The Benefit of Letting Go

I am reminded of the lyrics from the song Release Me by Engelbert Humperdinck, which partly plea, “Please release me, let me go.” As I look back at the numerous, seemingly-entrapping times of my life, whether they involved people, situations, or even thoughts, and wonder what neither released me nor let me go, I can only conclude that it was my own mind. It was the place I occupied, the part of me that left me preoccupied, and the reality in which I lived, despite what, to the contrary, may have occurred outside of it.

Far more powerful than apparent, it was the place of my past, and the more I ran it, the more I brought it into the present, until it virtually hijacked me. Particularly entrapping, it has, at times, convinced me that what was replaying inside of it was far more real than what was playing outside of it. And the more the film strip flashed itself on to the screen, the more automatically the projector ran.

Letting go is one seemingly simple method of pulling the plug on something I have not entirely resolved, something I am fixated on, and something with which I am obsessed. Otherwise, I have allowed the mind to control me as opposed to me controlling it.

After a shirt has been worn and washed for years, it frays and no longer serves its original purpose, and is usually discarded. Similarly, old, warn ways must also be relinquished and released, because they no longer serve their original purpose—if, in fact, they ever did.

“Al-Anon has shown me that the answer lies not in letting go of people, but in letting go of my outworn, painful thinking patterns,” according to a share in the program’sHope for Today text (Al-anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., 2002, p. 111). “I can replace them with honesty, openness, and willingness to change into a more positive person.”

Letting go also entails relinquishing ideas and notions, which can vary according to the person, but include some of the following for me.

§ That I am powerful enough to triumph over the disease of para-alcoholism on my own.

§ That anything that happened to me in the past has no bearing on me in the present.

§ That anything I or anyone else has done in it can be undone or rewritten somehow.

§ That I can change or fix anyone other than myself.

§ And that old ways, thoughts, beliefs, habits, attitudes, defenses, behaviors, and actions can and will always work for me. They won’t!

Perhaps the greatest notion I must let go of is that I just cannot let go, but some of my resentments, hurts, grievances, and beliefs may be so ingrained and prove to be such insurmountable obstacles, that I may not be able to do so alone. It is here where the “letting go” concept takes on an extension as it involves more than just me, as in “let go and let God.”

Despite my autonomy, freewill, and sometimes stubbornness, some roots are so deeply imbedded, that I simply cannot pull them out on my own.

Although trying to let go of something I cannot achieve alone may be equated with defeat or failure, it is not. Instead, it involves the realization that the Higher Power from whom I came and to whom I am still invisibly connected, can aid me as we pull out those roots together.

As the old saying goes, “Do your best and then let God do the rest.”

If properly framed, the past has value in the present when a person realizes that if often teaches a life lesson, but does not have to become a life sentence.

“For me, letting go is like a tree shedding its leaves in autumn,” the share in Hope for Today concludes (ibid, p. 111). “It must let go of them to grow and produce even more beauty in the following spring and summer. Letting go of what I truly do not need—whether it be old thoughts, things, or behaviors—makes room for new growth in my life.”

Robert G. Waldvogel has earned the Interdisciplinary Certificate in Behavioral Health for Late Adolescence and the Emerging Adult and a Postgraduate Certificate in the Fundamentals of Cognitive Behavioral Treatment at Adelphi University’s School of Social Work. He has led Twelve-Step support groups on Long Island for almost 15 years, and created the Adult Child Recovery-through-Writing, and the Strengthening Our Spirituality Programs taught at the Thrive Recovery Community and Outreach Center in Westbury.