Letting Go
ThailandTom
Veteran
I have known some of you for multiple years and others I don't know at all, but I have been a 'Buddhist' since around 2010 when I started to get interested into the philosophy behind it all, coming from an atheist background.
I was swamped with all this information and felt as if I was drowning but slowly found my way (in a more non practical sense), but I was learning the fundamentals.
I have come to know much of the Buddha Dharma in a textbook sense but little has been put into practice. I have seen this in recent meditation sessions and post reflections where I realize where I am tripping up. It is something I have done in school, in college and in life, I know what to do and how to do it, and even though it will benefit me and others I don't do it.. 'Letting go' is a major point. I will give an example.
Way back when I was 16 this girl at school and I were an item for a while and then we parted ways, fine, it was a pretty short relationship and we were kids, but years later I have become friends on Facebook and she is married with children and all that jazz. I want to be happy for her deep down, but I can't let go of that time, the time when I was that age, the experiences we had, not just the two of us but the time period in general. Back then life was so much more simple, so much more innocent - you know walking around with rose tinted glasses. I cannot seem to let go of this as 1 example, and there are many many more. How does one let go mentally? I have known this to be vital in life for years, but I have been fooling myself in thinking I can do it and have been doing it, where in actual fact I have been attaching!
Comments
I think letting go of those things happens naturally when you learn to be present and to be grateful for what you have now. Most of the time when I am living in the past, I realize it is because of something I an unhappy with right now. I know a guy (a guy I briefly dated in high school as well) who completely lives in that past. I feel very sad for him. He and I dated for 6 months our last year of high school. Now we are almost 40, have spouses and kids. But I can barely stand to talk to him because all he talks about it that 6 months that we dated as if it is the most important thing that's ever happened to him. I'd like to hear about his life now, his kids, his job. But all he wants to talk about is the good ol days. Makes me sad he feels nothing in his life the past 20 years is worth talking about as much as a very brief and unremarkable dating relationship. He isn't happy in his life, and it's quite obvious. So he lives in the past.
I look on my past fondly, for the most part. I had a great childhood, I enjoyed school. I have a lot of fun and happy memories. But every time I find myself thinking about the past to the point I wish I could go back it's due to dissatisfaction with something in my life today. That is what has to be fixed. The more attentive I am to my life today, the more the past just remains happy memories and I'm not living in it.
So long story short, being fully present is what letting go of the rest of it is.
Usually, a golden memory like that one, becomes a golden memory slowly over time, while you move forward in your life. When any of us place too much importance on it, is when it becomes one sort of suffering. I think you have to simultaneously honor the memory while picking up where you left off, and start to focus more on what's right in front of you (the here and now). Yeah, sometimes easier said than done, but I think that's pretty much what it's all about, @ThailandTom ... all the while, being kind to yourself.
wow I am not that far in the past lol, that is pretty harsh for him.. That is living a really delusional life, well so am I.
With this one person though I have maybe talked to her 3 times, and 5% of that has been past, all the rest has been the now and things of that nature. I am just really REALLY stuck back in that period of time I think, it spans before I met her and after we departed, maybe a 2-3 year span. I just can't get rid of it. If I detract myself from any electrical device and I almost instantly will fall into past thoughts and I cannot let go even though I know I need to, I just cannot figure it out![:\](https://newbuddhist.com/plugins/emojiextender/emoji/little/confused.png ":\")
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I have to echo @karasti here... and recently, I too have been reliving aspects of my past - but I've been altering the scenarios, making them turn to my advantage (they've all pretty much been times when I was crapped on from a great height, by others....)
I think, on analysis, because I am having enormous difficulty 'accepting' some of the things happening now, I'm delving back, and' changing' things to suit me, from the memory stores...
But of course, that's impossible. Nice thought, but no go.
And @karasti is right: being fully present is what matters.
I think it's time to wear the elastic band round the wrist again!
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??.. confuse ray strikes again
I can see what you mean by reliving past experiences and changing them to fit how the outcomes would be, I dunno I guess I am kind of trying to melt into my own mind a time where things were that way again and stay there, not here. Today I meditated and tried to stay in the here and now, and of course every meditation session is not the same, but I could see how easily I was taken away from the present, it was as if it were my first ever time meditating.
The elastic band trick: Find a fairly broad elastic band that comfortably fits round your wrist. It should touch all the way round (not hang off like a bracelet) but not be so tight that it's a nuisance. If necessary, find one that's too big, and tie a knot in it to make it the right size...
When you catch yourself dwelling in the kinds of thoughts we're discussing here, remember to snap it, hard against the inside of your wrist.
The sharp pain is enough to divert attention.
