Letting Go

I recently picked up a book called, “Letting Go, The Pathway of Surrender” by, David R. Hawkins. Mostly it does what it says on the tin. You let go of whatever isn’t serving you. Bad energy, negative thoughts, worries, disappointments or sadness. The writer isn’t suggesting you suppress these emotions, but rather that you acknowledge their presence and then release them. The author is a psychologist and kinesiologist who has treated many people under this premise, and his opinion is that this technique can have a profound effect on your relationships, health and professional success.

Being naturally sceptical I decided to give this whole concept a thorough try, in three of the most testing areas: a family holiday, spending time with my mother in law and trying to sell tickets to an event for my work.

Letting GO – My Family Holiday

We all look back on family holiday disputes and laugh, but at the time they can be stressful. Being a naturally fiery person, I am often on the frontline of the family war. My passion for healthy food, conspiracy theories and my dislike of Trump always makes me a little over the top when defending my opinions. I ALWAYS regret it afterwards but never seem to learn my lesson. But this year, just before the holiday I had read the book and had a new strategy up my sleeve.

I realised that before my passionate fire starts to lash out, my body gets tight and a knot appears in my stomach. Instead of holding onto these sensations, I tried to feel them and then consciously released them. Seems overly simple I know, but I was pleasantly surprised by the result. I still held onto my ethics and even expressed myself openly, but the provocation was gone. I held my own and was heard more clearly, all for staying calm and expressing my views without the body tension, loud vocals and sharp retort that often comes from my negative energy.

Letting Go – My Mother-in-Law

We all hear about the antics of the dreaded mothers-in-law. I am incredibly lucky! My boyfriends mum is a lovely woman. The issue is entirely with ME! I am overly sensitive and take all comments about how I do things, to heart. If she gave me tips on how to improve my cooking, washing up technique or ironing ability, my internal voice started lashing out. Moaning at her and my lack of ability.

During her last visit, I started reading Letting Go, and I was amazed at my how the technique transformed things. In the first few days of her visit, I sensed my shoulders hunching and my eyes rolling at every innocent comment. During the first few chapters of the book, it outlines what low levels of consciousness are and how they present. During her visit, as I turned the pages I allowed myself to feel the negativity and then I allowed myself to physically feel my body letting go. I kept this up, day after day, and soon I was relatively free from all my neggy thoughts. This helped me see the wisdom in her words and her generosity for wanting to share it. It was like a physical weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

Letting Go – At Work

One of the most significant eye-opening experiences of using this technique was around my self-esteem related to my work. I realised as I read it that I was holding onto a lot of negativity about what I am capable of. I started catching myself talking about what I’m bad at, how much I struggle with certain things and how slow my progress has been.

As I worked through the pages of the book, I would catch myself thinking thoughts with a lower vibration. Then I’d feel how the negative emotion was registering in my body: my forehead would crinkle, shoulders hunched and I’d make my body smaller. To break free from this habit, I fully recognised these emotions were in me. To help me move past them, I let my body relax, and I started to think of examples in my past experience that was in direct contrast to these negative thoughts. As I did so, I could feel a physical, mental and emotional transformation taking place.

What was even more profound, was that there were certain things I was specifically worried about. One event, in particular, was not selling, which was taking up a substantial financial investment. As the negative emotions came up, I allowed myself to feel them, and then consciously released it. Strangely as I did this, the sales started slowly rolling in. It was like my negative emotions were blocking the whole thing from moving forward.

Conclusion

Whether or not this is entirely true, one thing is definite; stress is a significant factor for issues developing in relationships, reducing creative problem-solving at work and for damaging one’s health. The examples above may be attributed to a certain level of “placebo”. But one thing is for sure; there are undeniable, underlying, positive results gained from recognising and releasing negative energy. This is a practice I am completely sold on and will continue to work on. I’m sure further down the line, at the very least, my body will be healthier for it.