This is the final article on the seven attitudes of mindfulness. Today we are discussing Letting Go. When I first started studying the concept of letting go, I was listening to a meditation on the subject in the Muse app. The narrator of the mediation placed a lot of emphasis on not being attached to a particular outcome. This is very similar to the attitude of non-striving. As I journaled, I began to think about the difference between letting to and non-striving. What I realized is letting go involves an emotional release. Whereas non-striving is more focused on making a conscious choice to be free of attachment to a particular outcome.
The narrator also gave a very powerful visualization of letting to. He painted the picture of tightly grasping something in your fist. Then relaxing your grasp. In both scenarios you are holding on to something. The difference is you’re expending more energy by squeezing tightly than when you relax your grip. The same goal is achieved but with much less energy when you relax. When I think about letting go and non-striving, I realize a balance is being created between our mental and emotional states. Achieving this kind of balance is a worthy goal and mindfulness is a great tool to help us accomplish it.
Letting Go and Letting Be
An article called Mindfulness Principles – How to Let Go and Let Be talks about how Jon Kabit-Zinn considers letting go is closely related to letting be. This means having a tranquil, non-judgmental acceptance of reality. The difference between letting go and letting be is as follows. Letting go is experiencing freedom from being trapped in our own closed belief system. Letting be is maintaining ourselves in a still place of acceptance. We are continually engaging with life in the present moment. It becomes a state of existence. We are able to silence our egos and connect with others. We are empowered to practice loving kindness to bot ourselves and others. This is the mindful way of achieving peace.
The Power of Letting Go
In another article The Power of Letting Go, author Carley Hauck states practicing letting go is one method of strengthening our inner stability. We are able to become more content with less. Hauck describes how she and her mentor were discussing the attitude of letting go. They broke letting go down into three categories below.
- Letting Go of Story – the story we tell ourselves becomes our reality. When we are in difficult situations we tend to say “I’m not good enough” or I don’t have enough. Instead, we need to start telling ourselves a different story. This strengthens our inner stability. When we start telling a new story we start experiencing a new reality.
- Letting Go of Stuff – often times we try to achieve happiness by accumulating lots of stuff. This is one form of looking outside of ourselves for fulfillment. This only leads to never being satisfied. Finding satisfaction occurs when we realize he have everything we really need and allow ourselves to experience contentment.
- Letting Go of Busyness – We all have demands on our time. We are overloaded with endless chores, must be here’s, and should do that’s. Hauck states “Sometimes the best way to have more-time, connection, and freedom, is to commit to less”. Learning to say no give you time for the things that really matter to you.
Letting Go and Mindfulness
Letting go is the fundamental nature of mindfulness. We explore our thoughts, emotions, and beliefs and then let them go. Letting go is just like breathing. We breathe in, but if we don’t let the breath go, we are unable to take the next breath. Just like breathing if we hold on to the old thoughts, emotions, and beliefs we are not able to bring in new ones that are refreshing and soothing. Letting go is the ultimate goal of mindfulness.