Letting Go

There have been times when I’ve been really stressed out over something going on in my life only to hear someone say "…just let it go". I tried on a few occasions, but it never quite worked that way for me.

People often say things like "…don’t give it any power". You can actually feed your issues and make them bigger if you constantly think and talk about them. On the other hand, ignoring your issues will not cause them to go away.

People often think they’re letting go, but what usually happens is they end up disconnecting from parts of themselves. All those painful feelings and conflicted issues then stay trapped in the body. These conflicts will eventually resurface in one form or another.

Thoughts, feelings, emotions and life experiences have to be digested. We can help to facilitate this digestive process by being really present with what ever we are feeling at the moment and then breathing into the painful and conflicted emotions associated with unresolved issues as they arise.

Many of us struggle with parts of our lives that are not working the way that we want them to. We may try to control the outcome by manipulating other people or the situation that we find ourselves in. Trying to force matters usually generates more stress and it causes us to jam up inside. The additional pressure we generate may cause things to blow up around us.

There are times when it’s appropriate to take charge to create a more favorable outcome. But there are times when I realize that I’m holding on too tightly by trying to control the outcome. I have to stop and allow myself to feel the parts of me that are trying to control. I’m able to feel how I’m contracting around certain issues or situations. I make a point of relaxing my grip as I breathe into the feelings. Fear, anxiety or feelings of frustration may surface as I work with this practice. Processing these feelings makes it easier for me to come to a place of acceptance, relax into what’s happening and allow things take their course.

Unresolved issues and unprocessed thoughts, emotions and life experiences tend to accumulate within us. We become so saturated with all this old clutter that we have very little room to take in anything new.

Most of you are aware of how open and engaging younger people are. They learn quickly, are full of life and they tend to jump right into things. You may also notice how some people slow down and sometimes become set in their ways as they age. They may also have a tendency to live in the past.

I see the accumulated residue of people’s past when I look into their auras. Many people become so saturated by the clutter of their unprocessed thoughts, emotions and life experiences and that has a tremendous deadening effect. People lose that passionate fire within that would renew them and cause them to want to engage in life. The chakras become ossified and that reflects both a rigidifying and dulling of the mind. People become so cluttered and congealed and their circuitry becomes so corroded that they have very little openness or receptivity to take in anything new.

All of us have difficulty moving on at times. People change; friends often move away or grow in different directions. We may have found the love of our life, but we eventually grow old and die. The only constant in life is change. But there is a part of us that lives through all time and space. I connect with this part of myself by focusing my attention on the presence of my soul within. That helps to dissipate much of the stress and strengthen my connection to the source so that I can feel this presence more powerfully as I move forward in my life.

We can’t see our emotions and that’s why so many people are not aware of the impact they have upon us. Feelings and emotions arise in response to the events taking place in our lives and from our interpretation of these events.

The conflicted thoughts, feelings and unresolved issues that we fail to digest get pushed down inside of us. These internalized conflicts begin to act like the drivers within a computer. These drivers motivate us to act. They also create filters that determine how we think and feel.

Many of us struggle with the same issues throughout the course of our lives. We try to change but we find ourselves running into many of the same problems. Buried emotions keep these patterns locked into place. We can’t change the programs unless we begin to digest the underlying thoughts and emotions.

Hypnosis can help to facilitate change in some instances by installing new programs. Some of the old programs may get pushed into the background. These dysfunctional parts of us will surface in one form or another somewhere down the road.

Our individual lives vary tremendously. People who were never subjected to physical or sexual trauma may have difficulty comprehending the experiences of those were.

People who experienced physical or sexual trauma can’t just let it go. They went through overwhelming experiences that they could not process at the time. Those experiences produced overwhelming emotional reactions, which then created powerful biochemical responses in the brain. Those experiences became deeply wired in to the mind-brain of the individual. Many of those who have experienced these traumas wonder if they will ever get through it. They often wish that it would just go away.

Traditional talk therapy will help in some respects. It helps one to gain some intellectual understanding of what’s going on. But it can’t change the hardwired patterns that generate so much pain. These patterns have to be reformatted.

People often tell me that they have forgiven those who have wronged them. I find that many of these people are still carrying around lots of hurt, resentment and other conflicted thoughts and feelings on the inside of them.

I often ask my clients to focus their attention on a person who has hurt them at some time in their life. I ask them to imagine the person as if they were sitting right here in the room with us. Many people indicate that they feel uncomfortable in their body as they imagine the other person. Feelings such as hurt and anger may surface along with memories of unresolved conflicts associated with those individuals.

Many people gain some form of gratification from holding onto hurts. They may use their hurts to gain leverage that allows them to manipulate others. It may have also served as a means of gaining attention or acknowledgement. For instance, some children could only get attention from their parents by creating some drama or being sick.

These patterns become more deeply ingrained over time. They eventually become part of our makeup. Parts of us are still locked into some distorted pattern of need gratification. It may be the only way we have ever learned to get what we need and we may be getting lots of mileage off of it. Some people have become so identified with their victimization that the thought of healing becomes very frightening. Their sense of self has become defined by their victimhood. They really don’t know anything else. Giving up their victim identity would force them to find a whole new way of being in the world.

Some of the American Indians that I grew up with used these kind of excuses for not ever succeeding in life "…I’m (screwed up) because of all the horrible things that have happened to our people" We never grow, mature or step into our power as long as we continue to see ourselves as a victim.

