How Do I Finally Learn to Let Go?

"Hey Lauren,

Everyone is always talking nabout LETTING Go - SPECIFICALLY, how I have to let go of past painful situations or people who have hurt mE SO I CAN finally be happy. But no ever explains HOW to let go! How do I finally let go of all the shitty old pain, blame and resentment I carry around with me so I can live without worrying that my past is going to make me sick (I have terrible migraines and stomach aches already) and so i can open myself up to new experiences?

HELP ME learn to LET GO PLEASeee!

Thank you so much,

allie"

Oh, Allie. I feel your pain, girl. Letting go is the hardest thing for me, too. 

If you’ve ever struggled with a breakup, a toxic relationship with a family member or friend, an addiction, made a less than stellar decision, or experienced a moment where you acted less than holy; if you were abused, humiliated, or involved in any situation that caused a modicum of trauma, sadness, guilt, hurt, shame  or anger, in order to protect your health and happiness, you need to learn to let go. So, basically, if you were BORN and you are READING THIS RIGHT NOW, you probably have some stored up pain it's time to let go of. 

BUT HOW DO YOU ACTUALLY DO IT? 

1. Take responsibility for your life 

 Harbouring hurt or resentment is detrimental to your health; it’s like walking down a one-way path towards disease. I’ve seen emotional pain manifest into illness in my own life and in other’s lives. Your headaches and stomach aches are undoubtedly linked to the pain you're carrying around. Things like anxiety, depression, eating disorders, acne, weight gain, hormonal health, digestive issues, and infertility all have an emotional link.  If we hold on to unhappy memories, resentment or grief, these things burrow deeply into our bodies and negatively alter our DNA. I BELEE DAT, FULLY.  It's proven.  But, it's also totally amazing. If you're willing to do the tough job of taking complete responsibility for your circumstances + breaking up with a victim mindset, you'll finally have the power to alter the course of your life.

Officially resign from the blame game. Burn the black book. Stop keeping score.  If you get 100% real with yourself, you'll see that, in most cases, you somehow conspired in the disaster. You said yes, you didn't trust yourself, you reacted in anger, you didn't walk away, you chose to ignore the signs, you didn't speak up, you didn't put up proper boundaries. It wasn't entirely your fault, of course; but, whatever your role was in the situation that caused you pain, own it. Own your part and you can redirect your focus to the only place you can make a difference: you. You can start cleaning up your side of the street. You can start healing the parts of you that are hurt. Own your part and you will immediately regain your power. This is the only way you can  move on knowing that you're heading toward a happier, healthier future. 

So, fess up: what part did you play in your painful situation? Why do you think you did it?  Were you motivated by fear, lack of self-love, or your childhood wounds? Reflect on these questions in your journal or discuss with your best friend or a counsellor. Use your pain as fuel for your growth. If you can pinpoint what you need to focus on healing in order to evolve, you'll greatly reduce your chances of winding up in this kind of pain again. Own it. Understand it. Clear it. 

2. Forgive

Of all the important tasks a human being is required to master in order to attain bliss, health and an all around AMAZING LYFE, letting go has always been the most challenging for me.  Blame it on my stubborn Taurus nature. Blame it on my Italian heritage - we use guilt like Virgil Abloh uses quotes, we surround everything with that shit. Blame it on my addictive personality or my fear of failing. Whatever the cause, the fact remains: I'm right there with you, Allie. I'm no bueno at letting go.  I'm good at step one: I can take responsibility for my part like a champ. But after I accept my part, I always get locked up in the pain of what happened. Over the years, I’ve realized that the reason I get stuck is that I LOVE PLOTTING REVENGE... Ok, that's only half true. Mainly, it's because truly letting go cannot be accomplished without my second favourite f-word: forgiveness. Every influencer with a social media account preaches it as the #KEY to having a bigger pool than Kanye but no one tells you exactly how to forgive! I've talked about forgiveness before, but I'll reiterate:

The basis of forgiveness is this: the person who hurt you did the best they could in the moment, so did you. It's that simple. It's very easy to forgive someone when you know their actions were about their pain, not about you - their actions were inspired by a complicated mix of childhood wounds, ego, self-protection and fear. We're all a bunch of skin-covered aliens just trying to survive. We're all struggling with similar trauma stories, yearning to be loved. Don't waste your time analyzing their behaviour or wondering why they did something horrible to you. Instead, convince yourself that the WHY doesn't matter, because it wasn't about you. They did their best, no matter how depraved their actions were. Hurt people hurt people. None of us are immune to pain. Forgiveness requires you to play only the highlight reel. It requires you to look past someone's actions and recognize them for who they really are, underneath it all: light, love, innocence. Just like you.

True forgiveness begins the moment we consider our oneness: at our core, we are all the same.  We come from the same place and will return to the same place when we die, like individual waves in a single ocean. Because of this, the way you treat another is, ultimately, the way you treat yourself. If I condemn you, I'm condemning myself. If I forgive you, I'm releasing myself. If I wish you peace, I can be at peace. You don't have to AGREE with what someone did and you certainly don't have to LIKE it, but you do have to accept it if you want to be free. I fundamentally believe that people aren’t born cruel. People aren’t TRYING to hurt you, Allie, they’re usually just trying to survive. We are all doing our best with what we have and what we know. 

Who is the person you need to forgive most? Who is the source of your greatest pain? Can you picture this person as an innocent, wounded child? Can you have compassion for their pain or actions?  You don't have to reach out to them or resolve anything verbally, just be willing to imagine them as a fearful person who did the best they could. Close your eyes, picture them, and blast them with love and compassion. If praying is your thing, try praying for their happiness. It sounds crazy - why would you pray for the person that hurt you? - but what you give to others is what you give to yourself. If you wish for their peace and happiness, it's only a matter of time before yours arrives, too. This is VERY hard to do. But start slow and keep at it. I promise it will set you free. 

