When I find a book I love, I go back to it regularly. Right now, that book is Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender by Dr. David Hawkins. In the book, Dr. Hawkins dives into things like the mechanism of letting go, the relationship between thoughts and feelings, the anatomy of emotions, and the relationship between the mind and the body.
In the book, Dr. Hawkins mentions two things that I keep thinking about: “What’s held in the mind tends to manifest” and “Without a change of consciousness, there is no real reduction of stress. Techniques and treatments help, but still leave the root of the problem untouched.”
Many people, myself included, spend a lot of time looking for techniques and treatments to help us deal with what we’re experiencing. We read the book, we go to therapy, we look for a new routine, a new system or a new approach. Sometimes we seek medication or advice. We just keep looking for the next thing that might make us feel better.
All of these things have a place, and I’ll probably always be someone who does most of them. But lately, I keep coming back to a question: Am I treating the symptoms without really getting to the root of the problem?
What I Noticed
For a long time, I was looking for ways to manage my feelings, emotions, and issues without understanding why I was experiencing them in the first place.
Now, I find that I’m asking myself why. Why am I allowing my feelings, emotions and issues causing me to make decisions that my conscious mind knows are no longer working for me? That is a hard question because getting to the root requires honesty and self-awareness. It requires looking at choices, actions, behaviors, experiences, and the patterns developed because of them.
For me, most of the issues stem from fear, embarrassment, shame, anxiety, guilt, comparison, expectations, or attachments. I can look at my life and think, You should be further along, comparing where I am to where I thought I’d be. I can look at decisions I’ve made and question myself.
The interesting thing is, consciously, I know there are things I need to do differently. But knowing and doing are two very different things.
Recently, I was talking to someone about how our subconscious minds often prefer what is familiar, even when those habits are no longer good for us. Familiarity can feel easier than change, even when it is keeping us stuck.
Why It Matters
The choices and decisions I’ve made have brought me to where I am today. And if I’m being honest, thinking about that makes me a bit uncomfortable. I have come to terms with something that isn’t always easy to say out loud: nobody else is responsible for me but me. Nobody made those decisions for me. My life, my responsibility.
That doesn’t mean I need to beat myself up about all of the bad choices. What good does that do? But I do need to be honest with myself. This is where I am. And if I want to go somewhere different, something has to change.
And don’t get me wrong. I have had many great opportunities in my life. I’m grateful for the places I’ve been, the people I’ve met and the experiences I’ve been fortunate enough to have.
I can be grateful while still being honest about questionable choices I’ve made and what I’d like to change. Those things can exist at the same time.
What I’m Still Learning
I’m still learning what letting go actually looks like. It’s not always one big decision.
Sometimes it is a consistent practice—one day at a time, one thought at a time and one decision at a time.
Maybe we let something go, and then we have to let it go again the next day. And maybe something eventually shifts so the letting go is permanent. We look at a behavior we’ve repeated for years and finally see that it is no longer aligned with who we want to be.
That’s where I am right now. This next season is about letting go. Letting go of fear, embarrassment, shame, guilt, comparison, expectations or attachments.
It’s about trusting that I don’t have to have everything figured out before I move. I just have to stop comparing myself to everyone else, take responsibility for myself and do the things that are on my heart to do.
What are you holding onto that may be keeping you from becoming the person you say you want to be? And what might change if you began to let it go?