The Gentle Art of Letting Go

Letting go of the things that have hurt us isn't easy.  However it's necessary to live a beautiful and amazing life.  Letting go of the past is the only way to move forward. But how? Let's talk about the gentle are of letting go

Transcript

Hello, my name is Tiffany, and welcome to the podcast Working on Amazing. This is the podcast where we talk about the work that it takes to rebuild an amazing life.

And I am using that word rebuild specifically, because we're designed for women who feel like they're starting over in the middle of their life. Now, I believe several things can lead you to the point where it feels like you're starting over.

For me, it was divorce after a 20-year marriage. For my sister, it was the very unexpected death of her spouse. And for you, it's probably something totally different.

I think commonality is when all your hopes and dreams for the future, your plan for your life has totally gone up in smoke. The rug has been pulled out from under your feet. Your day-to-day life looks completely different than what it used to.

And it does. It feels like you're starting over. And that is a very overwhelming and itchy feeling.

So if that's you, I just want to say, I'm sorry. I know what that feels like, and I know it doesn't feel good. But I'm here to tell you, there is hope.

It gets better. So many women have gone through this midlife curveball and come out on the other side better for it. I promise you, promise you, it gets better.

And we're going to talk about how to do that. OK, you are not alone. You're actually in the right place.

So welcome, welcome. I'm so glad that you're here. Now, if you remember in the beginning, I said I focused on five areas when I rebuilt my life.

I focused on my spiritual health, my mental health, my physical health, my financial health and growth and goals. And I said each episode would fall under one of those categories. And some days, sometimes they might overlap a little bit.

I feel like today's episode actually touches all five categories. It really does. And today, we're going to talk about the Gentle Art of Letting Go.

Okay? And that sounds so whatever, but let's break it down. So when you've gone through a really difficult thing in your life, whatever has happened that makes you feel like you've got to start over, you probably have a lot of emotion about that.

That's very common. That's natural. I'm not here to guilt trip you for being emotional or upset or angry.

That's a very natural response. I think I've said before, I was angry for a few years. Like it took me a while.

Okay? But when we realize that holding on to all this negative emotion is really bad for us, we have to make the conscious choice to start letting it go. So for our spiritual health, it's not good for us.

I mean, the Bible talks about how we don't need to hold on to bitterness, and forgiveness is what, you know, God wants for us. And we see these things, blessings and curses, life and death, choose life, and you got to let go of the negativity.

Spiritually, it's there.

Mental health, oh my word, it affects your mental health so bad to get sideways in your own head over things that have happened to you, over something somebody's done, or something that was beyond your control, that just feels so wrong, so unfair, so

unjust. And when we get sideways in our head, it affects every area of our life, doesn't it? So it really, really hinders our mental health, our physical health.

How many diseases, how many problems that we have with our physical health, they say the root causes stress. High blood pressure, heart palpitations, insomnia, acid reflux, and stomach ulcers.

So many things come back to, hey, can you reduce your stress? You know, yes, diet and exercise, but stress is such a huge factor in so many things. And I've seen it happen.

I've seen people really struggle with these things. And sometimes, when we're upset about something, it seems so small and so little. And yeah, we get upset, and our heart rate goes up a little bit.

Doesn't feel like that big of a deal. But what I'm talking about is staying that bit out of shape over a long period of time, then you see a big negative impact on your physical health, okay?

It, once you get to the point where you're struggling with high blood pressure, and you're struggling with acid reflux, and stomach ulcers, and things like that, it's really hard to reverse it. You can.

But why not take that pulled by the horns right now and say, I'm going to start letting things go and not let this stress get out of control in my life, not let it become a big problem.

I believe it can affect your financial health, because when we are in a state where our emotions are running the show and not us, we don't make good decisions. We don't. And so that definitely affects your finances.

Your financial decisions should be made with a sound mind and good judgment. And when you make them based off emotion, I'm not feeling good, so I'm going to buy this. I'm aggravated, so I'm going to go here or do this or do that.

That is not always a sound financial decision. So it messes up. I believe it can mess up your finances.

When you get to growth and goals, how can you reach forward for a new and amazing life when you're clutching bitterness from your past? You got to open your hand, you got to let it go, and reach for new things and better things and brighter things.

So I believe that the Gentle Art of Letting Go really falls under all the categories that I say I want to talk about in this podcast. So this is such a big thing, and I've talked about it before.

