Building a fire from the bones of who we used to be

Each moment of letting go is an act of mercy toward ourselves. 

It’s a cleansing process that helps us feel lighter, more liberated and less emotionally claustrophobic. 

There’s actually a fascinating study about this very experience. 

Researchers found that disengagement from regret reflects a critical resilience factor for emotional health, specifically in older age. 

Turns out, seniors who regularly practiced letting go actually activated a neurobiological mechanism that improved their overall quality of life. Maybe that’s why old people fart in public so much. 

What three things have you let go of in the past year? 

Here’s a partial list from my own life. 

Letting go of unhealthy coping habits. Letting go of trying to influence other people’s opinions of me. Letting go of my idealized image of how life should be. Letting go of the idea that others should align with my implicit expectations. 

Letting go of my veil of specialness. Letting go of wondering what the universe wants of me. Letting go of fairness and unfairness. Letting go of the compulsion to constantly raise the excitement threshold. Letting go of goals that no longer matter to you. 

And my personal favorite, letting go of the need to understand everything. 

And, exhale. Whew. Just writing that list makes me feel lighter. 

But that’s the nature of letting go. It’s addictive. Like cleaning out your closet. Once you break the seal and start purging all the clothes you never wear and never should have bought in the first place, you start thinking to yourself, hmmm, I wonder what else I can get rid of. 

It becomes a game to see how many things you can live without. 

The best part about this practice is, there is no finish line. There’s no end. There’s just another layer. 

Another sticky coating of emotional plaque that’s holding you back.

LET ME ASK YA THIS...

What aspects of yourself did you have to let go of to become something different?

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Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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