Today’s blog is the fourth in the Path of Healing Series for the 10 key steps to personal growth. Today’s blog will give you important information on how to let go of the old to make room for the new in a skilful, supporting and loving way. You will be guided to understand where your resistance to change comes from and how to counter this with surrender, gratitude and empowerment.
In the previous blogs I’ve talked about Preparation, Support, Detoxification and now we are at the Release phase of the journey. With a clear intention, a solid self-care practice and streamlining your energy by releasing things that do not belong to you, we are now in a good position to identify the source of the issue that wants to be released.
Key Topics Include:
- Letting as the fourth step in the Healing Path: Release.
- Why letting go is one of life’s biggest challenges, yet gives the greatest reward when done well.
- How to reframe letting go in a positive way.
- How our brain is wired to not let go and how NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) can be used to counter this.
- The secret to letting go of what no longer serves and welcome in what does.
- How to keep a big picture view when going through this step to assist you.
- A guided exercise to assist you in creating an energetic gradient that supports release and letting go.
Letting go of the old can be one of life’s biggest challenges. Especially when it comes to the personal growth path. This is because we are designed to stay with the familiar rather than step into the unknown. What we know becomes comfortable and when we have been living it for a good few decades, that comfort factor can create anxiety when we think of making a change. Our inner risk-assessor takes charge and determines the risk is too great to give up everything we know, have lived and our ego is attached to. This is why letting go can be one of our greatest challenges, yet brings the greatest rewards when done well.
Our human brain is also wired to resist losing something that is important to us. This sounds like a great plan, to have an inner knowing that keeps intact the things that we value most, right? Unless the thing we value is something we no longer need. And has become something we thought was important but is now causing an issue. These are mainly based on our safety and belonging in a deeply primal subconscious way. And were established to keep a much younger version of us safe and belonging.
These become beliefs that are stored in our brains within the first few years of life, becoming a foundation for our experiences throughout childhood development. For example, maybe not being seen or heard as a child kept you safe. But now as an adult, feeling like you need to stay hidden holds you back from living a happy and fulfilled life. Somewhere along the way, the safety element fell away and now instead creates anxiety. In short, a pattern that kept us safe in childhood has the opposite effect of fear now that we are adults.
In NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) terms we call these limiting beliefs that support a false identity. NLP gives us a map to navigate this territory to preserve the benefit while changing the action. For example, to find another way to be safe without having to be hidden or silent, but by being open, connected and fully seen. This is one of the most powerful tools in the NLP toolbox. And one that has personally served me well and every client who has worked with me.
The secret to letting go is to recognize and have deep gratitude for the resources and values you have gained through the experience. For example, What has being hidden away or not seen taught you? To create a safe space within yourself, to let go of external expectations, to trust your own inner wisdom, to find greater stillness within? When you are able to recognize the strengths gained from the limited beliefs and resulting false identity then you are able to open your heart to gratitude, compassion and equanimity that creates the energy for true, complete and empowering letting go.
If we let go from a place of exclusion, rejection, anger or resentment then this will yield only temporary outcomes. As the saying goes: what we resist persists. When we try to push something away we create an energetic gradient that will have it land at our feet again and again. So that we get another opportunity to let go from a place of gratitude, strength and empowerment. Once the positive gains have been identified in the old way of being, this creates the energetic foundation for the new way to be built upon. Where in the letting go, we create a space for the new to emerge.
Life is a continuum of learning, and by reflecting on what we are releasing, to see it in a positive light of what we have learned and how we have grown, then we free up our entire body matrix from having to carry anything that no longer serves our greatest good and welcome in all that does.
The deeper the childhood pattern goes and the denser the energy accumulated around it over a lifetime the more deeply rooted it will be in our subconscious mind. These are the seeds of the original imprints from childhood that you react to today. It takes skill, time and objective guidance to navigate the deepest of these territories, but it is an exciting step on the healing path. When we release we let go of what doesn’t serve us any longer while preserving what does and has served us to create a more stable, skilful and knowledgeable foundation to grow upon.
As you release, keeping the bigger picture of the healing path in sight can help not get too bogged down by the depth of it. This is where self-care becomes essential, to bring in our tools to help weather the storm that can pass through the body matrix on all levels of being: physical, energetic, emotional, ancestral and spiritual. Take time in nature, meditate, do yoga, sing, dance, create. All the things you identified in step 2 of the path (episode 67, 2nd in this series). Then ride the wave of the previous detoxify step (episode 68, #3 in this series) where you let go of any burden you carried for others. This allows what you need to release and let go of to be a smaller package and truer to your heart. Now let go of what doesn’t serve you as a gift to your future self. Who will soon reap the rewards of the courage, wisdom and power you embody now, at this moment, as you let go with love, appreciation and joy? This will prepare you to fully embrace the next step in the healing path: transformation which I will cover in the next episode.
So now let’s do an exercise to help you understand more clearly what you are ready to let go of and appreciate how it has served you so far in life so that you can make a fully self-empowered choice for the good should be preserved as a gift to your present and future selves.
Begin by thinking of the issue you are working with on this healing path with. Perhaps the one you established in step#1 in this series: preparation.
On a piece of paper draw a line down the center and label the left side of the paper cons and the right side pros. And fill this in.
What are the cons of the experience associated with what you are releasing? For each con, come up with at least one (preferably more) thing this has taught, given or grown in you. Add these to the pro list.
Keep going with this until you have more pros and cons.
It may take time, or a reflection of a trusted friend, colleague or therapist. But stick with it as you bring love, appreciation, excitement and honor to who you are today and the past that has shaped you.
Meditate on all the pros on your list. Embody these resources, and learnings with deep gratitude.
Ask yourself how you can create these in your life in a new, grounded, safe and fun way. Call in your creative parts to help if you need ideas.
Make a commitment to yourself out a place of deep self-love for your present and future selves to try out these new ways of being that support a healthier and happier you.
You can enjoy listening to this article and meditation in a Healing Codes Podcast episode by clicking on the link below.
_____________
Find out more about Consciousness Medicine.
Upcoming courses, workshops and 1:1 sessions.
Sign up for my free e-newsletter from the homepage www.consciousness-medicine.com.
Stay Connected on Social Media:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/CentreforConsciousnessMedicine
Instagram: www.instagram.com/wellnesswisdomwithjulie
Linked In: www.linkedin.com/in/julie-williams-cxmed