I've talked about forgiveness, and we've talked about it, and I will continue to talk about it. This will not be the last podcast about letting go. It's such an important issue.

Maybe we're going to talk about it from as many different perspectives as we can, because it matters. It matters so much. And step one is just saying, hey, you know what?

I need to let it go. It's just becoming conscious and aware of it. Some things are easier to let go of than others, right?

So becoming conscious and conscientious and just like aware of, hey, you know what? I'm really holding on to this. Because we do a lot of it.

We hold on to a lot of things without even being conscious of it. Like, it's just human nature. Somebody offends us and we kind of get aggravated about it, and we don't even realize we're holding on to something that we don't need to hold on to.

And let's just take a side note here and realize that what we're holding on to is hurting us. It's not hurting anybody else. If you're on a journey, a journey to building an amazing life, okay?

But let's say we're on a journey. Everything that somebody has done wrong to you, you could say it's like a rock, and you put it in your backpack. And so you're just weighing yourself down.

And it's like going through that backpack and setting those rocks down. I'm gonna let this go. I'm not gonna let this weigh me down.

Now, another analogy might be, it's like a drop of poison in your drink. Everything that has been done wrong to you, that you cannot let go up, it's like you're drinking poison. And you've just got to say, I don't want that anymore.

I want to let go of that. And we don't tend to realize how much it hurts us. It only hurts us.

It's not hurting the person that hurt you. It's not even aware of how much it's tearing you up and what it's doing to you. It's only hurting you.

And the only way you can take control back and help yourself is to let go, to set that rock down, to stop dropping that poison in your drink, to say, no, I'm letting it go. I want to walk into freedom.

So we have to make the choice that I'm going to start this journey. I'm going to take this path, the gentle art of letting go. I'm going to start down this road.

So I believe the first step is just saying, hey, I want to start letting go. I may not know how. I may not fully understand it, but I want to start on this path.

I know that that's what I need to do. I acknowledge that it really can affect all these areas of my life, and it only hurts me. I want to do that.

So that's step one, right? We got to say, hey, I want to get on this road. We have to understand that this is a journey.

It's not a light switch. You don't say, I'm gonna let it go, flip the switch, and walk away. It takes time.

It's a journey. And so it's a process. There are layers upon layers upon layers.

There's so many things. So first to say, I want to start on this journey. I'm gonna put my feet on this path.

I'm determined in my mind to walk this road. I'm gonna figure out how to let go. I acknowledge that it is a journey, that it will take time.

I'm still on this journey. I don't know that you ever fully get off this path. I've let go of most of the really big things that have happened to me.

But day in and day out, things come up. Somebody says something that kind of stings. Somebody does something, and you're like, whoa, somebody cut you off in traffic, right?

And you've got to say, you know what? I'm not going to let that eat my lunch. I'm not going to let that ruin my day.

I'm going to let that go right here, right now. It's a journey you're staying on, I think, for the rest of your life. So you got to choose to get on it.

And there is a lot of work at the beginning, because generally, something negative has happened, and it's hard. I think we just clamp down.

Like, I don't know if you've ever had a muscle spasm or something, but it's like your hand just clamps down, and you can't let go of this really negative thing that's happened to you.

It's like you're having to pry your fingers to let it loose, right? I know what that's like. I understand.

So, what do you do when you want to let something go, but you don't know how? You just can't release it. Well, like I said, step one is choosing to, like, hey, I acknowledge I want to do this.

Step two is something that I heard a long time ago, somebody said, and I believe it is a very powerful piece of advice. What they said was to read through the Psalms, and Psalms is the largest book in the Bible, right?

There's a lot of Psalms, and read through the Psalms until something resonates with you. And the great thing about the Psalms is there is a wide range of human emotions, like there is like the highs, the lows, all kinds of things, right?

And so skim it, just skim through it. Look for something that jumps out that you identify with, that really like resonates in your heart. And pick that and quote that to yourself.

So when I was going through this, I read scripture and I went through this practice, and I found Psalms 94, verse 18 and 19, and it just resonated with me. And what it says is, when I said my foot is slipping, your unfailing love supported me.

That got me. That got me. That's verse 18.

Verse 19 says, when anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.

