Good day everyone! Happy let’s revisit winter for a bit, say hi to spring and what up summer in the span of 3 days. If you’re a Game of Thrones fan, wow, 2 episodes in, 4 more to go!
On Todays adventure of the blog, I wanted to go over a lesson which … I’m still learning. The Art of Letting Go. I consider this an essential lesson in the the impressive armor we like to call resilience.
Ah, yes, resilience! Who doesn’t want some resilience in there life! What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger mentality. Knock me down, I get right back up. Some people seem to be born with resilience, they walk around with a can do attitude and no matter what people say to them, they carry on with their business, with a smile no less.
In a way, I imagine resilience as some amazing raincoat armor. It repels everything, protects you and maybe has one of those fancy heated interior for the winter. Everytime you put it on, you’re impervious to the words and effects others have on you, with or without your consent.
So, what about me? How can I achieve resilience? Where can I get my amazing raincoat armor?
Well, The Art of Letting Go is part of the armor of resilience.
What is The Art of Letting Go?
Letting Go is being able to take the mental grasp we have on some items in our life – words, events, people – and letting it go.
Now, don’t groan, but I am about to refer back to Disney and the sequence of Let it Go.
The main take away I had from this Disney moment, is that the character Elsa let go of the idea of being perfect and concealing who she was. She could imagine for the first time what it would be like to just be her, no pressure to be perfect or trying to be a person society expects her to be. There was uncertainty of what would follow, isolation to figure out who and what she was, but she was free to do and be whatever she wanted. By the end of the movie, she was able to figure out more about her powers, how they worked, and formed a better relationship with the people around her.
All of this wouldn’t be possible if she didn’t let go.
I have a pretty amazing coworker and she inspires me in how she deals with negative situations. Her resilience to the situations around her, its awe-inspiring. One of the biggest tools she uses in dealing with negative situations is letting go. How she deals with it is broken up into three components:
1. Acknowledgment of what made her angry/upset
2. Give herself time to allow her to feel those emotions for what they are. Maybe its a minute or a day. But there is a set time allowance to feel those emotions.
3. Let it go – Move on. If it’s something that is really making her upset/angry – she will write a letter to the person. She may or may not actually send the letter to them. But the act of writing the letter to them is a release for her.
How can I apply this in my life?
Let’s revisit resilience for a second. What is resilience?
re·sil·ience/rəˈzilyəns/noun
The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.”the often remarkable resilience of so many British institutions”
The ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.”nylon is excellent in wearability and resilience”
So, in the instance when I am faced with adversity, I can use the technique of letting go to build my resilience and be able to move on and help me create a better today for myself.
Adversity is a multitude of things. It’s not only the challenges presented by work, it is other people, its physical challenges, its the challenges we give ourself.
For myself, I had goals that I had in mind that I would reach by the age of 30.
I would have the following: A house, a dog, a husband and a career. What I am learning is that goals like those and setting a SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-specific) goal plan, is a way to set myself up for failure.
What I am learning that I need to do is to let the age specific part of those goals go. For me, that has been my challenge. But, I realize that its an essential lesson for me. Part of it is letting go of the ideas that I had as a what it means to succeed at life and when they should happen. If I am doing everything right in life, by the time I am 30, having a house, dog, husband and career will show that I have hit the mark of succeeding at life.
You can see where that line of thinking if flawed. Success is achievable at any age. It’s never too late. For me I see my peers and the green eyed monster will come out. But, I need to remind myself that I can still achieve my goals but they may not happen at the time or age when I think they will but thats ok! It doesn’t mean that it will never happen. It just means that timing is not right.
The other day, I thought it was perfect timing. Shine came out with how to use the Marie Kondo Method for Tidying Up your mental clutter.
For those of you not familiar with Marie Kondo, she is an organization consultant expert, author of The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and star of the Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. Her method of cleaning involves evaluating each item, determining whether it sparks joy inside you and if you are letting go of it, you thank it for its service.
The article did a great job of tying together Marie Kondo’s method of tidying up and applying it to mental clutter.
You can check out the link here: https://advice.shinetext.com/articles/the-marie-kondo-method-for-tidying-up-your-mental-clutter/
The Golden Gelly Nuggets
1. The Art of Letting Go helps us build resilience
2. Letting something go can be broken down into the following steps:
– Acknowledge your emotions
– Allow yourself to feel those emotions for a certain amount of time
– Let it go and move on
3. Letting go can range from events, people, physical challenges or even goals you may have had
3. Marie Kondo is adorable
Coming Soon! Book Review on Louis Hay “Heal Your Body” so be on the lookout!
Hope everyone has a great weekend!