at my computer, and this is not ideal for the psoas.

These exercises are simple, and  take about 15 minutes. And. You will experience great feelings of release. It is as though when your body releases, you release the tension in your mind.

Now. This next method has been used for many decades and is one that has been adopted by many fraternities to help people stay on track. To help them own up to what they are. To help them clear a path to what they desire their new path to be, and that is, the Alcoholics Anonymous Prayer.

3. Alcoholics Anonymous Prayer

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference

This creed has been adopted and used by thousands of people world-wide and it has been proven to work for people. And that is an interesting concept. It is definitely about letting go. You acknowledge that there are things your simply cannot change e.g. the past, or the loss of a loved one. Therefore, in order to heal, and move forward and grow, you have to give in, give up and accept these things on some level. You ask for serenity and courage to be able to do this.

This prayer also involves acknowledgement that you can change. You have to change if you want peace and serenity in your life. You have to let go of something in your Wall in order to grow.

And. That you will gain wisdom along the way. It may not be there initially. But it will come with practice.

What a great creed. You give up. You let go. You will find that your greatest position of control and power is, in letting go.

The final methodology that I want to let you know about is also more spiritual. It has been around for centuries, and is practised daily by many people. I say these sentences every day to help me clear. To help me forgive myself and to forgive others. Many writers indicate that forgiveness needs to be practised in order to heal and let go. You can read the research by Dr. Hew Len and the effects such prayer had on hospital inmates.

4. Ho’oponopono Spiritual Prayer

These sentences are from the Ho’oponopono Spiritual Practice:

“I love you

I’m sorry

Please forgive me

(beat) I forgive you

Thankyou.”

So, what we are doing here is seeking to love ourselves, first – which is at the basis of most issues – our lack of self-love for ourselves. Then we say we are sorry for whatever hurts we have perpetrated on ourselves, and others.

Then we ask for forgiveness of ourselves for being so hard on ourselves. At the same time, we are asking others to forgive us. Because everyone is connected energetically on many levels, there are hurts perpetrated by our ancestors and families and vice versa that influence how we are today. So, we need to be released from that energetically. Then we assume that you, and others, are actually forgiving us. It is about believing that when you send the love, it will come back to you. Why? Because love has untold power.

In the end we say “thank you” because we are assuming that we will be forgiven, and that we too, will, at some stage, forgive those who have hurt us.

This is a magical prayer. If you can get into the habit of saying these sentences as you walk around, daily, you will find that your mood changes. Your life seems better. You seem happier. That’s what I have found.

Letting go of anything, is a process. It takes time and effort. However, there are tools and techniques that can make your life easier. Why not use them?

In summary: We found that there are, in fact, several methodologies/strategies that work, have proven to work over time, and that continue to work now. Some, of these methodologies we need a therapist to facilitate the process, and I highly recommend that you do see one. There are also methodologies/strategies that will give you enormous benefit, but which can be done yourself, but which require effort.

My personal recommendation is: learn how to breathe correctly first. Why? Because this simple method will give you the skills you need to be able to control how you feel and respond to stressful events. This method is about repairing your physiology. You will know that if you do the work, then you will see the results. If you don’t, then that will also be very obvious. After that, do the therapy with a therapist, until you can feel back in control.

The first steps all depend on your starting position.  If you are extremely exhausted, overwhelmed, or tired to the bone, then go to a therapist first. Then, instigate these other remedies.

I like easy. I like simple. I don’t like pain. What about you?

I do these things myself. I know they work. I hope you try them too.

6: 17 More Quick Strategies (For Later Use) to Help You Let Things Go

There are dozens of lists of tips about how you can let go and what you need to do. My belief is that you personally, need to do the REPAIR and RELEASE work utilising the strategies above first. And, or, use a therapist in one of the methodologies, depending on your starting position, before you embark on these additional tips and strategies below.

Once you have achieved some modicum of success, you will be feeling better. When that happens, you might have the energy to ADD more things to your daily schedule, change the mix things within your Stress Barrel. Or, simply feel you can now do more things.

Further Tips/Strategies to Implement After You Have Done The Initial Work of Repair and Release

From all of the information you’ve learnt, nothing will start without you making a decision that you want to live differently. You want to find out what is holding you back. And. You are ready to do this.

Sometimes there can be many false starts, However, knowing that there is hope and light along the way, may give you some comfort.

You’ve learnt that you have to do the work, whatever that is, for you. You can take the shorter, easier way and do the release and repair work with a therapist. Or. You can choose to do it by yourself.

The thing about your Wall, your Stress Journey and your Stress Barrel, is that whatever comprises your Wall, those negative beliefs, attitudes and behaviours, have been encoded in your DNA. The impact has become embodied at the cellular level. This means that you may well have damaged some part of your physiology, e.g. holding the negative belief that you are not good enough. This will have a huge impact on your Immune System, and in particular, your sinuses. With that in mind, the approach that is offered here with these extra tips/strategies for later use, will be heavily oriented towards renewing the physical body first. Then, the emotional. And. Lastly, the mental aspects.

Why? If you continue to bombard the mental aspects with thoughts of trying to be better or good enough, you place unnecessary strain on your body/mind.  When this happens, this then will have impact on the emotional and physical bodies. So, we want to avoid this at all cost. We are trying to take things out of the barrel, not add anymore at this early stage.

So, these extra strategies revolve around renewing your body/mind, which may also involve continuing the repair and release work from above.

Extra Physical Strategies

1. Increase your water intake – water that is free of chemicals and heavy metals and bugs.
What this will achieve is helping your body become less acidic. It will help improve lymphatic drainage. It will help with digestion, metabolism and elimination. When you are stressed and have been holding onto “stuff” forever, you become bound up, contracted, and your body systems will not be able to flow easily.

There are many more benefits to increasing water consumption. If you have the chance to read this book by Dr. F. Batmanghelidj, titled: Your Bodies Many Cries for Water, it covers every aspect you could think of. It’s a great read.

2. Choose more health-giving foods
If you eat a lot of junk food, start swapping some of these choices for other options. Humans do need a proper amount of protein, vegetables, fruits and good fats. You don’t have to give up your favourite things. Go for an 80/20 rule. Or. Make your blow-out day Saturday where you can indulge in all of those things you feel you have missed.

Good food is good fuel. Your body needs good fuel to operate effectively.

3. Add a balance of vitamins and minerals
Preferably in liquid form as you be able to absorb them more. You need minerals to absorb vitamins. You will get better uptake than taking vitamins in a capsule form. Because holding onto negative beliefs impacts various organs within the body, necessarily, there will still be lots of repair work to do.

4. Add a good detox regime
Our environments are so full of chemicals and heavy metals that we are constantly drinking them in, breathing them or having them in our food. Due the enormous amount of these: chemicals, toxins, heavy metals, parasites, worms, viruses, infections, candida and other critters that have invaded our gut, necessarily, when you add detoxing to your cleansing regime, you will begin to feel huge benefits of, not only becoming physically well, but also feeling better emotionally and mentally.

This is also about helping your processing and elimination organs: the liver, gallbladder, the adrenals, the intestines and so on.
Detoxing is such an important ritual that I cannot stress this enough.

5. Get better more restful sleep
You’ve heard this before. However, it is useful to know the “why”. When people are stuck in the past and have a continuous stream of negative thoughts pounding their minds daily, and especially at night, sometimes sleep can be evasive. If so, then you do need to instigate the wind-down period well before bed time. Turn off electric equipment, computer, and other devices. Do some quiet deep breathing. Arrange for some essential oils to be in the room or on your pillow. Cut down on other stimulants well before sleep time. it is suggested that an adult needs approximately 7.5 hours to restore good health.

Now. The “why” sleep is important. When you sleep you allow the passages to cool, especially in the brain area. When the brain passages cool you will be able to drain these off to the lymphatic system, and hence these will release into the elimination organs and be processed accordingly. This will help these toxins stop interfering with your thoughts. Allowing this repair and healing work to be instigated during sleep will help you refresh and wake feeling refreshed. 

Theoretically, if you had proper sleep every night then you would be repairing your body/mind effectively and would not need therapy. However, because we have abused our body/minds over many years, you will need other strategies as well as gaining effective sleep.

6. Incorporate some body work into your weekly or monthly ritual
The patterns of behaviour and habits have become embodied within your physical structure. How you stand. How you act. How you think and feel about yourself can be affected and is reflected with your skeleton, your structure – how you hold yourself. So, if you can find a good bodyworker, whether you choose massage, Feldenkrais, or some other somatic therapy, the befits derived are well worth it.