And so, as I was on this journey of learning to let go, and something would come up in my head, like really, they just, I would remember, and you've been here, maybe you're laying down trying to go to bed at night, and your mind replays all these

scenarios and things that have happened and what you should have said, and it just reminds you, yeah, I really am mad about that, right? Okay, first of all, that is an attack of the enemy.

That serves no benefit for you to replay that stuff in your head. Replaying past hurts and upsetting events has no benefit for you. Please understand that.

The only thing it is is an attack of the enemy to pull you down, to hurt you, to make you feel pain, okay? But our mind does it.

It's without question something that is just part of human nature, something the enemy attacked it, that I believe the enemy uses. It is common. How do we war against it?

How do we, when we're laying in bed at night, and we've said during the day, I'm letting that go, but then at night it plays in our head. Can you believe he did that to me? Can you believe?

Do you remember how painful that felt? That is when I would say, my foot is slipping. God, my foot is slipping.

I don't know how many times I use that phrase during the darkest season of my life. My foot is slipping. Oh God, my foot is slipping.

My mind is going back into this area that I know it doesn't need to go back into. I don't know how to stop it. God, my foot is slipping.

Your unfailing love will support me. I'm depending on your love there.

And I could just imagine the hand of God under my foot, keeping me from falling back into the things I knew I didn't need to fall back into, keeping my mind from going back down those paths that were negative and unhelpful to me. My foot is slipping.

Anxiety, Lord, is great within me. I need you, Lord. I need you.

Anxiety is great within me. And I would just say that over and over. And it was like my anchor.

It was truly like an anchor. And a ship needs an anchor during a storm, right? So it doesn't completely blow away.

And so that was like my anchor during the storm. I would say that over and over. God, my foot is slipping.

Help me. Help me. Help me, God.

My foot is slipping. And just put my mind back on God. Just saying, I know you have a failing mom.

I know you understand. You're going to pull me through. It helped redirect my focus.

It wasn't perfect. I mean, it doesn't mean that it just completely goes away. It's 100% not a light switch.

But over time, just going back to, okay, God, your unfailing love, I need, you know, I'm going to fall. I'm going to fall. I need your hand to support me right there under my foot.

It's slipping. It's slipping. I can't hold on.

And over time, my mind stopped going down those paths. It did take time. It wasn't once that I had to say it.

It wasn't twice that I had to say it. I said it hundreds of times. But slowly, and now, my mind doesn't wander down those paths like it used to.

It doesn't find comfort in pain like it used to. That was my anchor. So what I would challenge you to do is read through the scripture.

You'll probably have a very different anchor. But Psalms, the Psalms are great because most of them were written by David. There are other Psalms written by other people, but the emotions are so raw, and we can identify with them.

And I would also challenge you suggest that you put it in a translation that you understand is relatable. So NIV, the message.

So if you have like the Bible app on your phone at the top, you can toggle and generally it will say, KJV, King James Version. So you can switch to a different translation that makes it easier to understand and more relatable.

And I feel like in this season, you need something really relatable that you can just hook into. Right. So so pick a version that that you really understand and identify with.

And common ones are NIV, the New International Version, or The Message is very, very, very relatable. There's New American Standard, there's several.

But pick a version that you feel like you're comfortable with, and then just skim through the songs, just skim through them. Your eyes are going to fall on something at some point, and you're going to be like, Oh, my word.

I didn't know that was in there. I never knew. I had not heard that scripture.

My foot is slipping. Your love, O Lord, supported me. I had never heard that.

Nobody had said that to me. I didn't see that on a T-shirt or, you know, in a Christian bookstore on a plaque. Like, I had never heard that.

And when I skimmed through the songs and I saw that, it was just like, it just grabbed me. Like, oh my goodness, I feel that. I feel like I'm slipping so many times.

I'm trying, I'm trying to do the right thing. I'm trying to let go, but I keep slipping. I keep not quite doing it.

And your unfailing love supported me. And I just needed that. I needed that so bad, and it hit.

I encourage you to do that. I mean, that might be a great scripture for you, because I think it was a great scripture for me. But you might find something totally different.

There are so many things in there, so many emotions from so many different points of view, from highs to lows to everything in between. Find the one that just hits your heart and say it over and over and over.

Let it be the cry of your heart, especially in the dark season. And David went through so many dark seasons, right? I mean, he did, and he had to encourage himself.

And I loved David for how he wrote and how relatable he was. He was a man after God's own heart. He was so sometimes relatable.

