100 Ways to Let Go

Letting go is about releasing control or the perception of control. Giving up personal control of all these things on the list below. Keep in mind... I am not shaming myself for thinking in old maladaptive ways. I'm not reprimanding myself at all.

I'm using my toolbox of skills to remedy holding on and trying to control. I'm using positive affirmations to combat the inner critic. I'm using thought stopping techniques to put the inner critic in its place. I'm also using meditative skills to just let the feeling or thought pass by; to notice it and allow it to be there.

Respecting myself without having to act or shame myself for feeling or thinking in old ways. I'm stopping myself from obsessing, from ruminating, from being a victim of all these thoughts that are the antithesis of well being.

I'm not shaming myself for holding on; I'm noticing and letting go the best that I can, giving myself lots of grace. This is an important distinction. Non judgement. Letting things be as they are. Accepting reality for what reality is. That is Letting Go. I invite you to let go of these things if you need to. Feel free to add to the list. I could go to 200. :)

1. I let go of trying to make people understand me who don't have the capacity to understand me.
2. I let go of the need to be perfect.
3. I let go of my inner critic telling me I'm not good enough.
4. I let go of trying to impress other people.
5. I let go of trying to cover up my pain with substances, people, behaviors or activities.
6. I let go of ignoring my inner child.
7. I let go of having to be right.
8. I let go of proving myself.
9. I let go of people pleasing.
10. I let go of the compulsion to put myself beneath others.
11. I let go of the compulsion to look down on others.
12. I let go of the need to stay busy all the time.
13. I let go of my false self.
14. I let go of the pain I've felt for so long.
15. I let go of the need to prove that I'm unlovable.
16. I let go of my fear of abandonment.
17. I let go of my fear of rejection.
18. I let go of my need to have someone love me no matter how cruel they are to me.
19. I let go of my need to have a perfect body.
20. I let go of my need to be accepted by those who are unaccepting of me.
21. I let go of my aversion to kindness and love.
22. I let go of living in the future or the past.
23. I let go of defining myself by my material possessions.
24. I let go of trying to prove that I'm right.
25. I let go of trying too hard.
26. I let go of toxic relationships.
27. I let go of relationships that are for show but offer nothing.
28. I let go of trying to get the love that I never got in childhood.
29. I let go of my need to please the unpleasable.
30. I let go of my need to be strong so that I can grieve.
31. I let go of hiding from myself.
32. I let go of hiding from my vulnerability.
33. I let go of hiding from my pain.
34. I let go of trying to get affirmation from outside sources.
35. I let go of ignoring my deepest intuition.
36. I let go of being afraid of what others think of me.
37. I let go of allowing myself to be shamed by others. 
38. I let go of allowing myself to be shamed by myself.
39. I let go of the shame I feel for the abuse I've endured.
40. I let go of the shame I feel for the progress I've made.
41. I let go of the shame for my success.
42. I let go of the shame for my failures.
43. I let go of feeling like I am bad, worthless, unlovable.
44. I let go of feeling guilty for things outside of my control.
45. I let go of feeling toxic shame for my mistakes.
46. I let go of needing to control others opinions of me.
47. I let go of needing to give advice to other people without being asked.
48. I let go of feeling pity for those who are abusive towards me. 
49. I let go of taking the blame for all the problems in my relationships.
50. I let go of giving too much in relationships.
51. I let go of taking too little in my relationships.
52. I let go of hiding my needs to make other people comfortable.
53. I let go of saying yes when I mean no.
54. I let go of automatically agreeing that others are right and I am wrong.
55. I let go of blindly following people without checking with my heart first.
56. I let go of feeling sorry that I'm taking up air to breathe.
57. I let go of feeling responsible for other people's feelings.
58. I let go of feeling responsible for other people's life problems.
59. I let go of negative emotions that keep me from myself.
60. I let go of eating to soothe emotional pain.
61. I let go of exercising to be perfect and accepted.
62. I let go of degrading myself in order to motivate myself.
63. I let go of judging others.
64. I let go of judging myself.
65. I let go of seeing myself as all good or all bad (black and white).
66. I let go of people who shame me.
67. I let go of labels and stereotypes for myself and others.
68. I let go of trying to get love from those who have no love to give.
69. I let go of allowing myself to be abused.
70. I let go of my old story.
71. I let go of trying to prove myself to people who are rejecting.
72. I let go of rejecting people.
73. I let go of ignoring my needs.
74. I let go of keeping the peace at the cost of my self esteem.
75. I let go of pleasing others while abandoning myself.
76. I let go of the fear of anger in others.
77. I let go of the need to suffocate my own anger which is there to protect me.
78. I let go of denying my feelings.
79. I let go of ignoring myself while taking care of others.
80. I let go of taking care of those who can take care of themselves.
81. I let go of being controlled by others.
82. I let go of ignoring my truth.
83. I let go of being easily persuaded against my truth.
84. I let go of idealizing others.
85. I let go of the need to be in a relationship to feel worthwhile.
86. I let go of feeling unworthy of love.
87. I let go of accepting abusive behavior.
88. I let go of settling for crumbs.
89. I let go of giving myself away.
90. I let go of allowing my inner child to be unprotected.
91. I let go of shaming myself for my needs.
92. I let go of being silent when I need to speak.
93. I let go of being compliant when I'm being disrespected.
94. I let go of the need to keep peace at all costs.
95. I let go of what other people need me to be for their own benefit.
96. I let go of being exploited.
97. I let go of self criticism.
98. I let go of ignoring my inner child.
99. I let go of addiction to people.
100. I let go of people who can't love me for who I am.
101. I let go of the need to perform for accusers.
102. I let go of the need to over give to abusive people.
103. I let go of the need to comply with bullies. 
104. I let go of the need to be controlled by others.
105. I let go of the habit of putting myself down for my imperfections.
106. I let go of comparing myself to others.
107. I let go of using outer circumstances to determine my internal worth.
108. I let go of ignoring my needs.

