The 3 R's for Thriving On Your Path
Releasing has become a cure-all within the Spiritual community and has even spread as a concept within the more general therapeutic circles. Somewhat like Windex in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" it is used for everything from old habits, to eating patterns, PTSD to a desire for stylish hats. If there is something we don't like about ourselves, which seems to be holding us back or out of harmony, then we'll need to release it in order to recover our natural rhythms and move forward with our best life.
However, releasing isn't a universal remedy. Too much releasing can be harmful. Just ask anyone who has had food poisoning, diarrhea, or whooping cough. It can even be deadly if it comes in the form of Cholera.
Releasing is the perfect solution to things which actually need letting go. I liken this to grocery shopping. Say you have 10 bags of groceries in your car. They are the plastic bags and are a bit full, but not overly so. Unfortunately, you can't park at home and you can't find a spot close so it's a couple of blocks to walk from the car to the kitchen. You grab 5 bags with one hand and 5 bags with the other and for the first little bit your focus is just on keeping things from bumping and bouncing so nothing gets damaged or falls out. After a bit longer, you realize the cumulative weight is starting to hurt your hands. You may try to shuffle things around a bit or have to take a couple of breaks, but in the end you gut it out, squeezing your grip tighter and tighter to counter act the pain and keep you from dropping anything. Meanwhile the weight has pulled the bag handles tight and thin so they are pressing deeply into your hands, slightly cutting off blood flow.
Once you get into the house the first thing you want to do is set down the bags. But this is easier said than done because over time and with so much concentrated effort, plus the lack of blood, your hands have kinda cramped into shape. You get the fingers to release, but the pain doesn't subside right away and the marks of the bag handles take even longer to fade. Shaking, rubbing, and flexing the hands all help to get them back into working order so you can then put the groceries away.
In this situation releasing is the best option to resolve the issue. You can do this before you take the bags home by retrieving something to load the bags into like a stroller or call your neighbor to meet you at the front door so you can off load them and then park. Alternately you can choose to carry them all the way and then deal with the aftermath. Either way, letting go is the only way out when you've picked something up which you don't want or need to carry any further.
Releasing also is amazing for dealing with things which have been handed to us with or without our consent. Many of us have been gifted hyper-vigilance, co-dependence, perfectionism, the role of mediator, and the need to over achieve along with a whole lot more. Over time we can come to recognize these are not personality traits, but behaviors given to us in order to facilitate the needs and dysfunctional systems of others. Releasing these as well as the aspects of our identities which they formed and fostered can not only provide healing but allow us to unfold our true natures and manifest from our higher self.
No matter what issue you're working through, releasing is often the first of several steps in a healing journey. It is not uncommon for a person to become aware of their need for healing or where they should start by noticing what they have carried around with them through sheer effort and determination, possibly for years. Or, if they have been aware of it, to finally reach the moment where they are ready to change themselves in order to move forward. Letting go of the thing which no longer serves not only provides immediate relief, but allows the person to begin feeling who they are when not engaged in coping or forcing themselves to be something they are not.
However, releasing used incorrectly can impede healing or even add injury to what is already ongoing. If a person suffers from having been neglected, abused, ignored, forced to take on parenting duties, required to meet warped expectations, or experienced either sexual or emotional molestation or both, then releasing has already been used against them. Like a scalpel it has cut through their ability to perceive the world and reconfigured it into a more pleasing shape for those who are cutting. Like a sledge hammer it has been used time and time again to make them feel wrong or even endangered if they asserted themselves, have beingness of their own, or showed any hint of rebellion.
They have been forced to release their right to a sense of self, of self-worth, or being loveable or valuable for anything other than what they can do for others. They have been twisted and broken out of their natural shape and trained into something else and lost themselves in the process. They have been manipulated into releasing their voice, their right to say no, the ability to express their true feelings or even know what feelings they might have.
As part of the healing process releasing can be the first step towards empowerment. Like breathing out after holding your breath it can be freeing and even enlivening. It is definitely a relief and leaves you available to return to normal. However, if all we do is breath out, then the opposite problem occurs. The lungs empty, the blood craves air, the person basically collapses like a deflated balloon, no better off than it was before with bad air trapped inside.
I have found Releasing works best, not as a cure-all, but in conjunction with two other processes, Reclaiming and Retraining.
