Why is letting go so hard? Because your mind evolved to hold on. This is about what comes after forgiveness, when there is nothing left to do but put it down.
Why is letting go so hard? Because your mind evolved to hold on. This is about what comes after forgiveness, when there is nothing left to do but put it down.
I say things in council meetings and then spend the evening asking myself why I said them. A tree lets a leaf die and fall and puts no weight on it whatsoever. For years we have lived as though a thought demands an action. It does not. If somebody throws a name at you, do not catch it. Start with the small stuff and work up.
One thing to try: Next time somebody throws something at you, do not catch it. That is the whole exercise.
In this episode
(0:01) Why letting go is so difficult in the first place
(1:50) A review from somebody who has not been themselves lately
(3:29) Saying something in a council meeting and regretting it all evening
(5:00) Expectations, and living in a world with other people in it
(7:11) The tree that lets the leaf fall without any weight on it
(8:50) Believing a thought means you have to do something
(10:25) After forgiveness, there is just putting it down
(13:55) If they throw it, do not catch it
With gratitude to
Eleanor, Josie, Senga and Beth.
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk
Thank you for listening.
Steven
The question this answers
Why is letting go so hard?
Because your mind evolved to hold on. It kept your ancestors out of trouble by remembering exactly what caused it, and it is still doing that faithfully while you tell it to stop.
This one is about what comes after forgiveness, when there is nothing left to do but put the thing down.
The heart of it
Letting go is an action, and any action tells the brain the thing matters. Which is the opposite of what you wanted.
A tree does not let a leaf go. It stops feeding it and the leaf falls.
I was cheated on once, and for weeks it was all I could think about. Same when another relationship ended. And the same, in a much smaller way, when I say something in a council meeting and then spend the evening asking myself why I said it. I cannot write notes, because my hands are paralysed, so I put my hand up and then have to remember what for.
Telling your hand to let go of something is still a command. The brain does not distinguish between picking up and putting down. Both are jobs it has been given, and a job means importance.
So do nothing instead. The thought arrives and you put no weight on it at all.
Trying to let go of something is like trying to flatten a rippling pond with an iron.
Alan Watts
You are not forgetting anything. You do not want to forget somebody who treated you badly, in case something similar comes round. You want it in the back of the room rather than driving.
And you do not have to make the story. Somebody cuts you up and you do not have to decide they left the house that morning with the specific intention of intercepting you at that junction to make you thirty seconds late.
Being the victim is genuinely rewarding, which is the awkward part. It makes you feel picked out and part of something.
Try this instead. Relax your shoulders. Really relax them, do a good job of it. Nothing happens. Now just allow your shoulders to relax, do nothing with them. There it is.
In Taoism it is called wu wei. Non action.
One small thing to try
Next time somebody throws something at you, do not catch it. That is the whole exercise.
A name, an accusation, a dig. Do not argue with it, do not do anything with it. It goes past.
Start with the small stuff and work up. Let go of wanting it to be sunny. Let go of the belly, and I am projecting there. Let go of the fact that you are not where eighteen year old you assumed you would be by now.
Questions people ask
Is this the same as forgiving somebody?
No, and it comes afterwards. Forgiveness is its own job. This is the bit where, having forgiven, you still find yourself carrying it about.
Will it stop coming back?
It comes back less. Your subconscious scores your reactions and sends more of what got a big one. Give it nothing and the tally quietly drops.
Is doing nothing not just avoidance?
Avoidance is refusing to look at it. This is looking straight at it and choosing not to act. The difference is small to describe and enormous to do.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
letting-go · acceptance
Read the transcript
Hey.
Hello and welcome to Stillness in the Storms, the podcast that helps
you through some of the most difficult times in life.
I'm Stephen Webb, your host, and I want to talk to you this week
about letting go and the old adage of just let things go.
And we all know the Frozen song.
Let it go, Let it go.
I've never actually seen that movie, so I'm quite proud of myself
that I haven't.
I've never watched Lord of the Rings either.
And there's a few other things I've never watched that everybody
else on the planet seems to have watched, but I haven't never
even got to the end of Game of Thrones.
But let it go, Stevie.
Let it go.
So what does it mean by let it go?
I'm going to talk to you about that and I'm going to talk to you
about an easier technique of letting it go.
Because whenever I try to let things go, I can't.
And even now I still find it hard to let things go.
So I do it.
A new kind of technique, a different way of doing it, and it's
more about Alan Watts and an old, like a Taoist way of woo wee
about letting go and doing nothing with it.
So I'm going to talk to you about that a little bit later.
But before I do that, I just want to thank.
I haven't done this for a while.
I want to thank a couple of people that have donated to the podcast
in the last couple of weeks.
And I keep forgetting to do this, but honestly, without them,
without you guys doing this, this podcast would not be free.
And I don't like listening to podcasts that you gotta skip forward
the first five minutes because there's talking just like this.
So I'm gonna say a big thank you to Eleanor Walton, someone bec,
Josie Senga and Beth.
Thank you very much, guys.
