I have a hard time letting go. It’s just one of the many common situations that I rather avoid altogether if I could. Just the thought of letting go makes me feel uneasy, uncomfortable, and at times nauseous. But why is that I have a hard time letting go? How come it looks so easy when other people do it to us? How could they possibly think it is okay to just let go of everything and the next day, act like it never happened. Do I have a letting go problem?
Why it may be hard for you to let go
Letting go isn’t easy. Let’s just face the music. It’s hard, it’s hurtful, and it’s just downright frightful. As humans, I believe we have this fixation of wanting things in our lives to go our way. Whether it be in our professional or personal lives, most of us may envision and plant an idea in our heads on how we want and expect situations to pan out.
We crave stability and routine. Life is already hard and unpredictable, so normally what we truly want the most, in my opinion, is security. Because having a sense of security makes us feel happy, safe, secure, and above all…comfortable.
The moment our feeling of security is stripped away from our hands and from our lives, it makes us feel extremely uncomfortable. A feeling most of us try to avoid daily.
When an uncomfortable situation occurs, the first thing most of us may want to do is try to control the situation. It is no secret that when an unpredictable situation happens, we do anything to try to go back to what we perceive it be as “normal”.
Whether it is begging your ex to stay with you when the relationship has already been shattered or feeling like you “have to do something right away or else”.
Trying to control situations or scenarios because we believe we must do it, is just downright unhealthy.
Why trying to take control may not be the best option for you
SZA is no stranger to control. Her opening track “Supermodel” from her album, CTRL, starts with:
“That is my greatest fear,
that if, if I lost control,
Or did not have control,
Things would just you know,
I, it would be fatal….”
The song depicts SZA’s heart aching response after her ex-boyfriend did her wrong and left her. SZA tells her listeners and her ex-partner that she is ready to leave and move on, asserting herself that she could be a supermodel to her ex-lover if he truly believed it and saw it in her.
However, as the song ends, she questions herself as to why she can’t just be comfortable by herself. Reminding herself and her listeners that at the end of the day, she feels that she needs him in her life.
This perfect depiction of the emotional battle most of us are forced to deal with when someone wrongs us or things just doesn’t fall in the ways we expected them to.
You may feel that your world has fallen apart and that you can’t go on with your life. When that happens, our first instinct is to react. But what If I told you that isn’t the true answer?
You see, when we are under a lot of stress and our emotions are high, probably 9 times out of 10, we are more inclined to do the first thing that pops up in our mind because we believe it is the right thing to do. To react.
The only control you have is your response
The reaction is unhealthy, draining, and a waste of energy. Whenever you are faced with a situation that makes you feel out of touch or uncomfortable. It is very tempting to try to control the situation and forcefully try to make things go your way.
We may feel as though we are banging our heads against the wall. Thinking to ourselves, “there must be another way,” but in reality, we are just wasting our time and our energy.
The only control you possess is your response.
What is the difference between the reaction and the response? The reaction is the impulsive action you take whenever you are faced with opposition. It could be to argue, to fight back, or forcefully control the situation to make it go our way. The response shows emotional maturity. The response tells your opposition that you are not to be messed with.
When you respond to a situation, the power is in your hands to decide how you want to navigate. When you react, you give your power away.
To respond is to let go. Let go of the need to control, let go of the belief that things must go the way you expect them to.
For a long time, I couldn’t grasp this simple yet helpful tactic whenever I was faced with situations where I felt like I had no control.
I always believed in the saying “fight for what you want” which is true in most cases, but not for all. Whenever I reacted, I gave my power away to my opposition and allowed them to have power over my emotional and mental wellbeing.
When they do have that kind of power of you, anything they say or do can cause you to react. Putting a serious dent in your emotional wellbeing.
After learning about the true power of response, I discovered that control is not outwards, but more so inwards. I can control my feelings, my thoughts, my actions, and my reactions. I have the power to choose. I could bang against my head against the wall and waste my time and energy or say to myself, “this isn’t right for me” or “I don’t know if this is healthy for me, I would rather walk away”.
How to respond
Responding doesn’t mean you are throwing in the towel and calling it quits. It is choosing to allow the situation to pan out the way it is meant to be regardless of your personal feelings about it.
It is choosing to avoid mental and emotional distress by focusing on more important things that you could put your energy too.
How do you respond to your opposition? Here are a few common scenarios:
- If you discover that your partner has chosen to ignore you, don’t force them to talk to you. Instead, back off and take a minute to think about what possibly could have caused them to treat you this way. Sit on it and then leave it alone and focus on other ways while you wait for them to come around.
- If someone wrongs you, it is better to take the time to learn to forgive them and more importantly yourself then to try to get revenge.
- If someone is trying to get a reaction out of you just to see you get ugly, ask yourself, is my energy worth wasting on this person?
It is best to let go
Letting go may be very hard to do. It is something I rather not have to face or deal with if I had the power to do so. However, letting go will always be a part of the human experience. Every person you meet, every situation you encounter, every conflict you face is just another practice opportunity on letting go.
The saying, “everything happens for a reason” couldn’t be further from the truth. Time will never stop ticking and life will never stop moving.
To not let go, is to imprison yourself. To imprison yourself is to forcefully make you stay behind while life goes on without you. That is a sad way to live. You have the power to respond and to respond is to let go. Sometimes it is just better that way, and when you do. You will thank yourself in the future.
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