5 Steps to Letting Go

My previous post, Let Go of Control talks about how codependency (an intimacy issue) causes one to try to control and manipulate people and situations in life in order to make up for a deficiency in oneself. This post discusses How to Let Go and move on to a more fulfilling life.

Letting go. Sounds easy, doesn't it? But sometimes letting go is the hardest thing to do. I've spent a lot of time healing and that requires letting go in heavy doses. What does it mean to let go? That's what I'd like to explore. Stay with me here.

Detachment is letting go. Trouble with detaching and letting go is something that codependents have in common. In a way, I think the root of codependency is the inability to let go of things that are outside of your control. Once you begin to heal, detachment becomes necessary and thankfully, with healing, letting go gets easier.  

Here are 5 Steps to Letting Go:

Step 1. Face Reality

If you find yourself hooked on someone, something or some outcome and having difficulty letting go and moving on, the first thing you need to do is face reality. Facing reality means that you look at the situation in its entirety, from broad perspective. You tell yourself the truth. You stop deluding yourself. You stop telling yourself that the person you're hung-up on really loves you--and start facing the fact that it doesn't matter who loves you if they're not giving you what you deserve.

Facing reality means facing that the guy you're in love with doesn't love you and that is okay. You can't wish something into being. There is no magic potion that will make things be exactly as you want it to be. You can't control other people. You don't need to. All you can do is face what's really happening in your life. You can't heal what you don't face.

Step 2. Grieve Your Loss

Any time you lose something in life, you need to grieve in order to heal and move on. When you have codependent tendencies, chances are you have things you need to grieve from your childhood that never healed. Oft times we hold onto people today who remind us of those who didn't meet our needs when we were little developing children. It's important to grieve all losses; to allow yourself to grieve fully. If the situation is tiny, you may only need to grieve a little. If the situation is big, you may need to grieve buckets of emotion. Holding onto pain is what you're doing when you don't go through the grieving process.

