I’ve always been a high achiever—a success in the classroom, on the basketball court, in the business world, and in the community.
I had short and long range plans, set ‘SMART’ goals, broke them down into manageable tasks, and executed them with zeal. I worked hard, inspired others (so I’m told), and did my utmost to give 100 percent.
Simply put, I got things done, got ahead, and was seen as ‘going places’…I didn’t know any other way.
Yet at age 43, I was diagnosed with severe depression.
Beyond unhappy, I was struggling to get out of bed; constantly besieged by fits of crying (continually scurrying for privacy like a junkie looking for a place to hide and shoot up); and desperately scrambling to put on a brave face so that nobody would notice just how bone-achingly desolate and gutted I felt, every minute of every day.
As hard as I tried, I found myself getting nowhere fast—and it scared me.
But fast-forward a decade and I now understand that letting go of the need to get somewhere can be one of the wisest, most powerful and most inspiring (not to mention strategic) things we can do. Letting go was pivotal to how I climbed out of depression. For me it’s been a game-changer, and it could be for you too.
Here are three reasons why:
Letting go allows you to connect with a deeper level of wisdom.
When we’re focussed on getting somewhere, we often confuse productivity with effectiveness, believing that the more we get done, the closer we are to our achieving our goals.
For many of us, from the moment we wake to the moment we go to sleep, our day is filled with nothing but thinking and doing—what we need to accomplish at home, at work, in our relationships, and even in our spare time. We analyse, plan, strategise, execute, and evaluate, repeating this cycle of thinking and doing, hundreds if not thousands of times every day.
If something gets in our way, we move into problem solving mode, once again applying our considerable cognitive resources to think of a solution. The bigger the problem, the harder we work to solve it, convinced there’s no other way to get to where we want to go…even if it’s not working.
Sound exhausting? It is. In fact, the desire to get ahead can easily become all consuming—increasing our stress levels, impairing our judgement, and disconnecting us from ourselves and others.
But what if rather than trying harder to think our way out of a problem, or striving endlessly to get more done, we instead allow ourselves to simply let go of the need to get somewhere—even if for only a few moments? What might we find?
Why not try it right now and see for yourself?
For just a moment, let go of your need to finish reading this post, and allow yourself to be where you are without any specific expectations. Close your eyes, take two or three long, slow, deep breaths—feeling the air moving in and out of your body, then noticing the contact of your feet with the floor and your bottom with the chair…open up to all the sensations, and perhaps even notice the emotions associated with those sensations (relief, tension, anticipation).
Meet yourself just as you are, right now. Soften, and feel your way into being exactly where you are and how you are. No rush, nowhere to get to. Take as long you like…just linger. How was that for you? (There is no ‘right’ answer; only your answer.)
At first this shift into ‘being’ as opposed to ‘doing’ can seem a bit foreign. You might even feel like you struggled to notice much at all (if so, what was struggling like for you?). But the mere shift in focus from doing (reading the post) to being (taking a ‘time out’) acts as a cognitive circuit breaker, tuning us into the present moment.
Our breath and other bodily sensations are always in the now, and when we connect with them, we get out of our heads and become more aware of what’s really happening.
By letting go, we open the door to a wisdom that is always present, always waiting to be explored and known within our body. And we also open the door to being with our emotions and mental states—enabling us to become more intimate with them, to see and understand them more completely, and to become increasingly aware of the choices we make that shape our lives.
Saying to ourselves, “Right now, I am here” instead of striving to get somewhere can be a welcome relief from constant cognitive overload, and an opening to a deeper, more multi-dimensional pool of knowing, wisdom and understanding.
Letting go develops self-compassion and acceptance.
When we’re constantly driven to get things done, get ahead and get somewhere, it’s easy to take setbacks, even relatively minor ones, quite personally. For many of us this takes the form of negative self-talk, a dialogue with our inner critic about how we’ve stuffed things up, how we’re letting others down, or how we’re less than worthy and never get things right. Typically, this internal dialogue includes yelling at ourselves to “focus” or “try harder” or “do it again but don’t screw it up this time.”
We might also place the blame on someone else.
And the more important our goal is to us, or the closer a deadline, the more unforgiving we become. I know this full well, as at my lowest point ten years ago, I’d become a highly accomplished self-critic, with no tolerance for failure and an overwhelming sense of unworthiness. I told myself I just wasn’t cutting it!
Yet when we loosen our grip on needing to get somewhere, and drop more fully into to simply being with whatever is present—sensations, thoughts and feelings—we silence the inner critic. And in that silence, we create a gap in which we can take a friendlier and kinder approach to our experiences and to ourselves.
With practice, letting go reduces the fear associated with not always getting somewhere, and enables us to let go of striving, cut ourselves some slack, and appreciate life as it is. We might even come to appreciate that getting stuck (going nowhere) can actually be interesting, useful, or enjoyable…even all three things at once!
And as we build upon this foundation of acceptance and self-compassion, we empower ourselves to risk more and worry less, to trust more and stress less—strengthening our resilience, and helping us to make increasingly wise choices. We can transform not only our relationship with ourselves, but our relationships with others and our world as well.
Letting go will expand your perspective.
Freed from the urgency of getting things done and getting somewhere, a sense of spaciousness develops in which we can first notice and then, perhaps in time, begin to question things we take for granted when we’re operating on autopilot.
In the gaps that we create when we pause and take the time to go nowhere in particular, we might begin to notice patterns of thinking, emotional reactivity, or aspects of our physical, embodied experience that bring into question what is ‘real’—what we previously thought of as a fact which might just turn out to be only one of many potential perspectives we can choose.
And quite possibly—if we remain curious, interested and open—we might loosen our grip on our need to be right or to have an answer to any challenge or situation we face. We might just begin to glimpse the infinite possibilities and realities that are present in almost any experience, and with the enhanced sense of humility that can accompany this embodied insight, we might be open to new, broader perspectives (our own and others’) that allow us to live in a much more connected, fluid and impactful manner.
What a wonderful opportunity to learn, grow and become…and all it takes is a willingness to let go a little bit, to loosen our grip on the need to get things done and get somewhere. To be okay with getting nowhere, and to simply be, at least every now and then.