And I want to shout out also to someone that left a review, 5
star review, just like to say thank you.
A friend recommended me to listen to your podcast and I a bit,
as I have not been myself recently, I find your podcast charming,
thought provoking, and I like the fact that they are short.
So thank you for the review.
Let's get on with the show.
So, letting go.
Why is it so difficult to let things go?
Well, the minds evolve to remember things so we don't get in
trouble, or when we're walking through that forest or we're going
over the plains of Africa, that we don't forget the things that
caused us trouble or caused us any kind of pain or any kind of social
anxiety or any of those things.
The mind is designed to bring them up as often as possible if it
affects us.
So trying to let go of those things is really, really difficult.
And today's age, when we're all trying to be humans in a domesticated
world, we're also learning to forgive.
And we're learning that some people don't have the same ethics
as we do.
They don't have the same empathy as that we do, and things
like that.
And just learning to let go and forgive people and move on and
things like that.
And I was cheated on.
I was cheated on by quite a while.
It massively, massively hurt.
And trying to let go of that was really, really, really difficult.
Trying to let go of that pain was really, really difficult.
Because for weeks and weeks, all I could think of was that.
And it was exactly the same as when I had another split up, and
exactly the same as when I do something wrong.
And I've often, like, looked at a situation and.
Or looked at someone.
I've said something, I thought, why did I say that?
And in a council meeting, I'll say something, and I'll say something
out loud or in a.
Like, you always put up your hand.
And then when the chair or when the mayor or something calls
to you, a, you gotta remember what you put up your hand about.
Because I don't take notes, because I cannot write, because my
hands are paralyzed.
I always forget to write stuff down on my phone.
So it's like Councilor Webb, and I'm like.
And I end up saying something and yeah.
And I think, why did I say that?
Why.
Why did I even bring that up?
And I always go on that real guilt trip of, I could have said
better, I could have done better.
I think it's human nature to hold on to things, and we hold on
to the way we want things to be, the way we want this moment to
be, the way we want our meal to be later.
If we go out and buy a meal, there's expectations.
If I'm paying for it, I want it to be a certain level.
If I'm in a relationship, I expect certain things from that other
person, and they should rightfully expect them from me.
You know, if it's my daughter or if it's my parents or anything
like that, because of those, we have those relationships, there
is a certain expectation.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
You know, if I'm driving down the pavements and all that, people
expect me to Drive in a way that I'm not going to be running
over them, or if I go through a supermarket or out in public.
We have this expectation that we're not going to be rude and nasty
to each other.
We are going to be somewhat polite.
So having expectations and trying to understand that we live
in a world that is, that should be kind and friendly.
It's hard to let go when people aren't.
When things go wrong.
When someone cuts up in the car and we gotta phone people, we
gotta phone a friend and we gotta go and tell everybody about
it and we gotta post on Facebook.
That's really hard to then let go because we've told our mind to
have that.
It's important to us.
So how do we let go?
And as I say, I find it really, really difficult to let go.
But the technique that I found more than anything else, and it's
not an overnight thing, it's not simple, not easy to let go.
There's no such thing as letting go and forgetting it.
You know, it doesn't work like that at all.
But it's just non action, just complete acceptance.
So if you take a tree during the winter or the early parts like
this time of year is a perfect example.
All the trees are turning into a lovely autumnal color.
And I love the colors.
But how do the trees let go of the leaves?
They haven't got hands to let go of them, they haven't got claws
to let go of them or anything.
They literally just stop feeding them, they do nothing with
them and then they just fall.
And if we're holding something, I know this is a simple
metaphor, but if we're holding something and the brain tells our
hand, it's got to let go of it.
It's an action.
And whenever your brain tells your body or something to do an action,
it puts an importance on it.
And the action of letting go is no different than the action of
picking up.
It's an action nonetheless.
The brain has caused an action to happen.
It doesn't know this letting go.
It doesn't know that it's picking up.
That's irrelevant.
It's just the fact that you've called upon it.
So if you have a thought or if you have something, if you just do
nothing with it, it just arrives and you go, ah, but I'm going
to do nothing with it.
Just like the tree just allows the leaf to die and fall, at that
point there's no weight on it.
The mind and the body and all that is not putting any weight on
it.
So therefore it might not bring it up as often later on.
You don't forget it.
There's no forgetting if someone's done you wrong or if someone
really didn't treat you very fairly, you don't want to forget
that.
You want to be prepared just in case a similar circumstance has
happened in future.
But you don't want it to control you completely.
So you want it there in the back of your mind.
But you can choose to allow it to influence a decision or not, or
choose it to influence the moment or not.
So if you learn just the technique of, do I get on this?
Do I do anything with it?
It totally changes it.
And I think Alan Watts says this in a similar way.
It's like trying to let go of something.
It's like trying to flatten a rippling pond with a hard iron.
It's just not going to work.
I love that analogy.
Just so perfectly worked.
So the guidance, just do nothing.
How do you do that?
You just, ah, there's a thought, you could even label the
thought.
