How to Let Things Go
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Everybody struggles at times with letting things go.
Everyone has, at some point, probably felt that they’re dragging negative or resentful energy around over something that made them upset.
From time to time, we all get caught lingering in frustration, anger, sadness or any number of emotions and negative energy over circumstances or things that happen.
It's important and healthy to actually feel feelings when we have them, and it's also important to have the ability to let things go when we are carrying them past their expiration date. Here is a powerful question to ask yourself that may be just what you need to move upward and onward.
Before I share it, I want to give a shout out and credit to Kari on our team, who is the one who came up with this and shared it with me as something that she uses for herself. I think it’s brilliant, and had to make a Culture Drop about it. Here you go.
When you’re being bothered by something you just can’t seem to let go of, ask yourself this:
“How long am I going to react to this?”
This is such a powerful question and exercise.
I think it’s pretty natural for humans to hang on to stuff as we move through the world, and carry lingering emotion around the things (big and small) that upset us.
I believe that there’s comfort in being upset towards things that affect us negatively. Feeling our feelings help us process and move through (and beyond) situations, as opposed to neglecting our emotions which prevents us from fully dealing with situations in a healthy way and can make things much worse.
“Our feelings can hold us hostage if we don’t have the ability to process through them and move forward.”
That being said, our feelings can also hold us hostage if we don’t have the ability to process through them and move forward. The result of that can be to keep us stuck in feelings and emotions that hinder our ability to be present and experience joy.
When you notice that you’re lingering in an emotion and holding onto negative feelings around something, taking pause to ask yourself how long you’re going to continue to react to that is a great way to reflect on if that frustration or anger or sadness, etc. is still serving you.
Of course, there is nuance to this advice.
The answer doesn’t have to be “Now.”
Sometimes the answer may be “I’m not ready to let this go just yet, I need some more time with it to process it.” Maybe that thing you are upset over will take hours, or days, weeks, or even months before you are consciously ready to let it go. That’s perfectly fine. What this question allows you to do is check in with yourself to make sure you aren’t carrying those feelings past the point of them no longer serving you.
“Asking yourself ‘How long am I going to react to this?’ takes the power from the situation and places it back in your hands. ”
In a way, asking yourself 'How long am I going to react to this?' takes the power from the situation and places it back in your hands.
When I reflect on this personally, I recognize that if I were to ask myself that question when I notice that I’m lingering and dragging negative energy, a lot of times the answer would be something pretty close to: “Yeah, I think I’m done with this now.”
Brilliant tool. And thank you, Kari!
Related Articles:
The Currency Of Saying Yes On Teams
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This article was created by Galen Emanuele for the #culturedrop. Free leadership and team culture content in less than 5 minutes a week. Check out the rest of this month's content and subscribe to the Culture Drop at https://bit.ly/culturedrop
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