How difficult is it to let go of something?
If it is a treasured gift like a hand-written letter or family heirloom, parting with it can feel like you are losing a part of yourself. If it is a hot pot off the stove or hardware that never worked properly in the first place, you don’t think twice about its immediate release.
At the stroke of midnight, January 1st, we moved only a second into the future, but in the illusion of time, we leaped from one calendar year to another. And many of us, in the few days leading up to that brief transition, filled moments with memories, evaluation, and expectation.
It is “goal” time; “New year, new you” as they say, and with great anticipation of achieving life’s dream, this is the time when we tend to invest deliberate thought into what that all looks like.
The challenge is that, like flipping a switch, we expect that when the sun rises the morning of the first day of the new year, that everything will change, only to find a couple of weeks in, that not much changed at all. What happened?
It is no secret that in order for things to change you need to do something different or differently – it’s the Law of Cause and Effect – but doing something differently means thinking differently. How easy is that?
My friend, Sandrine, an amazingly talented entrepreneur rooted in personal development, said at one point when she was going through coaching, she was encouraged to let go of a self-sabotaging behaviour. Both she and her coach identified it was clearly holding her back, and Sandrine expected since it was born of deep-seeded conditioning, in order for her to get where she wanted to go, she would be required to invest time to peel off layers. Her coach disagreed. Sandrine asked, “But this is part of who I am. How do I just let it go?” Her coach responded, “Just let it go.”
Aha! ~ “You “get” there by realizing you “are” there already.” Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
“Your mind is telling you that you can’t get there from here. Something needs to happen, or you need to become this or that before you can be free and fulfilled. It is saying, in fact, that you need time – that you need to find, sort out, do, achieve, acquire, become or understand something before you can be free or complete.”
In truth, time is the greatest obstacle. The only point of access to salvation: The Now.
Our habits and conditioning – negative and positive - are our identity … until we decide they are not. Letting go can be uncomfortable but remember that everything your mind believes is in the future, is accessible through knowing you are good enough, and by simply being present.
Tolle’s advice: “You do it now or not at all”. This moment is a gift. I guess that’s why they call it the present.
Succeed Deliberately!
