As humans, it’s in our inherent nature to hold on to something and take things personally. I know that I fall victim to this behaviour pattern more often than not; it’s easy to hold a grudge and be mad about something rather than turning over a clean slate.
While it’s good to have a backbone, there’s also power in letting go of things that don’t serve you or aren’t conducive to your growth.
John Purkiss’ self help book entitled “The Power Of Letting Go” has helped me focus on both why it’s important to let go, and how to let go in some situations.
What really drew me to this book was how helpful and practical it is. It helps you dictate the narrative of your own life by giving you practical solutions to clean up negative tendencies and self-dialogue, and gives you real life techniques to make your life more enjoyable. These little changes really can go a long way.
Purkiss hones in on the idea that by letting go of things, you live life in a far more intuitive way. You live with a bit more of a natural flow instead of holding severe attachment to things and being stuck in a particular way of thinking or behaving. Letting go is ultimately one of the best things you can do for yourself because it helps in absolutely any scenario. If you’re feeling stuck at work, in a relationship, or replaying an awkward incident again and again in your head, “letting go” will help you move past it.
So what does “letting go” actually mean? In its rawest form, it means to release something. It could mean that you stop thinking about something that’s happened, release emotions associated with something and move on.
In this book, Purkiss explores the stages of “letting go” as a state of mind rather than associating it to a specific scenario.
Purkiss says that stage one is being present and enjoying each moment. Purkiss notes that If you’re somewhere with people, it’s important to whole-heartedly be present. Things can easily make you distracted and in your head when you’re out and about with people, meaning you miss what’s in front of you as you’re focussed on something else in your head. This is a common tendency for overthinkers. For me, when I’m out with friends, I like to put my phone on do not disturb and not get easily distracted. It helps me feed in to conversations happening, contribute and make the outing memorable.
Stage two is letting go of the thoughts that keep you stuck. Many of us have those moments we go back to that make us want to curl up into a tiny ball and hide. Or some of us may have negative and limiting self talk/beliefs that we have that hold us in our place. It may be that we can never find a better partner than the one we have, or that we aren’t good at our jobs, or that we aren’t worth the pay rise. Eradicating self-limiting beliefs and dialogue is such a powerful way to increase your own self confidence.
The next stage is letting go of the pain that ruins your life. This has a lot to do with trauma that we may hold, which for some is far more significant than others. Purkiss offers actual techniques to let go of deeply rooted pain. He asks you to not recall or talk about the experience but just feel the pain that this event brought you. He noted that a lot of people can locate the pain which is why they are triggered by things later in life. He suggests a technique called completion, which involves you imagining that you’re back in that situation and then reliving what happened in order to feel all the suppressed emotions. Once you feel them, you control the emotions associated with the experience, thereby causing them to lose their hold over you. This is called reliving to relieve.
Finally, Purkiss says that the last stage is to surrender and tune into something which is far more intelligent than your brain; your intuition. By living freely and being able to let things go, we live far more in flow which is the baseline for a powerful life.
So the next time you’re feeling like holding a grudge, I urge you to pick up this book by John Purkiss that will change the way you react and receive everything around you!
