Letting Go and Trusting the Process

Can you really let go?

I have written about this topic, letting go, before. But this time it was personal. I should say, this time I was aware of it.

It was a psychosomatic matter. It’s quite an experience when I’m the one that lectures on how the mind works. I know how I should be thinking. Nevertheless, it happened and my lower back was in pain.

To resolve it I visited an osteopath. He told me of how he works from the physical to the mental. That part of this tension in the muscles is the inability of letting go of negative thoughts. And that most of us are in the same situation.

Instead of being loose and relaxed, as we all should be, I was tense. My muscles were stiff and tight.

He also mentioned that we don’t always say everything that we want to say. We don’t say what we really feel or want to say because of fear of the response we’ll get. The fear of criticism, being disliked or ostracised. He described it as “like clearing out half the wardrobe and leaving the other half as it is”. This causes us to hold onto negative thoughts and emotions which will eventually affect us physically.

I lacked the trust to let go.

I’m a perfectionist and I would rather do everything myself – that way I know it gets done ‘right’. Or my definition of what that “right” means.

I did it my way

However, the truth is that I want things done a certain way – my way. You could say that it’s an inability to accept being wrong or that I always have to be right and, therefore, I do everything myself. Even if part of this is true, I know, listening to my intuition and heart, that the main reason is that I am a perfectionist.

Before, when I didn’t know how to do something ended up not doing it. I didn’t want to get it wrong. This stems from a subconscious belief from childhood – and most of our beliefs tend to be just that; childhood beliefs.

Even my spiritual father told me that I need to let go of that small child within. He obviously saw something that I didn’t.

So, I found myself not willing to give up the perfectionism, to let go. Another belief I wasn’t willing to let go was that a righteous life is one of poverty and giving. The belief that money is the root of all evil and so on. These beliefs are not only wrong but false. Putting money first and your fellow man second, is wrong. Poverty is the problem, that leads to most problems in society.

As for perfection, the thing is, nothing will ever be perfect.

In the military there is a saying – “Even the best-laid plans can go to waste”. There are no perfect plans. Perfection is a state of mind that can only be achieved in the mind. In the world around us, in which we create the life we want, there will always be obstacles, failures and setbacks we’ll need to get over until we reach our goal.

The thing is, most of the resistance comes from us. We keep ourselves back, trying to fight or thinking that we’re not fighting, the stream of life. If we just let go we’d probably get there quicker and easier.

We have so many hold-ups, beliefs, disbeliefs, fears and, at times, a lack of direction, that to get anywhere at all is a miracle in itself. But, if we do have a direction, a goal, a target we want to reach and attain, if we could just let go and trust that all will be as we have imagined and visualised, then things would turn out abundantly glorious.

But we don’t.

The other point that the osteopath brought up, is that all that tension causes a reaction. When the tension is first mental (stress, worry, fear) it will show up in the body (eczema, rashes, headaches), and the body will respond accordingly. It provides the proof for the mind, and the cycle continues.

There are two ways that we get a disconnection between mind and body. One is short and impactful, like a soldier during a firefight; the immediate effect is high awareness, stress and controlled action, practised again and again.

The other type is chronic and subtle. It builds up slowly and gently over time, leaving no sign until we begin to get those psychosomatic symptoms. These are the result of chronic, long term, stress, worry, fear, anger, hate… the list goes on.

The osteopath works on the body to help the mind, which in turn helps the body… It’s a cycle. And it can go the other way.

A tense body is a result of negative thoughts, but, start thinking “My body is loose and relaxed”, and knowing that your thoughts affect your physical world, your body will eventually begin to relax. The subconscious will start to believe the affirmation you give yourself until it becomes a belief. How long it takes is up to you and how much you believe that it will happen.

Negative thoughts and feelings, lead to illness, to further negativity…

What did I decide to do?

The solution really is to trust that all things will turn out as you and I have imagined them, and visualised them. Act in faith that what you want in your life is already here. It then needs time to manifest in your life.

It doesn’t matter whether you believe it or not. The fact is that this is the way it is. The only reason things don’t turn out as we want them is because we lose faith. We give up doing what we know we should do to move forward.

Accept fear and any other obstacles as part of the process. Then let go and let it happen, all the time continuing to do what you know you must.

For now, what I do know, is that the only way for me to “let go” is to let go. To make it happen consciously by shifting the way I think. This is a continuous process.

Is it easy? NO. All the false beliefs, fears and doubts will come up to the surface and scream at me to “keep control”. But it is a choice. And I choose to trust and have faith, that all will be as I have seen it in my own mind.

It’s a shift in thought and emotion. A shift in belief. And to do that we have to take a leap of faith!

Faith is the ability to see the invisible and believe in the incredible, and that is what enables believers to receive what the masses think is impossible. – Clarence Smithison