7. Add some mild exercise such as walking
If you lead a busy office work life then make sure you get out at lunch time and absorb some rays as well as getting a 15 – 20 minute walk in the sun. The sun helps activate Vitamin D, which is good for bones. The movement helps activate the digestion and elimination processes. Getting some air is also beneficial.

Extra Emotional Strategies

Do the physical first. Why? Because it is easier and you will see and feel a result much faster. Then do the emotional and then the mental aspects.

i. Write a letter – of all of your hurts, hates, fears and wrongs, to the person who has wronged you(or yourself) – forgiveness
No. You do not send it to the person who did you wrong. You write them a letter of how you felt. You can even call them a bastard, or use other colourful language. Feel the anger, the hurt or the pain when you do so. Remind yourself of these things. Sign it. You can either end it with something like this: I hate you. I forgive you. I set myself free. Or. I love you. I forgive you. I set myself free. Whatever the ending, make sure you send out a message to the Universe that you want to free yourself from the ties that have bound you emotionally and energetically to that person or issue.

Then. You burn it. Totally. See how you feel. You may need to do this several times until you have released the charge over that person or issue.

  ii. Do something creative
Your conscious brain is simply dying for you to reconnect with your intuition. The thing is we are not talking about painting a masterpiece or writing a long book. You could simply join a theatre group. Or a movie group. A book club. Start journaling. Start stamping and making cards. It could be gardening. This is about allowing the mind to relax so that your intuition can shine through. You will know this is happening because you will get flashes of ideas of what you could be doing. It’s a way of problem solving without using too much brain power. 

iii. Surround yourself with loving support- reach out to someone in friendship
if you are single and do not know your neighbours now might be the time to introduce yourself. If you do not have family or close friends, why not join a social group or a church. Find one where you feel welcome and supported and that they have a buddy system whereby people ring each other when needed.

It could be someone at work. It could be a long lost relative or friend. This is about opening yourself up to accepting love, giving love and receiving grace. Learn to talk to others and share some experiences.

iv. Start making your contribution now
If you have been stuck in stuff for years you probably will feel that you are not making the contribution you want to make on this planet. While you are waiting to repair, release and heal yourself, you can start to make a small contribution by volunteering at some place. There are many organisations world-wide such as Red Cross that need people for all kinds of events.

Or. You could volunteer your expertise at your church, e.g. if you are a marketing person then you could offer to do the marketing for them. In that way you would be utilising your talents as well as making a contribution. Having listened to many volunteers you would think they were the clients instead, because they derive such pleasure from helping others.

v. If stuff comes up sit with it and feel the feelings
This is not about screaming your head off at someone. It is about the quiet times when you are sitting watching TV or doing some chore and suddenly some icky feelings start to bubble up. Sit with the feelings. See if you can work out what they mean. If not, and in any case, breathe through them so that they dissipate. Necessarily, if you are severely depressed, or worse, do consult with a health professional immediately. For the rest of us we need to learn how to get in touch with these feelings and to recognise them so they can be “listened to”. When this happens, you will be able to release them appropriately.

vi. Change the people around you
This takes courage. Especially if it is work people. It could be relatives. Or supposed friends. Assess whether they add value to your life or some positive meaning. If not. Then start by seeing less of them. If it is a work situation and you are stuck, then try to have dialogue with that person and see where they are coming from. If you still do not like them then you will have to make an effort to be friendly, but not be a friend.

vii. Get a mentor or a counsellor
If you do not have anyone to talk things out with then do have regular sessions whereby you can gain perspective and be able to operate more consciously.

viii. Affirmations which can change your life
The biggest loss people have experienced in life is, generally, loss of love or withdrawal of love. People break up. They die. They move away. People fight and lose friendships.

When you say the Ho’oponopono Prayer over and over many times per day, what happens is that you will start to love yourself more because you have forgiven yourself for many wrongs you have perpetrated upon yourself. And. At the same time, you are forgiving others for what you may have done, whether intentionally or inadvertently. Or. Embody the Alcoholics Anonymous Prayer so you examine things from the perspective of what you can change and what you can’t and do not sweat the small stuff.

Pin some affirmations onto a wall to remind yourself of the possibilities.

ix. Come from an attitude of appreciation
Give thanks for what you already have. Physically feel the gratitude. What is coming to you and what you are consciously manifesting. Constant focus on the good and not the bad in your life will help you change to a new default position of being above the line. In love. Not in fear.

Extra Mental Strategies

My philosophy is that when you fix the physical and the emotional then the mental will follow. That is why you do not see any mindfulness techniques or meditation listed here. They work and have been scientifically proven to work. However, I want this to be easy for you to do.

So, the only mental aspect I recommend is to start a daily ritual. It could be for ½ hour or an hour. It could be broken up into segments.

Here is an example:

• Do 10 minutes belly breathing/correct breathing first thing in the morning – it is so relaxing and it retrains your body/mind to move into being more positive. Because you can add emotions when you breathe in or out, e.g. as you breathe in, breathe in appreciation. As you breathe out breathe out anger or resentment.
  And. By the way, this is a mindfulness technique. When you focus your attention on one thing such as breathing, you are, in fact, being mindful or meditating.
• Do 5 minutes of exercises – stretching or squats or whatever takes your fancy.
• Write in your journal (5 minutes) and ask – what would make my day great? Then write down what you are grateful for that you already have or that is coming to you.
• Read some inspiring book or article – perhaps 10 minutes.
• Later – when you are healed and feel you can deal with setting proper goals – write them out, go over them and visualise them as they have already happened

So, you can see there could be many more things you could add to these lists. However, I like to keep things short, manageable and doable. One thing at a time. Physical first. Then emotional. Then lastly, mental. The mental will heal when the others do first.

In summary: These extra strategies are for later, after you are at a position of feeling better, and feel you have some control back in your life. The approach is to mend your physiology first. Then your emotional life. Then the mental will follow.

In these final sections we will cover how to let go of specific things, events, beliefs, relationships and so on.  They have been divided into segments for ease of reference although you may find that some of the steps will be either the same or similar. We will start with letting go of the past as it is an all-encompassing strategy.

7: How to Let Go of a Painful Past

In essence, the whole of this article so far has been about letting go of the past, whether painful or not. However, in order to make this section more manageable I will break this down into actionable steps for you to take and specify the benefits you might also receive after you have let go of this painful past.

If you continue to experience the pains and hurts throughout life, and won’t let go of these pains, it means you are, necessarily, stuck in the past. We keep going over and over what “should” have happened.

 

In my experience with mental health issues, when someone continues to go over and over the past, this means they are showing symptoms of Depression. People with Depression are generally not able to make conscious decisions about moving forward, changing or growing. Therefore, they are stuck in the past. They experience pain and hurt, over and over, because they now have created a dis-eased state. They have lost the ability for conscious choice with regard to certain experiences.

Similarly, people who experience anxiety, are constantly trying to control everything around them. They constantly ask: “What if this happens or that?” They are not able to make conscious decisions about growth and change and letting go of the past. Nor are they able to control possible bad future outcomes. Why?  Because they are so busy trying to keep themselves safe from some perceived threat. 

So, when we talk about letting go, we need to be aware of what aspect of this topic we are talking about. As I mentioned, it could well be of something that you are involved in now, such as a relationship or a job. It could also mean something in the past – which is what we commonly talk about. Or it could refer to hurts and pains that we keep re-experiencing.

Letting go of the past is, generally, about hurts or pain.

What we learned in the earlier sections was that your nemesis in life is your Wall and what it comprises. You can see the effects of your behaviour when you examine your Stress Barrel. This means that in order to heal issues from your past, which can be mildly inconvenient, to painful, you need to release, let go, of something in your Stress Barrel.

If you experience issues over which you appear to have no control, then the most probably cause is some negative belief that has become embodied within your psyche.

Steps to Let Go of Your Painful Past

• In order to release this, the easiest solution is to engage in a therapy that helps you release this negative behaviour, which is the evidence that the negative belief exists.

Then as you begin to feel better, implement some other strategies such as:

• Correct breathing which will help you move above the line into a more positive default position and help you become more positive overall.
• Use letter-writing to engage in forgiveness – this will help you get it all out there – all of the hurts, the pain, the thoughts, the feelings, the blame, the feelings of being a victim over which you feel you have no control, and direct them towards the perpetrator, or yourself. You write the letter and then burn it, after you ask for forgiveness at the end, and ask that you be set free of this energetic connectivity.
• Engage in some body work, whether it be massage or some other technique – this will signify to your body/mind that you are taking care of yourself.
• Add the Ho’oponopono Prayer (or other affirmations) to your daily walk.
• Get proper sleep.
• Drink more water
• Ingest more healthy food options.
• Gain support from your social network or church group.
• Do a physical detox program.
• Self-care – be gentle with yourself – if thoughts and feelings come up, allow them to be and breathe through them.

