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The Confidence to Let Go

Guest post by: Jeannie Campanelli, Ed.D., CPCC

Article Overview: It’s a challenge to really let go of our own private agendas. In working with clients, I often explore each opposite: “I want it my way” and “I let go”. These two points of view can fight it out within all of us and show up in our relationships with others.

The Confidence to Let Go

Becoming aware of what stops us from letting go is a valuable first step on the journey toward inner confidence. What stops you from letting go even when you know it's the wisest path? Could it be that you're afraid if you let go, you will lose control? Chaos might result? Your agenda might be lost? You won't get what you think you want? Is it the fear of change that keeps you hanging on even when something isn't working? Our conditioning, old habits, and over-active minds which live in the past or future limit our ability to open to what's here for us right now. For most of us, what we really, really want is inner peace, love, and contentment - what inner confidence is all about. When the mind is fighting it out, love and inner peace isn't what we experience!

For instance, many of us can listen to the conditioning that says we're supposed to get into action - any responsible person would. It's our job to be in control. We're really in charge of our lives. We need to be in control or else everything will fall apart. When we listen to these thoughts, our anxiety drives how we behave. Our thinking stops us from...simply letting go.

Take a moment and write down all the perspectives that come to your mind about letting go. Then write down the perspectives that support the opposite point of view: I want it my way. What are you discovering about yourself? What body sensations are you noticing as you explore the truth of your thoughts?

This simple act of questioning the mind paves the way for us to get into the present moment - fertile ground for letting go. Why? It is in the present where we get connected to our body's sensations and to the truth that lies in our hearts. It is in the present where our minds land in the place of "I really don't know". It is in the present where we then start to truly listen to what our lives have to tell us.

What I know is that there are times in my life that I didn't listen to logic. I made a decision to take action - or not - simply because I felt an energetic pull. In other words, my mind didn't win the vote as I surrendered to a deeper knowing within myself. I let go.

For example, I followed my gut in marrying my first husband although there were signs that told me, logically-speaking, that it wasn't a good idea. There were many challenges for me on this path. From the vantage point of where I am now, looking back, this marriage was perfect and in no way a mistake. I learned so much that helps me do the work that I do. I gained great strength and a deep sense of my own resourcefulness in standing on my own. For me, the experience was priceless and, I believe, part of my destiny.

What times in your life did you not listen to the voice of reason and instead listened to a deep part of yourself? When did you let go by listening to the part of you that lives in the stillness, the part beyond the mind? What were the results from this deep level of listening? What was it like to release the need to figure it all out with your mind? What was there for you when you surrendered?

When you experience your life through the practice of letting go, there are great advantages for you. Life becomes less serious and much more simple. There is less angst over making decisions. You discover life works out in its own way - the way that is part of your destiny.

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Article Tags: active minds, anxiety, body sensations, contentment, control chaos, fear, fertile ground, hearts, inner confidence, inner peace, job, journey, letting go, logic, old habits, perspectives, point of view, present moment, responsible person, truth



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