During and after we release something there is an experience of lightness. We no longer have to carry around something which was a burden so we have that energy to use in other ways. We also have available space within us for new things. Sometimes those things have been just waiting for us to make room and so like a sponge they expand into full form when this small amount of encouragement and moisture reaches them.
However, for most people the space will simply stay empty until something is put into it. This can start with Reclaiming. If we haven't received validation or unconditional love from a parent(s), then we can work to reclaim it by creating healthy relationships with substitute sources. Finding a father figure or mothering soul who is willing to add us to their tribe can be done by connecting with older members of our church, by befriending a senior in a senior center, finding an appropriate co-worker or parent of a friend and so on. Reclaiming our right to be accepted, valued, and nurtured for who we are rather than what we are can heal us at the source of the injury.
Another thing which often desires reclaiming is childhood. While it is true as adults we are required to "put away childish things" which we now speak of in terms of "adulting", however this does not mean we have lost our need to have a childhood or to experience the simple joys childhood affords.
Luckily, as adults we have not only the ability but the resources to reclaim a great deal of what we may have lost or had taken away from us in our early years. Many people experience this process after a break up. We may be compelled to find the exact same dishes we had with our partner, to buy that one book of theirs we didn't get to read, to start collecting the same things they did because we came to love too and so on. Once we have done so it's like a piece clicks into place. Something which was missing inside us returns. This can cause us to realize we don't need the items any more or to instead acknowledge part of the relationship was an attempt to claim and reclaim a lost piece of ourselves which they already had.
We can use reclaiming for our childhoods as well. As adults we can be the good parents we didn't have, not only indulging our whims, but validating our desires. Didn't get to go to that concert way back in the day? Well check and see if they aren't still playing some reunion tour or the casino circuit. Or maybe there's a tribute band which might be even more fun than the real thing. Wanted some toy or book or clothing or pet rock you could never afford? Well, now is the time of retro and nostalgia. Most likely its either on eBay or someone has made a replica you can get on Amazon. Had something taken away, damaged, or besmirched which you love and miss? You can reclaim it and this time love it and yourself up the way you deserve.
The process of reclaiming is like breathing in. It not only fills you up, but validates you are worth filling. You don't have to do this through acts of pure will power, gritted teeth and intervention from your higher power. Instead you can support yourself gently, gracefully and joyfully by reclaiming your truth. You are worth the life you deserve to have.
If we show others how to treat us through how we behave, how much more powerful is it to show ourselves through Reclaiming?
Retraining helps us convert old coping mechanism into talents we can choose to use or not. It can help us learn how and when to use them appropriately and also help us to fill in the gaps. Like an iceberg, the part everyone focuses on is what you can see, but 90% of what we struggle with is underneath. In other words, while we can often be clear or have it made clear to us what we were taught or came to do and be, due to our childhood or other events, what we rarely notice is what we weren't taught.
It's not uncommon to have never been taught how to speak our truth without being combative or confrontational. Or to have our attempts at something new be applauded regardless of the outcome. We don't know how to be less than perfect and feel satisfaction, even pride, with an imperfect outcome. We might not even know how to determine whether we like something or not.
Retraining allows us to have a do over. Once we have space within ourselves through releasing, much like receiving a new piece of amazing art paper, retraining gives us the tools and a license to make art which is beautiful and uniquely our own. It utilizes our amazing and finely honed problem solving skills and sets them to reminding us we are able to learn new things including how to be who we truly are and can be.
Retraining is not an all or nothing proposition. We didn't learn to be who we are in a moment and we certainly won't learn a whole new way of living overnight. In fact, we shouldn't. Like any skill, learning to do things differently takes dedication, repetition, and reinforcement. This is in itself a spiritual practice which is well stated in the Yoga Sutras: Practice that is done for a long time, without break and with sincere devotion becomes a firmly rooted, stable, and solid foundation. (Sutra 1.14)
As with all new things, beginnings are awkward, it's easier to see what is wrong than to nourish and appreciate what is right, and in the end if we are patient and graceful with ourselves this new thing will incorporate into us as part of who we are. It will stop being something we do and instead support us in being.
So instead of taking one more pass at releasing something which seems never to leave or leaping into releasing automatically as a remedy, take a step back and truly look at the problem. Is releasing something you need to do or has it already been done to you without your consent? Do you instead need to reclaim something which has been taken from you? Can you see where retraining might be more supportive than making you give up another piece of yourself?
Do you need to stop holding your breath or to take in a lungful of precious air?