Then repeat all of these things until you gain strength to pursue more active programs and involvement. The best approach it to make it as easy and as simple as possible so that you will actually do these things.

The Benefits of Letting Go of Your Painful Past

Include:

• Being able to be more present
• Being able to make better decisions
• Stop blaming others and being the victim. This helps you gain control over your thoughts and feelings and lets you know that you are the writer and creator of your own destiny.
• Feeling more positive
• Gaining more energy
• Being able to focus better, concentrate and move towards more clarity

If you only gained this small number of benefits from letting go of your past, then this would be worth celebrating.

In summary: Letting go of the past, whether painful or otherwise, is the hardest thing to do because it effectively means that you need to be cognisant of everything in this article. However, in order to be able to manage this process there are a few things you can do. If these few things resulted in some small benefits, then you would be winning, in many respects. In all cases, take care and take it slowly and look after yourself.

In the next section we will be looking at letting go a toxic, and other relationships. As I mentioned earlier, the hardest issue for people to overcome is loss of love or rejection. It can send people into a spin out of which sometimes they fail to launch.

8: How to let Go of a Toxic Relationship

Letting go of any relationship can be painful because you have invested time and effort emotionally. You have opened yourself up. Become vulnerable. You most likely will lose a sense of trust. You may feel betrayed. You may internalise a breakup and self-blame. Or do the opposite and blame the other person.

The interesting thing about relationships, especially romantic ones, is that, at the very beginning, you may perceive a flaw in the other person which may raise your hackles or your alarm bells slightly. But, because the “flaw” seems to be only one small thing when compared to all of the positive aspects of that person, you tend to override your inner voice. Take heed to that intuitive warning. Generally, you will try to rationalise this flaw. Unfortunately, that one thing that you tried to overlook at the beginning, generally becomes the major issue at the end. The one that breaks you. Breaks the relationship.

So, be wary. If you find your “soul mate”,” the one”, but there is that one major issue going against this relationship, you will need to do some serious counselling work with a specialist relationship counsellor, individually, and together, in order to be fully cognisant of the effects of not communicating how you feel about that one issue to your partner.

The signs to look out for in a toxic relationship

The most blatant ones come from observation of domestic violence relationships.

If, for any reason, a person makes you feel: belittled, not good enough, insecure, rejected, inadequate, perpetrates violence on you – whether it is physical or emotional abuse, they cut you off from your friends and family, if they cut off your social life and you find yourself spending your only spare time with the other person, if they take away your access to your own money or, in fact any money, such that you have to constantly ask for money to pay for the groceries or emergencies, if you ever hear someone say: “ It’s you and me against the world,” if at the beginning of a relationship the person showers you with gifts – excessive and expensive, if they constantly turn up unexpectedly to your house or your place of work, if they constantly ring you, leave many messages and try to manipulate you to respond instantly when they have rung ….. ALL of these signs (and many, many more) are major alarm bells that your newfound partner is, at the least, controlling and manipulative. At the worst, a perpetrator of domestic violence. 

Now. The issue for many lonely singles is that they may not have had a relationship for many years and at the first sign of interest, they plunge themselves headlong into this all-encompassing romantic relationship, overlooking the early warning signs, because they desire: acceptance, attention, love, and to feel special.

A personal experience

After our Sunday church service, the congregation gets together to enjoy morning tea and a catch-up chat. A chap had been eying me off and eventually plucked up the courage to ask me for a coffee date. Ok. That sounded fine.

That same day I went out for several hours and did not take my mobile phone. When I came home there was a message from this person now suggesting, instead of coffee, what about going for lunch at a really expensive restaurant. And. Because I had not responded to the message there was also a text saying that I had not responded to his first message.

So, it went from a casual non-threatening coffee meet, to an expensive lunch date, to leaving messages, and what I considered, stalking behaviour. Obviously, I cut that off straight away.

I mention this because it can seem flattering when someone pays attention to you and desires your company. However, beware the early signs. People do show their true colours if you look hard enough.

There are relationships and relationships. Some good and worth fighting for. Some detrimental and therefore letting go is a better option. The quest for developing relationships and doing whatever you can to have one, save one, or work on one, is ingrained into our society. People value love and family highly. They therefore tend to hang on and fight for a relationship well past the use-by-date.

People think that having a relationship that you have to work hard on is something that will make you strong. Is that a sensible belief?

The other interesting thing is that quite often when people find someone to love or who they think loves them, they invest an enormous amount of time in that relationship, quite often to the detriment of their family and friendships.

When people become attracted to another, most often they say something like this: ‘he/she is my soulmate.’ “He/she completes me.” “I have found my other half.”

What is happening here is that they attract partners who have had a similar upbringing to themselves, but that “extra something” is that which they feel completes them in some way. When the relationship dissolves or starts falling apart, that very thing that was different initially, is generally, the cause of the breakdown. If you feel you need “completing”, you are most likely not ready to have a mature, interdependent relationship. Most likely, it will become co-dependent.

Quite often, in these kinds of co-dependent relationships, where one person can feel insecure unless the other is constantly feeding their ego or telling them that they love them, quite often the insecure person will create drama so that the other person has to constantly prove his/her love for them. This is every emotionally draining. The fights are epic. The make-ups are, also. However, eventually, it becomes too exhausting and one of the parties gives this up as a bad choice. This can go back and forth for some time and both partners do not understand what has happened within the relationship, and tend to repeat these behaviours, over and over.

Toxic relationships are harmful physically and/or emotionally

There are many examples of toxic relationships on reality television shows,  whereby young women (mostly, and some insecure men) constantly test the love of their partner. They create chaos and drama. Emotional upheaval. It is draining and unproductive and generally leads to break-ups and make-ups until someone finally gets the idea that this is not healthy and leaves.

Healthy relationships are about giving and nurturing, equally. They are like this because you have two emotionally intelligent persons coming together, who do not “need” the relationship. It is a choice. They can easily exist without the other person. They are not all-consumed by some “out-of-control” feelings. Yet. They choose to be together and to nurture each other.   Drama would send them packing. Manson talks about toxic v healthy relationships. Toxic relationships exist where two people are co-dependent. Whereas non-toxic relationships evolve because each person comes to the relationship whole. They are interdependent.

Steps to Let Go of a Toxic Relationship

• In order to release this, the easiest solution is to engage in a therapy that helps you release this negative behaviour, which is the evidence that the negative belief exists. Therapy, either kinesiology-based or a specialist relationship counsellor.

Then as you begin to feel better, implement some other strategies such as:

• Correct breathing which will help you move above the line into a more positive default position and help you become more positive overall.
• Use letter-writing to engage in forgiveness – this will help you get it all out there – all of the hurts, the pain, the thoughts, the feelings, the blame, the feelings of being a victim over which you feel you have no control, and direct them towards the perpetrator, or yourself. You write the letter and then burn it after you ask for forgiveness at the end, and ask that you be set free of this energetic connectivity.
• Increase self-care. Engage in some body work, whether it be massage or some other technique – this will signal your body/mind that you are taking care of yourself. Be gentle with yourself – if thoughts and feelings come up, allow them to be and breathe through them.

• Cut contact with this person immediately. Inform your friends and family. And. If you feel threatened in any way, contact the police. Do not agree to meet this person by yourself. Ever. Always have someone with you, and meet in a public place. If necessary, change your phone number.
• Understand that there will be a grieving process, because there will be intense sorrow, caused by the death of the relationship. Allow for that process to resolve itself.
• Reach out for support – friends, family, church groups, social network. You need to be surrounded by people who genuinely care about you, not someone who tries to control you.
• Do more fun things in groups of friends
• Get proper sleep.
• Be kind to yourself because sometimes these types of relationships can sneak up on you without warning. Repeat affirmations that tell you that you are loving person and that you deserve the very best.

Then repeat all of these things until you gain strength to pursue more active programs and involvement. The best approach it to make it as easy and as simple as possible so that you will actually do these things.

The Benefits of Letting Go of a Toxic Relationship

Include:

• You will start feeling better about yourself. You need to feel “good enough”. Taking time will help towards feeling better.
• Being able to be more present
• Being able to make better decisions
• Stop blaming others and being the victim. This helps you gain control over your thoughts and feelings and lets you know that you are the writer and creator of your own destiny.
• Feeling more positive
• Gaining more energy
• Being able to focus better, concentrate and move towards more clarity of what you truly want in a romantic relationship
• Accept that there will be feelings of loss, regret, anger and resentment
• Feeling free

If you only gained this small number of benefits from letting go of a toxic relationship, then this would be worth celebrating.

