Keeping Mindful

Just Let Go!

As one of the most overused phrases in our culture, do we even know what this means?  Our instinct for anything that is a burden to us is to mull over it and cause ourselves mental anguish. We worry and hand ring with anxiety over what has already happened or what could happen. Then we coach ourselves to “let it go”. Does this mean we stop thinking about it? Does this mean we distract ourselves temporarily with a shiny object in our presence?  And because we are rarely able to move our focus to the present what we are trying to “let go” gets more intense in a vicious cycle of self-defeating thought. We beat ourselves up for not letting it go and beat ourselves up for moving forward without resolution. The way we complicate our thoughts is like taking one of grandmas best loved recipes and updating it to be gourmet. Sometimes the simpler things are the better they taste and that also relates to the dissecting and overcomplicating of our issues. “Let it go” means stop suffering! It doesn’t matter whether you stop thinking about it or not, it just means that you have made a conscious choice to stop hurting yourself and embrace the “now”.