Letting Go

by Raymund Tamayo

Focusing on the essentials means letting go.

Letting go of anything that isn’t beautiful, useful, or joyful. 

Letting go of activities that don’t contribute to the general good and well-being. 

Letting go of emotions that are detrimental to health and the spirit.

But it’s always difficult to let go. Why? 

Because, generally, people are born and raised with concepts of “I” and “mine.” 

People were conditioned since very young to relate everything to self.

As soon as a baby learns to recognize people and things, he or she is taught that it’s “my mom,” “my dad,” “my toy.” 

Don’t get me wrong, learning about possessions is necessary for a person to function properly in society. 

But this process simultaneously creates a concept of selfhood, of building up the ego.

With knowing what’s yours, you learn to compete, to achieve, to accumulate. 

In other words, we are raised to possess and to cling. 

That’s what makes it difficult to let go: we were conditioned to accumulate and cling.

I love this short essay from raam.org that tells something about mindfulness and letting go.

"If you don’t let go, you cannot receive. To receive, you must first give what you have. You must release everything you’re holding onto and allow that space to be replaced with the present. All that you need is right here. Everything that feels missing is just waiting for a place to go, a space to occupy, a home to hold it. Empty yourself. Let go." – Raam Dev

Letting go is really not about losing. 

It is discovering how it is to be free.