In summary: Letting go of a toxic relationship is the one of the hardest things to do because it effectively means that you need to be cognisant of the psychological behaviour of the partner. You need to be aware of the signs. You need to seek help early on and discuss such behaviour patterns. You need to become more aware. However, in order to be able to manage this process there are things you can do. If these few things resulted in some small benefits, then you would be winning, in many respects. In all cases, take care, and take it slowly, seek support and therapy. And. Above all, look after yourself.

In the next section we will be looking at letting go of someone you love, through death of a loved one, or through the natural progression of a relationship. As I mentioned earlier, the hardest issue for people to overcome is loss of love or rejection. It can send people into a downward spiral, out of which, they sometimes fail to recover.

9: How to Let Go of Someone You Love

When you love someone and it ends, prematurely, or through death (we will talk about that in a later section on Grief), or via natural progression – it has run its’ course – inevitably there will always be a sense of loss or grief. There can be intense sorrow, heartache, and a sense of loss of self. If your world had been intertwined with that other person for significant amounts of time, necessarily there will be a sense of loss of, not only identity, but also of purpose. Your previous purpose was to have a life with this other person and now they are gone.

If one of the partners “loved more” than the other, and expended considerably more energy in the relationship, then necessarily, the person who is “left” will be the grieving partner.

There will be lots of recriminations. There will be blame going back and forward, the aggrieved party will feel betrayed. They will feel that they will not be able to trust or open up to another in any new relationship. Quite often they will feel abandoned.

Sometimes relationships just run their course. Each person has invested time and effort and eventually they agree that they are on different paths, they do not have the same values, or they want to pursue other opportunities. This can be devastating for one of the partners.

Quite often in these situations the partners continue contacting each other. Often, they get back together, trying to overlook the reasons they separated in the first place, trying to overcome the voiced hurts and pains. Sometimes what is said during breakups, you just cannot get over, or forgive.

Eventually, one person will get sick of making up and breaking up and disappear altogether, without further contact. This can be very hurtful for the other partner who loved too much. There are many examples of online dating whereby people get together for short or medium terms, have a great time, seem to be compatible, and then one person disappears without warning. Quite often there are no huge warning signs.

So, the path to true love can be fraught with pitfalls. However, at some stage, the person who has been left, needs to accept that the relationship is over and that there will be a grieving process and that it takes time to heal, mend and then be able to move on.

The only way to guard against relationships that do not last the distance is to set high standards for yourself about what behaviour is or is not acceptable. And. Stick to it. Don’t make excuses or allowances. You have to ask yourself: how many chances do I give another person? Is their excuse reasonable? Do I feel really hurt, often? Would I do the same thing to a partner?

You need to set yourself an agenda and stick by it. The thing that keeps people together is shared values. Shared hobbies and shared communication. Allowing for space and growth and learning. Encouraging, supporting and nurturing. If these things are not evident, then learn to let go early on.

Loss of Identity and Purpose

This was mentioned in passing at the beginning. However, couples identify as “we” and not “I”, in most relationships. They share common opinions. They share common friends. They set up home together and share common food. They like the same kind of outings and hobbies. Pretty much, in most relationships, people do many things together, and often give up what they previously enjoyed as a singleton. Their friends. Their individual hobbies. Their interests – to cater for this new partner.

Now. This is all very well. However, at some stage losing the “I” and becoming a “we”, a couple, leads to subsumption of an individual’s identity such that he/she no longer knows who they are on many levels. This can be tricky when there is a breakup because the previously rejected friends will now be called upon for help. They may feel reluctant to engage with you. Your language will have changed. Your outlook. Your experiences will have been different and which shape who and what you have become.  Necessarily, when a relationship breaks up the individuals will lose this shared identity, this “couple-speak” behaviour.

The other aspects of breakup is, that quite often, the shared purpose of the couple, has been the relationship. When a breakup occurs, there is often a sense of a loss of purpose. How I will be. What they will do. How they will love and so on. They have a common “shared” purpose. When there is a breakup most often one person will feel a loss of a sense of purpose because they only have shared purposes, not their own individual purpose.

So, do be aware of these aspects when a breakup occurs, as loss of identity can occur in a work situation when you leave a job, or in the death of a loved one, or in a breakup from someone you love. You have to start rebuilding your own individual purpose once more.

Steps to Let Go of Someone You Love

• In order to release this, the easiest solution is to engage in a therapy that helps you release any negative behaviour attached to this issue, and which is making you feel insecure in some way. Use a therapy mentioned above, either kinesiology-based, or use a specialist relationship counsellor.

Then as you begin to feel better, implement some other strategies such as:

• Correct breathing which will help you move above the line into a more positive default position and help you become more positive overall. This technique is recommended for all issues. Why? Because it is guaranteed to lift your mood and move you to a place of healing more quickly.
• Use letter-writing to engage in forgiveness – this will help you get it all out there – all of the hurts, the pain, the thoughts, the feelings, the blame, the feelings of being a victim over which you feel you have no control, and direct them towards the perpetrator, or yourself. You write the letter and then burn it after you ask for forgiveness at the end, and ask that you be set free of this energetic connectivity.
• Increase self-care. Engage in some body work, whether it be massage or some other technique – this will signal your body/mind that you are taking care of yourself. Be gentle with yourself – if thoughts and feelings come up, allow them to be and breathe through them.
• Cut contact with this person as soon as you can. Inform your friends and family. And. Do not agree to re-engage in a relationship as it will only drag on and on.
• Understand that there will be a grieving process, because there will be intense sorrow, caused by the death of the relationship.
• Reach out for support – friends, family, church groups, social network. You need to be surrounded by people who genuinely care about you.
• Do more fun things in groups of friends
• Get proper sleep.
• Be kind to yourself. Start journaling what you truly desire in an intimate relationship. Because, sometimes, these types of “in-between” relationships can sneak up on you without warning.
• Repeat affirmations that tell you that you are a loving person and that you deserve the very best.

Then repeat all of these things until you gain strength to pursue more active programs and involvement. The best approach it to make it as easy and as simple as possible so that you will actually do these things.

The Benefits of Letting Go of Someone You Love

Include:

• You will start feeling better about yourself. You need to feel good enough. Taking time will help towards feeling better.
• Being able to be more present
• Being able to make better decisions
• Stop blaming others and being the victim. This helps you gain control over your thoughts and feelings and lets you know that you are the writer and creator of your own destiny.
• Feeling more positive
• Growing in courage and compassion for yourself
• Regaining a sense of self, identity
• Being able to forgive yourself and the partner and let go and move on
• Gaining more energy
• Being able to focus better, concentrate and move towards more clarity of what you truly want in a romantic relationship
• Accept that there will be feelings of loss, regret, anger and resentment
• Feeling free, yet wiser, having grown from the experience

If you gained only this small number of benefits from letting go of someone you love, then this would be worth celebrating.

In summary: Letting go of someone you love can be one of the hardest things to do, because it effectively means that you have either been rejected, or you have rejected someone else. This will lead to feelings of loss. Humans need to experience love for growth and development. If they do not experience love early on in their life, or someone takes that away from them, then necessarily the rejected person will go into feelings of abandonment, feeling not good enough or feeling useless. Or have a loss of purpose or identity in some way. You need to seek help early on and discuss such behaviour patterns. You need to become more aware. However, in order to be able to manage this process there are things you can do. If these few things resulted in some small benefits, then you would be winning, in many respects. In all cases, take care, and take it slowly, seek support and therapy. And. Above all, look after yourself.

In the next section we will be looking at letting go of anger. Feelings of anger are about feeling very annoyed, or feeling hostile towards a person or situation. The letting go process would be the same for many negative emotions and beliefs, and the benefits of letting go of these negative emotions will have similar benefits, also.

10: How to Let Go of Anger

We learnt in an earlier section that what was behind the negative emotion of anger were the feelings of impatience. There exists sheer frustration that things are not happening as they should, or in the preferred time frame.

The emotion of anger would have been devised as a coping strategy during early childhood, and the child has carried that through to adulthood. Why? Because the person learnt that this strategy worked for them in most situations. So, they had no motive to change their behaviour, their attitude or their expression of how they felt. Perhaps a parent or a primary care giver acted this way and the child has simply copied that behaviour.

So, what has happened over time is that the child has become frustrated and has not learnt a different way to cope, or to respond. An angry person is someone who tries to make things happen their way, and quickly. This leads to a desire for love substitutes because they will have a tendency towards insecurity. This constant acting out of this emotion will lead to issues around the immune system. These people will tend to have frequent colds as they push, push, push towards what they want.