Grieving is the process of mourning your loss. It involves sadness, self compassion and tears. Holding onto someone or some desired outcome means that you won't allow yourself to grieve the loss. Grieving is hard and it hurts; sometimes we avoid this process and pretend things are not the way they really are. It's wise and self loving to go ahead and face your losses and grieve for what you no longer have, or in the case of deep inner healing, to grieve what you never had.

Grief has 5 different phases. It's what you feel when someone dies. That same process should be gone through when you have any loss in your life, or else you hold onto the pain of the loss and carry it around with you indefinitely. Better to get it over with. Be kind to yourself and allow yourself to go through the grieving process. Release the pain (negative emotion) so you can move forward and find meaning in life.  

Step 3. Process the Situation

Anyone who tells you to just move on is not being sensitive to your needs. As an emotional being, it's critical to process the situation in the proper light. You need to figure out what you think as a result of this loss. What are you telling yourself? 

Perhaps you are criticizing yourself for the loss. If you are abusing yourself through self criticism, this can cause even more pain for which you need to grieve. You need to come to terms with what's really going on and put everything in the proper category; in the right light. The friend who hurt you does not indicate that you are unworthy, it simply means that he or she is incapable of being sensitive to your needs. Or, the rejection you experienced has nothing to do with your worth at all. You are valuable, incredible and you have a huge life ahead of you. It's important to reframe the situation in a way that is self loving and based in the truth of who you are.

You may need a friend to talk to about the situation. Find someone supportive who will listen as you process rather than trying to offer solutions or shut you up. Processing loss is vital; you don't want to gloss over the thinking you have to do. Failing to process is like shutting down your computer without exiting out of all the open programs--it messes you up.

Step 4. Lean on Higher Power

Letting go and detaching is difficult if you are not tapped into your higher power, that is, God within you. You must be willing to go higher and ask God for help, and to allow that help to penetrate your daily life. You are loved more than you can imagine. Everything is working out for your good. Life is good to you and for you. You can trust that what you are letting go of is not needed for you. You can trust that everything that you need will come and that which you don't need won't stay. Trust that all is well and that what you don't have you don't need.

Step 5. Replacement

Lastly, once you've processed the real issue for what it is, reframed it and released the negative emotion through grief, you can work on the surface of the problem, and that is your thinking. If you are codependent in any way, you likely have habitual thoughts that are codependent in nature. In order to break out of the pattern of clinging to what's not yours, or holding onto what's no longer in your life, you have to replace those thoughts with better ones more conducive to your good.

Replacement is about filling up your thought life with thoughts that are beneficial to you. Codependents have a tendency to focus on other people. If you want to detach, you need to attach to something else--and that something needs to be YOU. Replace repetitive, compulsive thoughts that have you stuck with thoughts that serve to better Yourself. Detach outside, bond inside. Replace thoughts about others with thoughts about Yourself.

Replacement may involve self soothing, positive self talk, or it may involve getting busy with your own life, hobbies or career. You don't want to replace too soon--you must process, grieve and face reality--if you want to move forward as a whole healthy person. Once you're ready, you can begin to replace the old stuff that's moving out of your life with new stuff that's good for you.

Please note: You don't want to replace the old with more of the same. In the processing process, you LEARN FROM THE PAIN OF LETTING GO and start fresh with new knowledge, making better decisions along the way. Replacement is not repetition. Replacement is climbing the stairs; replacement is going higher to a better, stronger you.

Ending...

I hope this article is helpful. I've learned to detach in my life in things both big and small. My inner self, my inner guide helps me through the process. I constantly remind myself of what's mine to keep: ME, and what's mine to release: Not Mine. Letting go, releasing and detaching is a psychologically healthy thing to do and will bring much peace and joy to your life. Letting go and learning why what you were holding onto is not beneficial is an act of self love that is very hard at first, but gets easier with practice. Letting go honors Yourself and builds you up. You will be surprised to see how strong you are once you trust your higher power and let go of the need to cling and control.

Much love to you, my friend. XO