Why Letting Go is Hard and How to Make it Easier

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Hey.

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Hello and welcome to Stillness in the Storms, the podcast that helps you through some of the most difficult times in life.

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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.

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And we all know the Frozen song.

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Let it go, Let it go.

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I've never actually seen that movie, so I'm quite proud of myself that I haven't.

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I've never watched Lord of the Rings either.

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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.

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But let it go, Stevie.

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Let it go.

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So what does it mean by let it go?

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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.

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Because whenever I try to let things go, I can't.

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And even now I still find it hard to let things go.

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So I do it.

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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.

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So I'm going to talk to you about that a little bit later.

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But before I do that, I just want to thank.

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I haven't done this for a while.

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I want to thank a couple of people that have donated to the podcast in the last couple of weeks.

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And I keep forgetting to do this, but honestly, without them, without you guys doing this, this podcast would not be free.

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And I don't like listening to podcasts that you gotta skip forward the first five minutes because there's talking just like this.

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So I'm gonna say a big thank you to Eleanor Walton, someone bec, Josie Senga and Beth.

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Thank you very much, guys.

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And I want to shout out also to someone that left a review, 5 star review, just like to say thank you.

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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.

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So thank you for the review.

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Let's get on with the show.

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So, letting go.

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Why is it so difficult to let things go?

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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.

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The mind is designed to bring them up as often as possible if it affects us.

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So trying to let go of those things is really, really difficult.

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And today's age, when we're all trying to be humans in a domesticated world, we're also learning to forgive.

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And we're learning that some people don't have the same ethics as we do.

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They don't have the same empathy as that we do, and things like that.

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And just learning to let go and forgive people and move on and things like that.

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And I was cheated on.

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I was cheated on by quite a while.

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It massively, massively hurt.

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And trying to let go of that was really, really, really difficult.

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Trying to let go of that pain was really, really difficult.

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Because for weeks and weeks, all I could think of was that.

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And it was exactly the same as when I had another split up, and exactly the same as when I do something wrong.

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And I've often, like, looked at a situation and.

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Or looked at someone.

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I've said something, I thought, why did I say that?

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And in a council meeting, I'll say something, and I'll say something out loud or in a.

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Like, you always put up your hand.

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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.

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Because I don't take notes, because I cannot write, because my hands are paralyzed.

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I always forget to write stuff down on my phone.

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So it's like Councilor Webb, and I'm like.

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And I end up saying something and yeah.

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And I think, why did I say that?

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Why.

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Why did I even bring that up?

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And I always go on that real guilt trip of, I could have said better, I could have done better.

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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.

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If we go out and buy a meal, there's expectations.

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If I'm paying for it, I want it to be a certain level.

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If I'm in a relationship, I expect certain things from that other person, and they should rightfully expect them from me.

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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.

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I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

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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.

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We have this expectation that we're not going to be rude and nasty to each other.

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We are going to be somewhat polite.

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So having expectations and trying to understand that we live in a world that is, that should be kind and friendly.

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It's hard to let go when people aren't.

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When things go wrong.

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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.

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That's really hard to then let go because we've told our mind to have that.

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It's important to us.

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So how do we let go?

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And as I say, I find it really, really difficult to let go.

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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.

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There's no such thing as letting go and forgetting it.

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You know, it doesn't work like that at all.

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But it's just non action, just complete acceptance.

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So if you take a tree during the winter or the early parts like this time of year is a perfect example.

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All the trees are turning into a lovely autumnal color.

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And I love the colors.

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But how do the trees let go of the leaves?

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They haven't got hands to let go of them, they haven't got claws to let go of them or anything.

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They literally just stop feeding them, they do nothing with them and then they just fall.

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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.

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It's an action.

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And whenever your brain tells your body or something to do an action, it puts an importance on it.

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And the action of letting go is no different than the action of picking up.

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It's an action nonetheless.

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The brain has caused an action to happen.

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It doesn't know this letting go.

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It doesn't know that it's picking up.

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That's irrelevant.

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It's just the fact that you've called upon it.

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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.

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Just like the tree just allows the leaf to die and fall, at that point there's no weight on it.

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The mind and the body and all that is not putting any weight on it.