To let go of anger will take a lot of work

An angry person is someone who has embodied this negative feeling at a very deep level. It is part of their psyche. It is part of their behaviour. It is part of the way they respond, almost automatically. Because your beliefs can change your DNA, this negative belief of not having patience, and the need to make things happen, will then affect how your cells respond and behave. In effect, they will also be angry.

This means that the charge around certain beliefs, attitudes and behaviours will be very powerful. This means that the angry person will need to do lots of release work to get the angry stake pulled out of their body/mind.

Steps to Let Go of Anger

• In order to release this, the easiest solution is to engage in a therapy that helps you release any negative behaviour attached to this issue, and which is making you feel angry and frustrated in some way. Use a therapy mentioned above, either kinesiology-based, or use a specialist counsellor who deals with anger management. From my perspective it is better to be able to release the charge than to try to “manage” the anger. Why? Because there is a danger that the angry person will swap one type of behaviour for another. They might swallow their anger and explode much further down the track. So, releasing the charge around their beliefs will be the best approach. And. It could take some time.

Then as you begin to feel better, implement some other strategies such as:

• Correct breathing which will help you move above the line into a more positive default position and help you become more positive overall. This technique is recommended for all issues. Why? Because it is guaranteed to lift your mood and move you to a place of healing more quickly. Because anger is such a strong negative emotion, an angry person will tend towards a below-the-line position as a way of being. This means that they will need to do extra work on their breathing to help them move to be above the line.
• With a specialised therapist, use the pillow bashing method or beating of some object against another object. This is very useful for being able to express what they couldn’t and which has led to them holding onto stuff when they really should have released it, in a controlled, and therapeutic way.
• Use letter-writing to engage in forgiveness – this will help you get it all out there – all of the hurts, the pain, the thoughts, the feelings, the blame, the feelings of being a victim over which you feel you have no control, and direct them towards the perpetrator, or yourself. You write the letter and then burn it after you ask for forgiveness at the end, and ask that you be set free of this energetic connectivity.

This does work. However, for an angry person it will take several times because they tend to feel justified in their anger towards just about everything, when really, it could initially have been about their parents.

• Increase self-care. Engage in some body work, whether it be massage or some other technique – this will signal your body/mind that you are taking care of yourself. If you continue to be impatient with this one, then change it to a sauna or a spa, where you have control over how long the session lasts. Be gentle with yourself – if thoughts and feelings come up, allow them to be and breathe through them.
• At some stage there will need to be an acceptance of what you are doing and have done. This will take courage to get to that point where you admit that you have to take responsibility for what has happened in your life and the results, situations and people that you have attracted.
• Understand that there may be a grieving process as you come to realise the effects of your behaviour on others, because there will be intense sorrow, caused by the realisation of what you may have caused. It’s about acknowledgement. It’s about acceptance of self and others. It’s about having the courage to live differently. It’s about coming to wisdom as you learn to tell the difference. 
• Reach out for support – friends, family, church groups, social network. You need to be surrounded by people who genuinely care about you, not someone who tries to control you.
• Do more fun things in groups of friends
• Get proper sleep.
• Engage in physical activity that is strenuous to use up that excess energy.
• Be kind to yourself. Start journaling what you your anger is trying to tell you about a situation or yourself. Try to work out what need of yours is not being met. This is how all issues arise. Our needs are not being met and we do not know how to ask for what we needed when we were children. So, we bottled our feelings up and acted out instead.  
• Repeat affirmations that tell you that you are a loving person and that you deserve the very best.

Then repeat all of these things until you gain strength to pursue more active programs and involvement. The best approach it to make it as easy and as simple as possible so that you will actually do these things.

The Benefits of Letting Go of Anger

Include:

• You will start feeling better about yourself.
• As you release the pent-up anger you will be able to be more present, more aware. This leads to acceptance of responsibility. You will feel more positive.
• Being able to make better decisions
• Stop blaming others and being the victim. This helps you gain control over your thoughts and feelings and lets you know that you are the writer and creator of your own destiny. You will learn that you have created who you are and how you react. However, you can change this.
• You will grow in courage and compassion for yourself
• Regaining a sense of self, identity
• Being able to forgive yourself, the situation or the relevant person and let go and move on
• Gaining more energy – more positive energy
• Being able to focus better, concentrate and move towards more clarity of what you truly want in everyday relationships
• Accept that there will be feelings of loss, regret, anger and resentment
• Feeling free, yet wiser, having grown from the experience

If you only gained this small number of benefits from letting go of anger, then this would be worth celebrating.

In summary: Letting go of anger can be one of the hardest things to do, because it effectively means that you have to change how you respond, how you react and how you behave in the future, towards yourself, others and situations, especially, if you are not getting your need met at the time.  You need to become aware of the signs of when you start to get out of control. You need to seek help early on and discuss such behaviour patterns. You need to become more aware. However, in order to be able to manage this process there are things you can do. If these few things resulted in some small benefits, then you would be winning, in many respects. In all cases, take care, and take it slowly, seek support and therapy. And. Above all, look after yourself.

In the next section we will be looking at letting go of grief. In general, grief is intense sorrow caused when someone dies. It could also be a pet or a job, or the loss of a friend or a relationship. The letting go process would be the same for many negative emotions.

11: How to Let Go of Grief

Grief is an emotion that can be very deep and lasting, especially if it is the death of a relationship with a long-time partner. It is intense sorrow that can generally only be healed by time. Although many people have suffered grief on an on-going basis for many years, some do not recover sufficiently well.

With that in mind, the question arises – does time heal all wounds? The answer for me is that no, it does not. Because when you lose someone who had made a significant contribution to your life, when they die, a piece of your heart goes with them. It can never be filled up with a different person, a different relationship or something else. It is synonymous with that person, in that relationship.

What does happen is that the charge around the grief reduces such that the person who remains can eventually get on with their lives, in some fashion. Any new relationships would be just that, new, providing other benefits not derived from the previous relationship.

Grief takes time to heal

To gain an understanding of the process of grief and coming to terms with the loss, it is useful to be aware of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief and loss. These are:

1. Denial and isolation
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression, and finally
5. Acceptance.

The times spent in each section, can be many and varied. Also, too, the order may vary as well because people experience things differently, and process differently.

In the first phases- denial and isolation – it is very common for people to be so overwhelmed that they cannot think straight. The hormones will flood the brain and distort rationality, especially if it is a very sudden passing. Denial buffers the immediate shock. We try to numb ourselves so that we can cope.

The next stage, anger, begins when the first stages lessen. When the pain of loss has been reduced. Anger can be expressed against anyone or anything. The person may also be angry with the person who has just died and left them alone. The anger generally turns to resentment, which is about having bitter feelings of not having been treated fairly.

The next section – bargaining – is about feelings of helplessness and vulnerability, as the person left tries to gain control over the situation. They secretly try to make bargains with God or our higher power. This is about postponing the inevitable. “If only” statements can get you so far until reality sets in. Quite often the person left then starts to feel guilt that they could have done something different to prevent the death.

The next phase is – depression. It may start off with sadness and regret. Then the person may start to worry about how to pay for the funeral and other associated on-going costs of living. Sometimes people can get beyond this normal sadness- type of depression and move into a deeper phase where they begin to lose all hope of living successfully without the other person. It affects each person differently.

The final phase is – acceptance. Most often it is a quiet phase of withdrawal and calm. They have accepted that there is nothing more they can do and could have done, so they decide to let go. What happens in this phase is that previously supportive friends/relatives, see that the person is coping, so they tend to withdraw their support.

From my personal experience, the worst time is from 6 months to up to 18 months after a death. This is when the reality sets in. The knowledge that you are alone and that the person is gone for good.

A personal experience

Many years ago, my fiancé died suddenly and without warning. We were to be married in six weeks’ time. We were planning for a happy life together. Then suddenly it was taken from me. Many people have lived through this experience. However, I can say that I did experience all of the Kubler-Ross stages of grief. I was sad, depressed. I was overwhelmed. I disassociated from my body. I withdrew. Friends withdrew support when they felt I was coping. I had diarrhoea for a year. I could not sleep at all and spent my evening drinking, trying to knock myself out so I could cope better and recover from the loss.

Time did not heal the wound. The charge around the loss just reduced. And. My heart still has a hole that will never be filled by someone else, as part of me died with my love that day. It’s been thirty years and the memories are still vivid.

The really, sad part, for me, and for others, is that sometimes we do not know where to go or what to do to get help in overcoming the struggles. I was not aware of the tools and techniques and resources available in that area. Now that I do know, I want to pass them onto to you.

 Steps to Let Go of Grief

• In order to release the pain, the easiest solution is to engage in a therapy that helps you release any leftover feelings and behaviours attached to the loss, and which is making you feel overwhelming pain and suffering. This is especially needed if depression lingers. Of particular benefit at this time is to engage the services of a specialist grief counsellor. I would expect that the person would not be ready to engage within the first six weeks after the loss.