And even though he was king and all these great things, when he wrote, it made it feel the human nature of it. It felt so relatable, feels so relatable.

So as you read through the Psalms, I believe you're gonna find something that just resonates in your heart and is gonna echo and you're gonna be like, whoa, that sounds like me. I could have written that. I could have said that.

I think that. And then let that be the cry of your heart during this season. My foot is slipping.

My foot is slipping. I will still say that sometimes in prayer when I'm talking to God, if I'm kind of struggling with something, God, my foot is slipping. That one just meant the world to me.

I want you to find something that means the world to you and just hook into it. Let it be your anchor. Let it be the thing you call on to.

So as you're wanting to let go, I'm wanting to let go of these negative things. I'm going to remind myself of what scripture says. I'm going to quote scripture over my life, over my mind, over this situation.

I'm just going to call on what God said. God said, it says, in the word of God, that his unfailing love will support me when my foot slips. And I'm just going to call on that.

And I'm going to believe that. And I'm going to quote that over myself. And you find your anchor and you quote that over yourself.

And when your mind starts going down the negative path, can you believe, I was faithful and he cheated on me? Can you believe he, still in the blank, all of the worst negative things that happened? You got to say, okay, God, my foot is slipping.

You got to pull yourself back. And remember when I said, this is the gentle art of letting go? So when you do find yourself going back down those negative paths and ruminating on the bad things that have happened, don't get mad at yourself.

Be gentle with yourself. This is something that your mind just does. It's okay.

And treat it kinda like you would a child or a toddler. Not that way. Come back over here.

Let me give you a toy to play with. Look at the scripture. It says, When my foot was slipping, your unfailing love supported me.

So just redirect your mind gently. Don't get mad at yourself. Don't beat yourself up.

Don't berate yourself. Just say, You know what? I realize I'm going down this really negative path in my head.

Let me turn that around and come back this way. And give your mind something else to hold on to, like a scripture, like a promise from God. And be gentle with yourself.

This takes time. Getting your mind to stop fixating on the negative things that have happened to you, on the trauma that has happened to you is hard. I've been through some pretty traumatic events in my life.

I had a trauma of like an auto accident. I had what felt like an emotional trauma with the way my marriage ended. And your mind just kind of, I think it's trying to sort out and figure it out.

Like if I replay it over and over, eventually I'll be able to pitch and hold this in the right way. But no, no, you've got to kind of let it go. I read a quote and I thought it was pretty good.

And it said, emotions are like children. You don't want them driving the car, but you don't want to stuff them in the trunk either. And I thought that was such an accurate description.

So don't let your emotions drive the car. Don't ignore them completely. However, when we start ruminating on something, that's what we've got to shut down.

I strongly would advise counseling. I will always recommend counseling. I think that is great and wonderful and important.

A counselor can help you walk through it, help give you tools. It's important to acknowledge your emotions and know what you're feeling, but you can't let them run the show.

So all these negative things that have happened, different things that have come up in your life, it's time to start the journey of The Gentle Art of Letting Go. It's time to say, I'm not going to let the kids drive the car anymore.

I'm not going to let my emotions run the show. I'm going to let that go. Because the only person that it's affecting is me, and the only way it's affecting me is negatively.

There is no positive benefit from letting my emotions run the show. There is no positive benefit. I have to take control back.

I have to be the adult. And I have to run the show. I have to let go of this negative stuff.

It is a journey. It's a journey. But you can do it because you're strong.

And there is a beautiful future ahead of you. A beautiful, bright, glorious future, better than anything you can ever imagine. I'm here to encourage you and tell you that because I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt it's true.

But it's going to take you so much longer to get there if your backpack is weighed down with all those big rocks. We've got to let them go. We've got to walk into our beautiful future.

It's there. There is so much joy and happiness on the other side of letting go. There is so much peace on the other side of letting go.

The journey is worth taking. I promise you it's a path that's worth being on, okay? So tell me why you're struggling with letting go.

I would love to pray with you. I would love to be a listening ear for you. You can find me online, www.workingonamazing.com.

You can also find me on most social media platforms, even though I do hang out on Facebook the most, and it's just a page called Working on Amazing. Let me know what you're struggling with. I would also love to hear what scripture you found.

If you've gone through the Psalms and found something that really resonated with you, please share that with me. I would love to hear what jumped out. To you.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I really enjoy our time together, and I look forward to talking to you next time. Bye.