Welcome to day 12 of your #CreatingJoyChallenge – Letting Go & Loving More
Holding onto negative feelings, like a grudge or sadness is so damaging. The damage attached to carrying harsh feelings is real and heavy.. and over time it will damage you more and more. Holding onto negative feelings is one of the FASTEST things to send someone into a sadness or depression if they have those tendencies.
Obviously holding grudges and hard feelings for other people around us is not good but holding onto harsh feelings towards yourself is equally as damaging. So today we are going to put our focus on letting go and letting our heart be filled with more love. Did you know that you can choose to let go and let your heart feel light? It isn’t easy when you feel hurt or sad to just let go but it IS something we can choose into at any moment.
Think of something or someone in your life that is bothering you. This may or may not be something serious, though I would recommend starting out with things that aren’t really painful. As you practice letting go and loving more it will become increasingly easier to do this when it is something more serious.
As you think of that person or thing that is bothering you, allow yourself to think of why it is so upsetting, allow yourself to FEEL the feelings that come up for you. The next step is LETTING GO. Letting go is letting the emotion MOVE through you and out of you. If you try to pretend it isn’t there by ignoring it, the emotion will get stopped and build up overtime not allowing you to properly heal.
There are many ways to practice letting go.
Here are 3 of my favorite ways: (you decide which one you want to try)
- Use Journaling to let go. Find a blank piece of paper (not a journal, this isn’t something you are going to want to save…) and write down everything you are thinking and feeling. Don’t edit what you are thinking before you write it down. Just let anything you are thinking and feeling flow onto the paper. You will feel so much better when you finish! When you are done with this activity, get rid of the paper so nobody else can read it. Rip it up or burn it up.
- Use Verbal Communication to let go. So many of us naturally do this but the problem is, we tend to do this by negatively VENTING how we are feeling to those closest to us. The problem with this is that by doing this, we are dumping a whole lot of negative energy on the people we love and often times not getting a resolution to it. Instead of venting to someone, find a quiet place where nobody can hear you. An empty car or lonely field might be great options for this. Think of the person or situation that is upsetting you and start to talk ‘to that person’ (you are IMAGINING that they are standing in front of you). Tell them EVERYTHING that is upsetting you. Don’t edit how you are feeling. It might sound ugly and that is okay, all you are doing is letting the negative energy that is bound up inside you to GET OUT of you. Don’t hold back and try to make it sound pretty, this is your opportunity to let everything out. You may cry and that is okay too. Let yourself feel the emotions and say everything that comes to your mind. When you are done, tell the (imaginary) person that you are sorry for feeling all those negative feelings and thank them for listening to you.
- Use Visualization to mentally let go. Imagine the feelings you are feeling and feel in your body where you are feeling it – sometimes I feel it in my chest or my gut. You decide where in your body you are feeling the emotion and visualize that emotion there. Notice it and let yourself feel it. Acknowledge it and let it know you are listening to what it is teaching you. Thank the emotion for teaching you and visualize it emptying out of that part of your body and slowly drifting away far far away from you getting smaller and smaller.
Let go, forgive, and LOVE.
I find that after letting go, I feel so much better but there is almost an emptiness that needs to be filled. This is where I take the time to fill that space that I just let go with as much LOVE as I can muster. Do this in the same way that you chose to let go. If you chose to use the journaling technique, continue writing about how much love or compassion you have or for that person, express why. If you chose the verbal communication technique, then express verbally or compassion. If you chose to do the visualization, then imagine your heart space filling up with love and let yourself FEEL the love.