Letting Go

If you’re at all like me, when you notice yourself going down a hole of negative thinking, you do your best to stop.  Running possible horrible outcomes of a potential future event, for example, isn’t helpful and doesn’t leave us feeling empowered or at peace.

Not too long ago, I found myself in one of these situations and I as soon as I noticed I did my best to stop the thought process, and did so...for about 30 seconds when it popped back up.  (Ever notice that tendency in your experience?)  When I made the internal shift to cease the thought pattern again, I recognized something I hadn’t before.

Stopping a thought pattern from running is resistance.  It is holding on.  Using our willpower to attempt to force the brain to not think a certain thing will always keep that thinking in place. To keep a thought from coming up, you have to hold it down.

Our consciousness is very good at letting go of stress and negativity, if we allow it.  Every time a negative thought crops up, it isn’t coming up to torture you, it's coming up to be released.  The unconscious becomes conscious for you to take action.  If the action is to say “No, don’t think that, stop,” what you are really saying is, “I’m not ready to let go of this yet, please, subconscious, hold on to it a bit longer for me.”

At the same time, we certainly don’t want to spin in negative thinking, running a scenario over and over.  That isn’t letting go either.   That tells your subconscious that, not only do you want to keep the thinking, you want it to be more vivid and come up more often.  

So, what are we to do?  Simply allow it.  If your subconscious really was very skilled at letting go of such negativity (it is) and the whole reason the thinking that you’ve been resisting cropped up is because your subconscious is saying, “I’m going to get rid of this, unless you object,” (it is) then ours is simply not to object.  You don’t have to forcibly stop the experience - that is holding on to it.  You don’t have give it power by running it over and over or getting caught up in the experience of its passing through you.  Simply allow it.  Let it come up and out.  Stay as neutral as possible.  You will experience the negative energy as it releases, but that doesn’t mean you have to go into it.  Just let it be.  Let the experience be what it will be.  Keep as open as you can, not just mentally but physically too.  Be open.  You might even want to bring some Love into the experience.  Your subconscious is clearing out something that you’ve been holding onto for far too long.  There can be gratitude in the experience as well.  All this is done through intention and awareness.

Since this realization, I’ve done my best to not stop negative thinking anymore, but simple to unattach and allow it to leave.  Sometimes I do well, sometimes I don’t.  I’m getting better.  I’ve noticed that when I’m really successful at this, the thoughts don’t back a few seconds or a few minutes later.  So, the next time you find yourself spinning in a familiar, negative thinking pattern, try this out.  Think to yourself “Thank you, my amazing subconscious, for bringing this up to be released.  I’ll do my best to allow you to do what you do so well.  I let this go!”  Then, open your heart, roll back your shoulders, be as relaxed and open as possible and let the experience flow out, visualizing it dissipating into nothing as soon as the experience passes through you.