3. Practice

There’s one specific situation that I've struggled to let go of for many years. Every time I think I’ve done it, I have an encounter with this person that sends the pain  flooding right back in. It’s like time travel; I’m transported to the past and every emotion I experienced returns with a vengeance, determined to wreak havoc on the parts of my soul I thought I'd thoroughly exfoliated. It’s a familiar pattern: I see this person, I am triggered by something they do or say to me (I’ve meditated for 8 years and I AM STILL NOT A MASTER OF PEACE AND ZEN), emotion hits like a wave of hot rage slamming my chest, I hear the same old story playing in my head "you hurt me and now I want to hurt you,"  and I react viciously and unconsciously.  This, my friend, is RAGE BLACKOUT territory.

The last time this happened, my angry reaction filled me with so much shame. I couldn't believe I wasn't passed this. WHY WAS THIS STILL HAPPENING? WHY WAS I FAILING SO MISERABLY AT LETTING THIS GO? I AM TRYING SO HARD TO LET GO, WHAT IS W.RONG WITH ME?  WHY AM I STILL HURT AND ANGRY? DIDN’T I FORGIVE ALREADY? AM I DEFECTIVE? IS THIS, LIKE EVERY TYPE OF PHYSICAL EXERCISE, EASIER FOR OTHER PEOPLE? Life is hard. I should hide under the covers watching Netflix for hours marinating in my own regret and self-pity. OH, I HAVE CHIPS IN THE CUPBOARD? PERFECT. And WINE?!?! Amazing. IS THERE CHEESE THOUGH? If I'm going to drown my sorrows, I can't do it without gruyere. 

After a bottle of red wine, I started to understand my greatest mistake was turning on myself. The third critical step of letting go is knowing that forgiveness is not a ray of light that shines in through your mouth collects every bad thing that’s ever happened to you and sweeps it out through your sphincter.  Letting go is not an emotional enema. It’s a softening. It happens slowly, layer by layer. We must simply be willing to forgive and let go; to continually make the space for it, even if we don’t feel like we're ready or doing it well enough. Even if we're still stuck on the story of how despicable their behaviour was.  Even if we’d rather hold on to the pain, because it’s more comfortable to latch on to what we know, than it is to admit we can change. 

Letting go is rarely something you need to do once. It takes time. It’s like herpes - you will deal with angry flare ups! It’s something you will have to practice over and over and over again, because you are a beautiful human with a heart and a memory and triggers and moods, and we deal with other humans that carry similar baggage. It takes time to unlearn our pain and implement a new method of supporting ourselves. It's like working towards an emotional six pack: we need to condition our muscle and regularly exercise it in order to ensure it's strong . Letting go is not a struggle or a battle. It’s not a task you can succeed or fail at. It's like life, it’s a process. 

Allie, the next time you see or hear something that causes a familiar negative emotion to rise up, have compassion for yourself. Recognize the feeling, determine the trigger, and then say out loud or in your head “KK I FEEL U. I understand I'm holding on to a story of how I was hurt and that is what made me feel shame, sadness, or pain. If I had known better at the time, I would have done better. I take full responsibility for whatever part I played in this mess. I am open to learning the lesson here, if I haven’t already. But I don’t want to live with these negative emotions anymore. The situation was awful, I feel the pain fully in my chest, but I choose to love and forgive myself and the other person(s) involved. I send love and forgiveness to myself and to everyone involved. I choose to let go. I call my power back. I choose to make the best of this and commit to my healing. I choose to rise.”

That’s it. You just have to keep doing it. As many times as it takes.

There’s a visualization I recommend you try the next time you feel like you can't let go of something:

Lay down comfortably, close your eyes, and breathe deeply for several minutes until you're relaxed.  Picture yourself at the bottom of a dark, cold ocean. See long, white ropes tied around your ankles, attaching you to whatever or whoever is causing you pain in that moment. A person. A situation. A memory. Take in the lack of light, the sadness, the heaviness of being under water tied up to the weight from your past. Think about the pain you're feeling and try to locate where it's hurting in your body; usually, you'll feel a tightness in your throat, chest or solar plexus. Gaze directly at the person or situation that hurt you and breathe deeply into these your blocked energy centre. This may sound velveeta-level cheesy, but that's just your resistance. There are times when I want to scream or laugh or cry while doing this. Don’t judge yourself, just go with it. Usually, the first 4 or 5 deep breaths feel ridiculously uncomfortable and make you want to stop. Please don’t. Things will come up to be cleared. Breathe into the pain, wherever it is in the body, until it starts to dissipate. Keep breathing into the constriction and dropping into your body,  getting out of your head and into your heart. When the tightness in your throat/chest/solar plexus finally begins to loosen, start sending the situation or person all the love and forgiveness you can muster. Wiish them peace. They were just doing the best they could at the time. Think about yourself and your role in the situation; you were just doing the best you could with what you knew at the time. Send all the love and forgiveness you can muster to yourself. Ask to be at peace. Then, imagine yourself grabbing a knife off the ocean floor and sawing through the tight rope tied around each ankle that’s attaching you to your old hurt. Once released, swim up to the top as quickly as you can, leaving it all behind, following the light of the sun. Take a deep breath and imagine yourself floating on the surface of the sea, bathing in the warmth of the sun.

You are safe. You are loved. You are finally free.

This is forgiveness.
This is letting go.

It’s refusing to drown and choosing to float instead. 

Have a question? Email hi@laurenmarotta.com with the subject line #ASKLAUREN. I'll be answering a new question every other Monday.