And I know that's doing something, but you go, ah, that's
a do nothing thought.
Or that's the thought I like.
And I'll get on with.
Very similar to the thoughts that we were talking about last week.
Just, you don't have to choose to get on every single thought.
For years we've lived that way, that if we have a thought, we
have to do something with it.
But it's the same as if someone cuts you up in the car.
You don't have to do anything with it, just allow them to go on.
You don't have to make a story.
You don't have to make up a story of how they tried to kill you
or how they deliberately set out that morning to deliberately
intercept you on that road, on that deliberate junction to deliberately
make you late.
We've all done this, haven't we?
How dare they do that to me?
How dare they make me late?
I was like making brilliant progress and they just happened to
do that to me.
Complete stranger.
Just their whole lives were based on stopping us in the road
that morning and making us 30 seconds late, that we could have
left early and it wouldn't have happened.
But yeah, it's so hard to let these things go.
And we literally.
Things are happening to us all the time that we don't agree with,
we don't like and we feel victims to it.
It's really rewarding to be a victim to it, you know, because it
makes us feel special.
It makes us feel like we were part of something.
You know, they did it to me, you know, in particular, that's quite
powerful.
And that's a thought to get onto.
Now, I'm not saying you don't get victims.
Of course, you get victims in many kinds of things.
And are some things really hard to forgive?
That's a different story.
You know, I'm not overly talking about forgiving.
I'm talking about something after you've forgiven, after you've
done all those things, it's just to let go.
Let go and do nothing and move on.
And we can start with the smaller stuff, like let go of the
fact that you wanted it to be sunny.
Let go of the fact that you got a bit of a belly.
I'm projecting now about my belly.
Let go of the fact that you got wrinkles when you laugh.
Let go of the fact that you're not exactly in the place in life
where you thought you might have been when you were 18 years
old.
And, you know, when I'm 30, 40, 50, I'm going to be here, I'm
going to be doing this.
No, no, I'm not.
I'm gonna let that go.
Because when we do let go of things, it gives us time, it gives
us that space and freedom to look for the things that we desire,
the things that we really enjoy and the things that we can
have gratitude with.
So letting go is just.
Oh, it's like magic.
So if I tell you now to relax your shoulders, and I want you to
really relax your shoulders.
No, I want you to do a really, really good job.
Relax your shoulders.
Now you're like, wait, what?
But if I said just allow your shoulders to relax, do nothing with
them, just allow them.
Ah, and there you go.
How much easier is that?
So if you just allow yourself to let go of things, allow the thought
to occur, allow the thought of that situation that you've been holding
onto for so long, it doesn't take away the fact that it was wrong
or the fact that it really hurt, or the fact that it's really
big.
It doesn't take away the desire for something different, but
it just stops it controlling and taking over that moment.
And the more you allow any thought or any moment to take over
that moment, the more moments in future, the subconscious mind,
almost like scores things.
So it'll give you something to think about.
And then you think about it deeply and you go on it.
It's like, yes, I won.
And then it does it again.
I'll give you another one.
Yes, I won.
And if you Keep going on it and you get really mad, you really,
really, really jump on it in a big way.
And it's like making you really angry or you're loving it.
The subconscious mind like, tick, tick, tick, like I got loads
of star stickers for that one, so I'm going to give you more of
them.
So, you know, I know I've spoken two similar things in two
similar weeks, but it's really important if you want some real inner
peace and stillness in those storms, you know, to let go is just
to do nothing with, you know.
So if you are done wrong, if that card us block, if you don't
get to that phone or if someone does say something to you
that you don't like, just do nothing with it.
If someone calls you a name or someone shouts at you, just ah.
And if you do that, the more and more you do that a, they'll stop
doing it because in actual fact they lose their power when it,
when you just by doing something with it, just by equal
in that opposite force, they've got to up their force and
all that.
You know, if it is an argument or if it is in name calling or anything,
but if they throw a name at you or if they throw something at
you, just do nothing with it.
Don't catch it, don't argue about it, don't do anything with
it.
Just oh, that missed.
There you go, job done.
Oh, if only it was this easy.
If only it was this easy.
So that's my relatively short podcast this week.
Just be a tree.
If you want to let go of something, just do nothing with it.
Just allow the leaf to just fall.
You know, in Taoism it's called Wu Wei.
It's just non action, non action and acceptance and that's
it.
So thank you to the donators, you're keeping the podcast free and
thank you.
Now honestly, it's not cheap doing these podcasts.
Gotta be hosting them and doing them all.
And many of them have adverts.
And I'm getting back into podcasts, a bit more listening now.
And because I haven't listened to them for about 612 months, it
seems like the podcast are getting more and more adverts and
I do understand why.
But this podcast and my inner peace meditation is going to stay
free because of you.
Because one or two of you every week just donates a couple
of coffees to me and it makes all the difference.
I just want to say thank you and to everybody, donators, non donators,
listeners and first timers here, I can safely say you're not
much different than me the hand of my heart I can say I love
