Holding on

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If there is any advice that feels a tiny bit problematic at least, it is the advice to ‘let go of that you no longer need in your life’. It is something that is relatively easy when you are talking ‘stuff’. When the new house doesn’t have a lawn, there is no use in holding on to the old lawn mower. Or, as we may have lost weight, holding on to the old wardrobe seems futile, if not counterproductive. And so we let go of the items we no longer need.

When we are looking at experiences we may have had way back when, or emotional situations that have left their mark on our lives, ‘letting go of it’ isn’t quite as straightforward or easy.
We can make a conscious decision to place it in the past ~ where it belongs ~ so that it can no longer be a part of our lives today. Often this will work, especially when we combine that with exercises of affirmations that keep reinforcing our decision for as long as it takes for the result to be ‘natural’. For us to get to that point where we can truly say that it is no longer part of our lives in this moment.
A lot of times a process like that won’t work. No matter how hard we try, the experience, the emotions keep popping up; usually at times when we are least expecting them.

So perhaps, rather than working at ‘letting go’, the real question is why we are still holding on?

What is it in our lives that prompts us to hold on to things, feelings, experiences that are no longer useful to us? Is it a sense of security? Or something that we have always held true because of how we respected the person who told us it was so? Is it a cultural belief on how to behave as a ‘good person’? There are all kinds of reasons why we hold on to things, feelings, and experiences; most of them personal, all of them individual…
And until we know our own, personal reason why we are holding on to something, it is going to be hard to let go of.

The other thing that makes the question even more difficult to answer is that there is hardly ever a nice, concrete, logical reason why we are holding on to something. More often it has to do with how things, situations, or even people are connected in our minds; in our memories…

That being said, it is probably worth the effort to ponder the question; ‘If I have a hard time letting go, what is the reason for me to hold on to it?’
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