Then as you begin to feel better, implement some other strategies such as:

• Correct breathing which will help you move above the line into a more positive default position and help you become more positive overall. This technique is recommended for all issues. Why? Because it is guaranteed to lift your mood and move you to a place of healing more quickly.
• Use letter-writing to engage in forgiveness – this will help you get it all out there – all of the hurts, the pain, the thoughts, the feelings, the blame, the feelings of being a victim over which you feel you have no control, and direct them towards the person who has died, or yourself for not being able to prevent the death.. You write the letter and then burn it after you ask for forgiveness at the end, and ask that you be set free of this energetic connectivity.
• Engage in some body work, whether it be massage or some other technique – this will signal your body/mind that you are taking care of yourself.
• Understand that there will be a grieving process, because there will be intense sorrow, caused by the death of the relationship. Allow those feelings to be there. Accept and cry, feel sad.
• Reach out for support – friends, family, church groups, social network. You need to be surrounded by people who genuinely care about you.
• Get proper sleep.
• Self-care – be gentle with yourself – if thoughts and feelings come up, allow them to be and breathe through them.
•  Be kind to yourself. Start journaling what you truly enjoyed in your intimate relationship. Celebrate the highs. Recognise the lows.

Get it all out.  

• Repeat affirmations that tell you that you are a loving person and that you deserve the very best.

Then repeat all of these things until you gain strength to pursue more active programs and involvement. The best approach it to make it as easy and as simple as possible so that you will actually do these things.

There will be lots of crying. There will be lots of conversations about – “If only”. There will be days when you cannot do anything as you feel exhausted, raw and hurt beyond normal feelings. Try not to place too many expectations on yourself about how you should be, at a particular point in time. Allow for the healing process to take its’ course, however, long that may be.

The Benefits of Letting Go of Grief

Include:

• You will start feeling better about yourself. Taking time will help towards feeling better.
• Being able to be more present
• Being able to make better decisions
• Stop blaming the person who died, or yourself, that you could have done something to prevent this occurring. This helps you gain control over your thoughts and feelings and lets you know that you are the creator of your own destiny.
• Feeling more positive
• Growing in courage and compassion for yourself
• Regaining a sense of self, identity
• Being able to forgive yourself and the partner and let go and move on
• Gaining more energy
• Being able to focus better, concentrate and move towards more clarity of what you truly want for your immediate future.
• Accept that there will be feelings of loss, regret, anger and resentment
• Feeling free, yet wiser, having grown from the experience. You will see life differently now. Channel that wisdom into projects for yourself.

If you only gained this small number of benefits from letting go of grief, then this would be worth celebrating.

In summary: Letting go of grief, and of someone you love who has died, can be one of the hardest things to do, because it effectively means that you have been left to fend for yourself for the rest of your life. This will lead to feelings of loss. Humans need to experience love for growth and development. If they do not experience love early on in their life, or someone takes that away from them, then necessarily the loss from death, and the resulting grief, will lead towards feelings of abandonment, feelings of “not being good enough” or feeling useless. You may also experience a loss of purpose or identity in some way. Seeking help early on can be helpful when you are able.  However, in order to be able to manage this process there are things you can do. If these few things resulted in some small benefits, then you would be winning, in many respects. In all cases, take care, and take it slowly, seek support and therapy. And. Above all, look after yourself.

In the next section we will be looking at letting go of regret. Feelings of regret are about feeling sad and repentant. You could be feeling disappointed over something that you failed in. Or. Something that you failed to do. The letting go process would be the same for many negative emotions and beliefs, and the benefits of letting go of these negative emotions will have similar benefits, also.

12: How to Let Go of Regret

During a person’s life time, and especially after they have achieved some modicum of success, people often ask: “Do you have any regrets?” What they mean is: Is there something you wanted to do but didn’t. Or. Is there something you feel you didn’t do well and would have preferred to do differently?

We all have regrets. The love we passed up on, the ideal job, the nice house to rent, the daily decision about what to focus on. There are so many things and so many opportunities, to feel regret every day. The trick is to be able to let go of these small things because there are enough big things to worry about.

The thing is that regret need not be a bad thing. It could spur us onto greater things. The other key is to be able to train yourself to make better decisions first, or to take up opportunities as they arise. If you keep looking on these as “bad” you will send yourself down into a spiral of not being good enough. It will become debilitating. So, you have to learn how to train or retrain yourself for turning these experiences around.

In saying that, if you are experiencing regret as a deeply debilitating behaviour or habit, then what this means is that you have embodied this aspect of “failure”. You have encoded this within your DNA. Although, unwillingly.

So, if we know that this is a habit that you have been repeating for many years, then we do know that habits can be changed for the better. It takes effort. However, in order to make it easier we will look at these steps you can take to overcome this habit, as easily as possible.

Steps to Let Go of Regret

• In order to release regret, the easiest solution is to engage in a therapy that helps you release any negative behaviour attached to this issue, and which is making you feel trapped, angry and frustrated in some way. Use a therapy mentioned above, either kinesiology-based, or use a specialist coach who deals with helping you plan ahead and be able to make better decisions. 

Then as you begin to feel better, implement some other strategies such as:

• Correct breathing which will help you move above the line into a more positive default position and help you become more positive overall. This technique is recommended for all issues. Why? Because it is guaranteed to lift your mood and move you to a place of healing more quickly. Because regret is such a common negative emotion, a resentful person will tend towards a below-the-line position as a way of being. This means that they will need to do extra work on their breathing to help them move to be above the line.
• With a specialised coach you can begin the process of owning what you do. Taking responsibility. And. Be able to learn from it.
• Use letter-writing to engage in forgiveness – this will help you get it all out there – all of the hurts, the pain, the thoughts, the feelings, the blame, the feelings of being a victim over which you feel you have no control, and direct them towards what you want, instead. You write the letter and then burn it after you ask for forgiveness at the end, and ask that you be set free of this energetic connectivity towards repeating regret.
• Increase self-care. Engage in some body work, whether it be massage or some other technique – this will signal your body/mind that you are taking care of yourself. Be gentle with yourself – if thoughts and feelings come up, allow them to be and breathe through them.
• At some stage there will need to be an acceptance of what you are doing and have done. This will take courage to get to that point where you admit that you have to take responsibility for what has happened in your life and the results, situations and people that you have attracted.

Understand that there may be a grieving process as you come to realise the effects of your behaviour on yourself.  It’s about acceptance of self and others. It’s about having the courage to live differently. It’s about coming to new wisdom. 

• Use journaling for creating what you want to achieve. This will move you towards being more positive. This will retrain your vibration towards being more positive.
• Reach out for support – friends, family, church groups, social network. You need to be surrounded by people who genuinely care about you.
• Engage in physical activity that is strenuous to use up that excess energy.
• Repeat affirmations that tell you that you are a loving person and that you deserve the very best.

Then repeat all of these things until you gain strength to pursue more active programs and involvement. The best approach it to make it as easy and as simple as possible so that you will actually do these things.

The Benefits of Letting Go of Regret

Include:

• You will start feeling better about yourself.
• You will gain more control over your life and your decisions
• You will feel more responsible
• As you release the pent-up regret you will be able to be more present, more aware. This leads to acceptance of responsibility. You will feel more positive.
• Being able to make better decisions
• You will grow in courage and compassion for yourself
• Regaining a sense of self, identity
• Being able to forgive yourself or the situation
• Gaining more energy – more positive energy
• Being able to focus better, concentrate and move towards more clarity of what you truly want
• Accept that there will be feelings of loss, regret, anger and resentment
• Feeling free, yet wiser, having grown from the experience

If you only gained this small number of benefits from letting go of anger, then this would be worth celebrating.

In summary: Letting go of regret can be tricky, because we all feel it often, and daily. This effectively means that you have to change how you respond, how you react and how you behave in the future, towards yourself, others and situations, especially, if you are not getting your needs met at the time. You need to become aware of the signs of when you start to make less- than- optimum decisions. You need to seek help from a coach. You need to become more aware. However, in order to be able to manage this process there are things you can do. If these few things resulted in some small benefits, then you would be winning, in many respects. In all cases, take care, and take it slowly, seek support and therapy. And. Above all, look after yourself.

In the next section we will be looking at letting go of negative self talk. In general, this is about inner dialogue that tends to limit your ability to believe in yourself in a positive way. It is about constantly putting yourself down.  This then diminishes how you feel about yourself.  The letting go process would be the same for many negative emotions, thoughts, or self talk.

