Assignment 2 (Article 3)
Letting Go: How To Master the Art
Written by Siti Nur Athirah
Make the decision.
The hardest thing about letting go is making the decision and feeling okay about it. The ‘what-if’s’ will kill you and talk you into tightening your grip every time. That doesn’t mean they’re right. Set a time limit (‘if I’m still unhappy in six weeks …’) or a condition limit (‘if this happens one more time …’). There are some questions to ask yourself to sure up your resolve:
- Do I feel bad more than I feel good? If yes, it’s time to let go.
- What has to change for me to feel happy and secure? Have I ever seen this before?
- Is this person, job, relationship is capable of giving me what I need?
- What do I get from staying? Is it something real? Or something long gone. When was the last time I got this?
The hardest thing about letting go is making the decision and feeling okay about it. The ‘what-if’s’ will kill you and talk you into tightening your grip every time. That doesn’t mean they’re right. Set a time limit (‘if I’m still unhappy in six weeks …’) or a condition limit (‘if this happens one more time …’). There are some questions to ask yourself to sure up your resolve:
- Do I feel bad more than I feel good? If yes, it’s time to let go.
- What has to change for me to feel happy and secure? Have I ever seen this before?
- Is this person, job, relationship is capable of giving me what I need?
- What do I get from staying? Is it something real? Or something long gone. When was the last time I got this?
Have an anchor.
Often when you let go, you’ll remember things as being better than they were. What the strongest evidence you’ve had that it’s time to let go? Was it a conversation, a feeling, a(nother) disappointment? Remember that. Hang on t it and remember it every time you feel the pull to hang on again.
Cry. Go on. It’s good for you.
Research by Dr William Frey PhD, a biochemist at the Ramsey Medical Center in Minneapolis found that tears of sadness contained stress hormones and other toxins that build up during stress. Other studies suggest that crying encourages endorphins, the body’s natural ‘feel good’ hormones. Reflex tears, on the other hand are 98% water.
Feel it fully.
You’re going to feel sad, angry, maybe confused or scared. Whatever it is that’s in you, has to come out of you. Feel what you’re feeling fully. Put it on paper. Have a cry in the shower. Turn up the music and let it out. Do what you need to do to release the energy. Then you can move forward.
What can you learn?
About yourself, your expectations, the people who are good for you and the ones who don’t work so well. No experience is ever wasted. Learning from your experience is the best way to make sure you don’t repeat the same mistakes, find yourself in the same type of relationships or around the same sort of people. With the learning will come closure and movement forwards.
We’re all here to grow and flourish and we all deserve to be happy. Having to let go of things that were once important is part of life – a painful part, but normal nonetheless. None of us stay the same. We grow constantly.
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