Letting Go

Have you been holding on to something for way too long? Is it no longer serving you? Is it instead, bringing you down- causing you to feel like a bitter shell of who you used to be? Maybe it is time to let it go. Letting go can set you free.

In my book, The Snowball Effect: How to Build Positive Momentum in Your Life (available on Amazon), I integrate true stories about people learning to let go of resentment, harsh self-judgements, and explosive anger with evidence based tools and techniques. If you don’t already have the book, check it out. Kindle version is only $3.03. Below you will find a short little nugget taken from the The Snowball Effect.

A client came to me the other day.  She is chronically anger with her mother and has been for years. The anger is poisoning her.  It is tearing her apart.  She describes herself as nothing but a bitter shell of who she use to be.  She is so consumed by her anger that she is shutting out all of the joy in her life (and there is a lot).  I shared with her my lesson.

My lesson about life being precious and short- way too short to spend it full of contempt and resentment.  The lesson that we learn when we have a near death experience, survive a life threatening illness, or lose a loved one.

Her mother is getting up there in years and is struck with an illness that is taking over her body.  “Let go,” I stressed to my client.  I moved my chair a little closer, but not too close.  I looked my client in the eye, and with extreme passion, but a tone close to a whisper, I said, “It is time to let go.  Enjoy the time that you have left with your mother.”  My client’s eyes welled with tears, and she nodded yes.  She knew, the time had come.  The time to let go.  The time to rid herself of the poison.  The time to stop ruminating about the past.  The time to reclaim her life.  The time to let life in.

Are you poisoning yourself with resentment?  Has the time come to let it go?  Only you can really make that decision.  Make it well.  You deserve the best in life, but it is up to you.

Today’s challenge. Replace thoughts filled with resentment with thoughts filled with gratitude. Ask yourself, Could there be an eventual blessing in my pain? Could it be that I still don’t know the bigger picture?