Let It Go!
LET IT GO – Physically & Emotionally
I’ve been on this earth for 6 plus decades. One day I looked around and I saw all of the things I’ve been holding onto and tripping over for many years.
These possessions are place holders. They are reminders of where I’d been, who I was with and what I was doing. But they were collecting dust and causing me stress. I had been carting them from house to house for years and they were costing me money to store and to move and no less important, was the emotional cost of keeping them around. They were no longer relevant to who I was in this present moment or my future. I needed to look forward and set my sites on where I was going. These ‘things’ did not define me. They were from another time. I held onto them because I was worried I might one day ‘need’ them and wouldn’t have them.
All of my beloved books that I had accumulated and kept over the years. I had always had a bookshelf in my house, but when I started flipping my homes and staging them for sale, I didn’t want all of my books to be on display. Yet I could not part with them, so they were stored in my 40’ shipping container and just taking up space. I was attached to those self-help books about business, how to get rich and how to have a better relationship (meanwhile I am now completely single). These reference books were long before the internet. Now, if I need any information, I can google it. If I want knowledge about something it is all a keyboard tap away. What I am interested in right now, is understanding who I am; The kind of person I am and what I can contribute to the world I am living in.
The clutter we keep holds us down. It tethers us to the past and does not let us soar to who God wants us to be NOW. Once we Declutter, we will have a clean slate in which to create. This will help us see everything around us with fresh eyes. Get rid of those old things that you are going to do “someday”. When the time is right, you can always recreate what you need if you still desire it.
Everything we let go of comes back to us tenfold.
I came to see that my difficulty in letting things go was because of my emotional attachment to them. I felt safer having them. They reminded me of a time when I had financial security. The English bone China, the gold rimmed crystal glassware, the silver flatware that were used on the happy occasions I spent entertaining in my beautiful home. The golf clubs that took me back to my active days at the country club. The picture albums. The boxes and boxes of books. The many bins of decorations that I used to take out at every holiday but hadn’t looked at for years. The pictures of the happy travels through Europe with my significant other. The horse equipment I keep even though my horses are retired. The memories, the history, the attachment to the good times.
Lately, I’ve been studying one of my favorite teachers, Wayne Dyer. About 10 years before his death, he began studying the Tao Te Ching and teaching us how to apply its principles in our daily lives.
The Tao Te Ching was written in China roughly 2,500 years ago at about the same time when Buddha expounded the Dharma in India and Pythagoras taught in Greece. The Tao Te Ching is probably the most influential Chinese book of all times. Its 81 chapters have been translated into English more times than any other Chinese document.
Many people consider the Tao Te Ching, which means ‘Way of Living’, to be the wisest book ever written and the manual for our lives that guarantees integrity, peace, joy and balance.
In Verse 9 The Tao de Ching says ~ release your attachments.
One day after spending months and months of trying to sell these belongings online with no luck, I decided to test the theory that less is more and ‘do the Tao’.
It made sense to let them go since the things I was holding on to, hoping to sell, were each valued at less than $100. My time when billed out to a client is $125 per hour, so I was undervaluing myself and wasting my own time. When I let these items go and took them to my local thrift shop, someone else could enjoy them, and have the benefit of using them and giving them a purpose again. They were not being used sitting in my garage or closet.
The result was a clutter free space. It brought a feeling of extreme accomplishment.
A blank canvas that inspired me to create something new from this moment forward. When we live in the present, we can find our current joy and not try to re-create an old life that has changed and gone. This is something to get excited about! Let it Go!
Accept what is, let go of what was, have faith in what will be. Sonia Ricotti