It can be a little painful for some of us to really look into the mirror and see who we are and what were doing. It’s important for us to be fully honest with ourselves and acknowledge the unhealthy ways that we have tried to manipulate or control others to get what we want. That can evoke shame along with lots of other unpleasant feelings.

Close your eyes and take a really good look at yourself and notice how you feel. It’s important to come from a place of self-acceptance as you work with this practice. Ask yourself "…Is this how I want to be? …Is this the way I want to move through the world? …What do I really need and how can I get it in a healthier way?" Breathe into any feelings that arise and follow the feelings as they go through their progression. The process can become uncomfortable at times, but you will find that it helps these parts of you to evolve.

All of us have felt hurt or violated in some way by people at some time in the past. We don’t fully process the hurts at the time they happen. These parts of us never mature because all those painful and conflicted thoughts and feelings are still down there inside of us and that keeps us locked into the same perception. These parts of us continue to live the hurts of our past. We end up carrying the past with us indefinitely.

These hurts often end up getting buried within us. Layers and layers of other stuff pile up on top of those unresolved issues or hurts as the years go by. These issues become so deeply buried inside of us and that’s why we find it so difficult to access the source.

These feelings often surface when we find ourselves confronted with issues or situations that leave us feeling vulnerable. These experiences provide a valuable opportunity for us to get in touch with the feelings that we have kept buried inside of us for so long.

It can be very difficult to let go of people who for one reason or another are no longer an active part of our lives. Parts of us are still very much attached to these individuals.

The death of a loved on can have a truly devastating effect. Parts of us may shut down or die when someone we love dies. These parts of us may never really come back on their own.

I was working with a client who recently who went through a break up. He found himself missing his former partner and he kept saying things like "…I shouldn’t be feelings this". This client has a need to be perfect and feels that something is wrong with him if he experiences feelings of hurt, loss or longing for his former partner.

These feelings are a normal response to such a loss. They are also connected to other significant losses from our past. It’s crucially important for us to come from a place of acceptance for ourselves and how we feel by saying something like "…okay, this is what I’m feeling right now …this is where I am at this time".

Many people try to busy themselves or create distractions so they don’t have to think about the other person or experience all those unpleasant feelings. All that pain stays trapped inside of us. We never really resolve the underlying issues when we do that. We then go on down the road in our life, meet someone else and then find our self reattaching in similar ways and we end up creating the same kinds of drama all over again. These parts of us also eventually shut down and then go into a numb or deadened state.

Some people develop patterns where they become way too attached to others in relationships. They may have experienced early abandonment trauma. These dynamics may also be compounded by experiences of unrequited love.

People with these patterns tend to create projections that cause them to feel as if they have found the love of their life. They experience excruciating pain when things don’t work out. These individuals often spend hours and hours trying to figure everything out if their love is not being reciprocated.

The unhealthy patterns of attachment that cause us to fixate are programmed into our subconscious mind. There’s no intellectual process or attitudinal shift that will change that. These patterns are hardwired into our brain-mind and they have to be reformatted.

The emotional pain that these individuals go through is torturous. They have to force themselves to eat, they can’t sleep and they can barely function once these patterns are activated. The hurt they carry within creates a desperate need for love. That desperation fuels the projection. The charged emotions behind these projections can weigh very heavily on a relationship. The pain makes them feel crazy and they often act out compulsive ways in their attempt to hold onto their love object. People who are stuck in these patterns experience a level of shock or denial that makes them blind to what’s really going on with the other person. Maybe on some level they are trying to avoid the reality that they other person does not love them. They always have some explanation for why things are not working and they will go on talking forever about it and get nowhere.

I have my clients bring their attention to what’s really happening at that moment. This may involve acknowledging that the other person does not love them and is not with them. I ask them to be as present as possible with the feelings associated with their experience. I then have the client breathe into the feelings of loss, desperation and of not having one’s love reciprocated.

Breathing softly and deeply as you immerse your awareness in the middle of the feelings is one of the most powerful means of dissolving these kinds of destructive attachment. You can’t force the process by trying to make the feelings go away. It’s best to just be fully present with the feeling and allow the process to take its own natural course.

The feelings associated with loss or rejection can be excruciating. There are times when the feelings can become so strong that you feel as if you will pass out. Do the best you can to stay present with the feelings and follow the changes in your feelings that take place as they go through their progression.

These patterns can become so deeply ingrained. That’s why it takes a tremendous effort to change them. Many will find that there is no quick fix. It can take hours of breathing into the pain to facilitate real change. Deep tissue massage, healing sessions and vision quests can greatly accelerate the process.

I work with these breathing practices every day because they help me to dissipate much of the stress and work through issues that arise during the course of the day. These practices help to create a flexibility within me that make it easier for me to adapt to the demands of everyday life.

I struggled with debilitating patterns that were very deeply ingrained within me, for what seemed like forever. I found myself repeating many of the same kinds of experiences and feeling many of the same painful emotions. There were times when I felt helpless to change. I realized that there are some things that we cannot fully process on our own.

All of that began to change as a result of the healing sessions and vision quests. I feel much freer and I have more of the resources to do what I need to do. Now I’m helping to facilitate these same kinds of changes in those I work with.