Learning To Let Go In Order To Receive

Sometimes  letting go is not necessarily goodbye or a sacrifice, but a “thank you” for all that we have learned. It means abandoning what cannot be, to allow us to be more free and authentic, and prepare ourselves to receive what is to come.

If we think about it for a few minutes, we will realize that the best decisions, those followed by moments of grateful happiness, come after leaving something that did not feel good. It could be a fear, anguish, distance, or even a person. Renunciation is part of life, it is a natural thing, because we are all  forced to choose what and on whom to invest our time and our efforts.   

One thing to keep in mind is that letting go, in itself, doesn’t just mean cutting the bonds that prevent personal growth and happiness. Letting go sometimes means breaking free and then having to reformulate one’s psychological constructs such as, for example, ego, resentment or fear and loneliness.

Because whoever wants to receive must be prepared to make his own that nobility of soul that knows neither selfishness nor inner storms.

Ambition and the need to accumulate

In today’s society we have associated the conquest of certain things with the idea of ​​happiness.  “I will be happy when I take that trip, when I have a partner, when I have a house of my own, when they raise my salary, when I have a new car, a new phone, when I lose a few pounds, when the new season of my favorite series comes out. … “.

We continually buy books to learn to be happy while we wait for things to change, while we hope that, at some point, everything we have accumulated will offer us the answer we were hoping for. Frédéric Beigbeder, a famous French writer, once said that no one in the publishing world wants people to be happy. Simply because happy people “don’t consume”.

Happiness is something that modern society sells to us as an illusion, something that has to be short and ephemeral, in order to force us to consume more.  Hence the programmed obsolescence of electronic devices, the idea that, to be happy, one must be attractive and dress in a certain way, have many friends and seek ideal love on dating sites, where relationships can have start today and finish tomorrow, with just one  “click”.

We have created a world in which values ​​such as ambition and pathological nonconformity completely distance us from the true sense of happiness. We live by continually thinking about what we lack, without realizing all that we actually have in excess. All that we should let go of to find our balance, to be ourselves.

To be happy, you have to make decisions and… let go

Life is too short to be perpetually frustrated. For this reason, and if we really want to be happy, we must be able to make decisions, to know who and what to invest our time in. Well, as you may have guessed, deciding often implies giving up, an exercise that must be done in a conscious and mature way, assuming the consequences.  

To help you in the complex path of renunciation and the art of letting go, it is worth remembering that,  according to Buddhist philosophy, happiness is nothing more than a state of mind of calm and well-being. Pay attention to everything that surrounds you, to understand what offers you serenity and what just makes noise, what and who feeds your soul with respect and what or who causes the storm even on the sunniest days. Choose, trust your instincts and simply let go.  

Another important point to remember is that those who have the courage to let go must also be worthy to receive. For this, it is worth reflecting for a few moments on the following dimensions:

• We have to give up our need to control others.  It is necessary to be and to let be. Those who demand personal freedom in order to grow must, in the same way, be able to offer it.

• Renounce the need to always be right.  Admitting your mistakes means growing up and knowing how to remain silent in moments that require wisdom.

• Leave your ego aside, free yourself from the need to impress, to compete,  to draw attention when no one is watching you, to settle for any company just because you fear loneliness. Leave fear aside and allow yourself to be authentic, to be yourself, that person who is as capable of giving as he is of receiving.

To conclude, in this complex but exciting daily struggle to be happy all of us should practice the wholesome exercise of letting go of what is weighing on us, loving what we have and being grateful for all the positive things that, no doubt, will come.