13: How to Let Go of Negative Self-Talk

Negative thoughts arise. They may float by because we do not entertain them or give them energy or focus. Whereas, negative self-talk is an added burden. What we tend to do is to latch onto them and speak to them and add fuel to the fire. Negative self talk is debilitating in that we tend to put ourselves down more often than not. This then leads to a diminished ability to believe anything good about ourselves. This then means that trying to make positive changes can be much harder than it need be.

We do not know where thoughts come from. However, we do know when they are there. If you are trapped in negativity, below the line, and your natural default position is one of negativity, then you will tend to engage in those thoughts, and give them focus and energy, more often.

You might ask: Why would I engage in such demeaning thoughts if I know they are limiting my ability to make positive change? When I keep putting myself down?  And. When I keep repeating thoughts of not being good enough in some way? Why would I continue to do that?

The answer lies in the composition of your Wall, which we discussed in the earlier sections above. The experiences you have had in your early childhood. The interpretations you have made about what happened. The emotions attached to those feelings. And. The beliefs you have constructed during that time period. You have” learned” this behaviour. You have ”learned” coping strategies that you thought worked. And. You continue to use those strategies even though they may not be useful to you as an adult. Remember the nine negative beliefs that were mentioned.

The most prominent negative thought, and belief is: “I am not good enough”. This thought gives rise to the inner dialogue around those sayings. You have the thought and then you add your own dialogue to that thought. In this way you magnify this situation with more negative self talk that further debilitates your attitudes and feelings towards yourself.

How do you add further debilitating aspects to the original thought? You add weight by: Catastrophising an event. You blame yourself or others for things. You create stress around these thoughts. This can lead to depression, stunting success and a move towards perfectionism. We make excuses for things. We make ourselves feel bad. We stop ourselves from taking action. We nourish any fears we had around an issue.

So, you can see the effects of this repetitive behaviour. Repeating negative self talk is a habit. However, we do know now that habits can be changed.

What do we have to do to stop this behaviour which is so ingrained from an early age? We have to learn how to release them and release the charge around specific beliefs and thoughts.

If you experience issues over which you appear to have no control, then the most probably cause is some negative belief that has become embodied within your psyche.

Steps to Let Go of Negative Self Talk

• In order to release this, the easiest solution is to engage in a therapy that helps you release this negative self talk behaviour, which is the evidence that the negative belief exists. You take the charge out of the behaviour when you release the energy around the belief.

Then as you begin to feel better, implement some other strategies such as:

• Correct breathing which will help you move above the line into a more positive default position and help you become more positive overall. It helps you become more aware. More present and more focused. It takes effort. However, simply by breathing correctly you will be able to achieve this.
• Use letter-writing to engage in forgiveness – this will help you get it all out there – all of the hurts, the pain, the thoughts, the feelings, the blame, the feelings of being a victim over which you feel you have no control, and direct them towards good. The good in you. In others. In everything around you, that you can be grateful for. You write the letter and then burn it after you ask for forgiveness at the end, and ask that you be set free of this energetic connectivity to negative self talk.
• Engage in some body work, whether it be massage or some other technique – this will signify to your body/mind that you are taking care of yourself.
• Add the Ho’oponopono Prayer (or other affirmations) to your daily walk. I prefer the Prayer because you are aiming to increase self-love as well as adding forgiveness to the affirmation.
• Get proper sleep.
• Gain support from your social network or church group.
• Do a physical detox program.
• Self-care – be gentle with yourself – if thoughts and feelings come up, allow them to be and breathe through them.

Then repeat all of these things until you gain strength to pursue more active programs and involvement. The best approach it to make it as easy and as simple as possible so that you will actually do these things.

Simply by becoming more present and hence more aware, you become a better decision-maker. Why? Because you will be able to control your responses and not act rashly. This gives you greater choice. And. Choice leads to greater freedom.

The Benefits of Letting Go of Negative Self Talk

Include:

• Being able to be more present
• Being able to make better decisions
• Stop blaming others and being the victim. This helps you gain control over your thoughts and feelings and lets you know that you are the writer and creator of your own destiny.
• Feeling more positive
• Gaining more energy
• Being able to focus better, concentrate and move towards more clarity
• Being able to take on more projects that will be positive for you instead of being negative

If you only gained this small number of benefits from letting go of your negative self talk, then this would be worth celebrating.

In summary: Letting go of negative self talk is one of the hardest things to do because it effectively means that you need to be cognisant of everything in this article. Negative self talk is debilitating because you keep putting yourself down. If you continue to do that then you limit the possibilities for success. However, in order to be able to manage this process there are a few things you can do. If these few things resulted in some small benefits, then you would be winning, in many respects. In all cases, take care and take it slowly and look after yourself.

In the next section we will be looking at letting go of deeply held, limiting, negative beliefs. As I mentioned earlier, the hardest issue for people to overcome is loss of love or rejection. It can send people into a spin out of which sometimes they fail to launch. Negative beliefs are generally the real, underlying root cause of most of our issues, whether past or present.

14: How to Let Go of Negative Beliefs

In essence, this entire article has been about negative beliefs, and how they impact your adult life from an early age, if you do not do something about them. The Foundation of your Wall comprises all of those combinations of negative beliefs, particularly about self, and self-worth. 

The repetition of thoughts surrounding these beliefs, has helped embed these thoughts deep within your psyche. The effect has been that these negative beliefs have changed you DNA and you embody, become, what you think you are. You are the summation of all of your thoughts, words, deeds, actions and feelings. To change the composition of your body/mind takes work, a lot of work. However, if you are sick and tired of feeling less than you could be, then perhaps it is time to start letting go of at least one thing first. Why not a negative belief?

When deciding to do something about a negative belief, it might be useful to be able to recognise which one it is. If you go back to the earlier sections you will see that there are only about nine broad categories of negative beliefs. Most often you will have a series of them, perhaps at least three. And. One of those will be the thought that you are not good enough. Everybody has that at their core and which hampers their progress. If you are still uncertain then go back to the Stress Journey diagram and note which symptoms are evident, and work backwards to the origin of that negative belief.

Negative beliefs spring from experiences and repetition over a long period of time. We develop coping strategies to help get our needs met. If our needs are not met, then we act out certain behaviours.

The Needs Not Being Met and the Behaviours + Emotions Attached

1. If you lack love in your life – your need for love is not being met – then you will think you are unlovable and act out resentment, jealousy and unforgiveness.
2. If you lack joy in your life – your need for joy is not being met – then you will act out feeling inferior and flawed
3. If you lack peace in your life – your need to feel free of worry and anxiety is not being met – then you will act out being anxious or worried
4. If you lack patience in your life – your need to feel secure and loved is not being met – then you will act out frustration and anger at things not being done to your pace or time frame
5. If you lack kindness in your life – your need to feel that you will not be rejected is not being met – then you will act out being hurt and rejected, often
6. If you lack goodness in your life – your need to feel free of fear is not being met– then you will act out feeling shame and being fearful, often
7. If you lack trust in your life – your need for security is not being met – then you will act out being judgmental and criticising and not trusting others, often
8. If you have a lack of humility – your primary need of experiencing being appreciated is not being met – you will act out of guilt and feel wrongful pride, often
9. If you have lack of self-control – your primary need of feeling that life is fair is not being met – then you will act out a sense of entitlement, feeling you have been overlooked, and life is not fair to you.

When these needs are not being met then the person will act out certain behaviours based on those primary causes of “lack” in their lives.

The behaviour comes from the experiences that the child has been subjected to, and the interpretations they have made about those circumstances. Then they put into place coping strategies to combat that need not being met. The “interpretations” are based on significant empirical evidence about what works and what doesn’t. And. These are based on the beliefs the child manufactures in order to survive that environment.

Because all of these aspects have been set up in early childhood, these beliefs are difficult to release. Just know it will take time and effort. However, the effort will be rewarded with a more optimal future.

Steps to Let Go of Your Negative Beliefs

• In order to release these, the easiest solution is to engage in a therapy that helps you release these negative beliefs, and the resulting habitual behaviour, which is the evidence that the negative belief exists.

Then as you begin to feel better, implement some other strategies such as:

• Correct breathing which will help you move above the line into a more positive default position and help you become more positive overall.

The minimum period of time to achieve success is that correct breathing be done several times per day over at least, a six-week period. This is the minimum time to change a habit.