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So therefore it might not bring it up as often later on.

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You don't forget it.

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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.

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You want to be prepared just in case a similar circumstance has happened in future.

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But you don't want it to control you completely.

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So you want it there in the back of your mind.

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But you can choose to allow it to influence a decision or not, or choose it to influence the moment or not.

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So if you learn just the technique of, do I get on this?

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Do I do anything with it?

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It totally changes it.

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And I think Alan Watts says this in a similar way.

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It's like trying to let go of something.

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It's like trying to flatten a rippling pond with a hard iron.

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It's just not going to work.

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I love that analogy.

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Just so perfectly worked.

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So the guidance, just do nothing.

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How do you do that?

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You just, ah, there's a thought, you could even label the thought.

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And I know that's doing something, but you go, ah, that's a do nothing thought.

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Or that's the thought I like.

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And I'll get on with.

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Very similar to the thoughts that we were talking about last week.

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Just, you don't have to choose to get on every single thought.

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For years we've lived that way, that if we have a thought, we have to do something with it.

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But it's the same as if someone cuts you up in the car.

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You don't have to do anything with it, just allow them to go on.

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You don't have to make a story.

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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.

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We've all done this, haven't we?

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How dare they do that to me?

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How dare they make me late?

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I was like making brilliant progress and they just happened to do that to me.

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Complete stranger.

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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.

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But yeah, it's so hard to let these things go.

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And we literally.

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Things are happening to us all the time that we don't agree with, we don't like and we feel victims to it.

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It's really rewarding to be a victim to it, you know, because it makes us feel special.

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It makes us feel like we were part of something.

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You know, they did it to me, you know, in particular, that's quite powerful.

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And that's a thought to get onto.

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Now, I'm not saying you don't get victims.

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Of course, you get victims in many kinds of things.

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And are some things really hard to forgive?

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That's a different story.

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You know, I'm not overly talking about forgiving.

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I'm talking about something after you've forgiven, after you've done all those things, it's just to let go.

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Let go and do nothing and move on.

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And we can start with the smaller stuff, like let go of the fact that you wanted it to be sunny.

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Let go of the fact that you got a bit of a belly.

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I'm projecting now about my belly.

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Let go of the fact that you got wrinkles when you laugh.

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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.

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And, you know, when I'm 30, 40, 50, I'm going to be here, I'm going to be doing this.

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No, no, I'm not.

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I'm gonna let that go.

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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.

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So letting go is just.

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Oh, it's like magic.

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So if I tell you now to relax your shoulders, and I want you to really relax your shoulders.

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No, I want you to do a really, really good job.

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Relax your shoulders.

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Now you're like, wait, what?

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But if I said just allow your shoulders to relax, do nothing with them, just allow them.

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Ah, and there you go.

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How much easier is that?

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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.

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It doesn't take away the desire for something different, but it just stops it controlling and taking over that moment.

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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.

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So it'll give you something to think about.

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And then you think about it deeply and you go on it.

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It's like, yes, I won.

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And then it does it again.

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I'll give you another one.

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Yes, I won.

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And if you Keep going on it and you get really mad, you really, really, really jump on it in a big way.

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And it's like making you really angry or you're loving it.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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If someone calls you a name or someone shouts at you, just ah.

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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.

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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.

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Don't catch it, don't argue about it, don't do anything with it.

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Just oh, that missed.

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There you go, job done.

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Oh, if only it was this easy.

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If only it was this easy.

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So that's my relatively short podcast this week.

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Just be a tree.

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If you want to let go of something, just do nothing with it.

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Just allow the leaf to just fall.

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You know, in Taoism it's called Wu Wei.

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It's just non action, non action and acceptance and that's it.

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So thank you to the donators, you're keeping the podcast free and thank you.

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Now honestly, it's not cheap doing these podcasts.

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Gotta be hosting them and doing them all.

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And many of them have adverts.

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And I'm getting back into podcasts, a bit more listening now.

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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.

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But this podcast and my inner peace meditation is going to stay free because of you.

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Because one or two of you every week just donates a couple of coffees to me and it makes all the difference.

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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 you.

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Thank you.

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Have an amazing weekend.