• Use letter-writing to engage in forgiveness – this will help you get it all out there – all of the hurts, the pain, the thoughts, the feelings, the blame, the feelings of being a victim over which you feel you have no control, and direct them towards yourself, a perpetrator, or  a situation you find yourself in. You write the letter and then burn it after you ask for forgiveness at the end, and ask that you be set free of this energetic connectivity.
• Engage in some body work, whether it be massage or some other technique – this will signify to your body/mind that you are taking care of yourself. Because you are the collection of your thoughts, words and deeds, necessarily, this means that the body/mind contains lots of negativity which need to be released. Postural restructure is ideal as well as stretching.
• Add the Ho’oponopono Prayer (or other affirmations) to your daily walk.
• Get proper sleep.
• Drink more water
• Ingest more healthy food options.
• Gain support from your social network or church group.
• Do a physical detox program.
• Self-care – be gentle with yourself – if thoughts and feelings come up, allow them to be and breathe through them.

Then repeat all of these things until you gain strength to pursue more active programs and involvement. The best approach it to make it as easy and as simple as possible so that you will actually do these things.

Start with number one, then add number two and so on. You want to make changes, and take baby steps, in order to be successful.

The Benefits of Letting Go of Your Negative Beliefs

Include:

• Being able to be more present
• Being in your body more, sensing more, listening to your intuition
• Being able to make better decisions – you will not be clouded by self-defeating thoughts
• Stop blaming others and being the victim. This helps you gain control over your thoughts and feelings and lets you know that you are the writer and creator of your own destiny. Life is about control, love and security for humans. Gaining more control is a vital gain.
• Feeling more positive and happier
• Gaining more energy – on all levels
• Being able to focus better, concentrate and move towards more clarity

If you only gained this small number of benefits from letting go of your negative beliefs, then this would be worth celebrating.

In summary: Letting go of your negative beliefs, whether painful or otherwise, is the hardest thing to do because it effectively means that you need to be cognisant of everything in this article. This, to me, is the primary focus you need to follow because the negative beliefs, are the real, underlying, cause of ALL of your issues, past or present. I would start with this one first.

However, in order to be able to manage this process there are a few things you can do. If these few things resulted in some small benefits, then you would be winning, in many respects. In all cases, take care and take it slowly and look after yourself.

15: Choosing a Way to Move On

We owe it to ourselves the opportunity of experiencing the “letting go” process. We deserve an experience of more growth and change. We deserve more of what life has to offer. Otherwise, what is the point?

The Goal of this Ultimate Guide

My goal for you with this guide was to help you decide that you want to let go of something, anything, and help you make a decision that you want to live differently, and move on from where you are presently. It’s about educating and informing the reader of what you are letting go of, why it is important, and why it has been so hard to do. By laying it all out, hopefully, you, the reader, have come to understand that, although starting, taking that first step, can be hard, the effort is well worth while. And. To understand that this is a process, however, long it takes.

One of your first realisations might be that you need to be able to recognise that there is some aspect of your behaviour, feelings, thoughts, habits, attitudes or feelings, that no longer serves you. You then might realise that you need to make a decision that you need to change, want to change. Then you need to be able to articulate how your life is now and what you might want to change. (Just do one thing. Not everything. Baby steps at all stages.)

Then you need to decide and articulate how you would like your life to be. This will give you a direction. A signpost to aim for. I suggest setting an intention, initially. Not a goal. (If you are in this distressed state, setting a goal and achieving it, is too hard.)

Let me give you an example

Sue was reaching burnout in her job. She was constantly impatient with colleagues, often judging and criticising them. All the while she was feeling inadequate and that she was not doing the job to her best level. Because she was not able to express her feelings, she was not sleeping well and she started drinking to excess to help her sleep. She upped her coffee and sugar intake. She felt buzzy all of the time.

Sue was at a conference and one of the speakers pointed out that the signs of stress to watch out for were: increasing self-punishing behaviours such as increasing coffee, sugar, alcohol and drug abuse. Sue came to the realisation that she needed to change.

Sue read a few articles and decided her first step. She then wrote out how she wanted her life to be. She made an intention. She then set about finding a therapist who could help her release the first issue she had identified, that she felt was the cause of her self-abuse. Sue found that her main underlying issue was that she was often angry, frustrated and impatient. Sue also came to realise that she often felt “not good enough” at work.

And so, Sue set a course for healing her body/mind of these self-destructive behaviours.

Moving On

You can see the processes Sue went through. At some stage a decision needs to be made. The first decision will be one of many, at many different levels.

Letting go is a choice.

Moving on to a better future, is a separate decision. A separate choice.

Just know that if you are in a toxic relationship, the answers to letting go, may be easier. The execution may be difficult.

If it is some vague feeling, that pervades your very psyche, this could be a signal to unleash the power within.

If you’ve recently lost a loved one to death, injury or illness, identification of those things you need to let go of, may be easier.

Are you experiencing anger, sadness, grief, a sense of loss? These feelings come heavily disguised. You may be tempted to imagine it is some unforeseen force around you. A person. A situation over which you have no control.

Feelings are mired internally. People cannot make you feel anything. You react or respond, according to how the action or event plagues you internally.

This makes identification of vulnerability, spurious. It can leave you in a bog of inappropriate actions and behaviours. Your interpretation of these events may well be confused. It can lead you to repeatedly putting yourself down.

Test yourself. Are in control? Ask yourself: “Would I be able to forgive those people who have hurt me the most?”

Letting go brings a tailspin of sadness. The familiar is being swapped for a new, an unknown reality.

Breakdown of relationship, any relationship, brings a sense of loss. A loss of meaning. A loss of purpose. Perhaps a loss of a sense of identity – “Who will I be without that partner in my life?” Loss brings a mix of emotions. A roller coaster of feeling undeserving. A feeling of being abandoned.

And.

Necessarily, a loss of a piece of your heart.

It leaves a great hole that cannot be filled or recreated with things or another person. The experiences in that relationship are unique to the mix of personalities at that time.

People often say: “Time heals all wounds.” But it doesn’t. The pain just recedes. The hole, the broken piece of your heart, never grows back.

Yet. Humans remain hopeful. When something as life-changing as sudden death of a loved one affects us so cruelly, so deeply, we have a choice. We can do one of two things: we can continue to wallow in the hurt and pain. Or. We can let go, and uncover our unique strengths. Allow ourselves to grow and change.

As Mark Manson states: “Real change brings a mixture of emotions with it – a grief of what you’ve left behind along with a satisfaction at what you’ve become”.   

There are myriads of situations of letting go that people experience: loss of mobility with an accident, loss of a sense of self with PTSD, loss of identity, loss of purpose, loss of a relationship, loss of a job or career, loss of social interaction or loss of financial independence.  They are numerous. They appear insurmountable.

Life is a hazardous journey. It is a gamble. Your choice. Do you want to experience the whole gamut of possible experiences? Or. Do you want to shut yourself off from conquering your fears? To let go. To open up to new possibilities?

Your Challenge is to Choose to Move On

Are you excited?

Can you imagine a more interesting journey? Your journey through life. Having let go of stuff that you no longer want. Need. Or is holding you back?

Yes. It is possible. Yes. It can be easier than you think.

Will it take time? Yes. It takes as long as it takes. However, you can now see a future. A better option than the one you have settled for, up until now.

Work out you what you need to do first. Read the tips and strategies and decide.

This is about your life. You moving forward. Changing and growing. Being the person, you know is inside. Buried deep below gunk that was, up until now, not consciously known to you.

Now there is no excuse. I urge you to choose to move to a more positive future.

You have the ability and the appropriate tools now.

Let me know your of first milestone.

Blessings.

PS. If you have an opportunity to read this poem, it will bring you joy on many levels.

You might like to print this out and out somewhere you can read it often as it contains a combination of the tips and strategies and gives deeper meaning to the “letting go” literature.

Letting Go – Poem by Alice Cordy

You might like to print this out and out somewhere you can read it often as it contains a combination of the tips and strategies and gives deeper meaning to some of that literature.
To let go does not mean to stop caring,
it means I can’t do it for someone else.

To let go is not to cut myself off,
it’s the realization I can’t control another.

To let go is not to enable,
but allow learning from natural consequences.

To let go is to admit powerlessness, which means
the outcome is not in my hands.

To let go is not to try to change or blame another,
it’s to make the most of myself.

To let go is not to care for,
but to care about.

To let go is not to fix,
but to be supportive.

To let go is not to judge,
but to allow another to be a human being.

To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,
but to allow others to affect their destinies.

To let go is not to be protective,
it’s to permit another to face reality.

To let go is not to deny,
but to accept.

To let go is not to nag, scold or argue,
but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.

To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires,
but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.

To let go is not to criticize or regulate anybody,
but to try to become what I dream I can be.

To let go is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live for the future.

To let go is to fear less and love more
and
To let go and to let God, is to find peace!
Remember: The time to love is short.

This is a truly beautiful poem. Put it on your wall. And. Read often. Blessings. Celine