Over time, psychologically, your brain will learn to NOT take you to those places, because the resulting consequence is pain.
Worked for me when I went around murdering people all the time. I gradually reduced my killing spree and now I'm down to about two a week.
That was a joke.
That sounds like a good idea I guess, but you would have to be aware that you have fallen into that trap in the first place.. Still it is a good method I guess, you guess I can pull a decent elastic? I will give it a go
I have the opposite problem. I try to avoid the past and its unpleasantness. To hide from nasty memories I play games, listen to music, etc. Aversion is just as bad (excuse me, unskillful) as clinging, though I have gradually gotten better about not recoiling from the past. Two sides of the same coin?
Actually yes, it's possible...I would say they are.....
I would also suggest that ignoring them or putting them to the 'back of the mind' ie the subconscious' because that is where they go, is just as bad
Ah ha, so you're the infamous Elastic Band Killer, eh?
More likely, the Shropshire Slasher.
If you really, really, really 'try' to let go you are 'bound' to come to realise that you have become attached to letting go - it's a fact that most buddhists come to realise - all the other minor and major distractions are distracting you, but if you can remember this simple fact... what fact, I let it go!...
Message: Don't try to let go, just do it - Nike paid me £10000000000000000 for that advert btw, so I'm gonna go and have a real life now!
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Argh you've found me out! Twang the knife, they called me...
It's all a bleedin' fit-up, I ain't dun nuffink, I'll swing for you copper, don't throw me darn the apples and pears and claim it was a haccident...
I can't type for laughing.....
I think people have a tendency to romanticize the past... especially with relationships. It might help you to try and remember the bad as well as the good from that time. After all, they do say, "Exes are exes for a reason."
I sometimes romanticize my early twenties. I went through this period of really fun recklessness (after I had been "cut loose" by an ex) and I met a lot of great people, had a lot of really fun adventures. I often think of that time in my life as the most free I have ever been... but in reality, it was actually because I didn't give a shit. I was heartbroken and on a path to destruction with alcohol and other things, and I was honestly lucky that I didn't succeed. I have a lot of crazy stories that ended just right so that I lived to tell the tale... but the truth is, they could have just as easily ended really really badly. I'm older now and can see this period for what it was and have no desire to go back to it. But still... it is easy to remember my first Electronic Music Festival and how open I was to experiences back then... and just completely ignore the fact that I was actually really desperate and lonely.
In a way, growing older kind of sucks, I guess (responsibility, etc)... but in many other ways, it is definitely a gift. I'd much rather be right where I am now than be free back then. Being a teenager... being in my early 20's... I was, quite honestly, an idiot and I made life pretty hard for myself just because of lessons I had yet to learn. Some of those lessons were hard to learn, but I feel better for it and don't regret it.
And great having you back with us zombiegirl!
@ThailandTom Your past is what makes you who you are today, to some degree, but you don't have to figure out how to let it go because it is already gone. Reflect back on it and thank it for its pleasant memories, let it be what it is and be present in now. Not much else you can do, right?
I think the experience you have is more important and we should be feeling good about good experiences in life.
Letting go things....in the sense specially anger,lust,the ambitions which are futile need to let go....
We need not to do any thing to let go things...just observe the mind and see how it reacts...
And the experiences like your example .....You were kids and with time certain things are changed ...now she is married and have kids...the priorities are changed....now one can just memorize the memories and can smile and feel blessed to have such a good and pure experience in life which makes us feel meaningful in this life.
Have not tried the elastic band trick although I am aware of it. Feel life's painful enough as it is! But I have been trying to let go of the fact that I have no contact with my daughter for some 3 1/2 years now. I bought a house that had a room for her but, when it became clear things weren't going to change, that her Dad wasn't going to forgive me for getting the former matrimonial home sold so that I could buy myself a home even though he thought it was a safe haven from his now wife, have turned it into an office. Have taken the clothes I bought for her go grow into to a charity shop. I know I don't have the financial or emotional resources to fight in the courts any longer. Had to stop hitting my head against that particular brick wall. But the fact is, it's still there like weed wrapped around my motor, dragging me back every moment of every day.
The situation with my son is kinda different. Even though he did not live with me, he had a mobile when all this happened so could ring when he wanted and he was already at boarding school so I sort of felt he'd left home anyway. But, however hard I try to pretend I don't mind about the missed time with both of them, my whole perception of life changes when I have a chat with him, either on the phone or when he stays here. Last time was Sunday night. 30 mins of very bad mobile reception. But life seemed worth living again, everything was easier that night and the next day.
Many people tell me it is possible to live peacefully with unsolved problems. But I feel as though a part of me is missing. Perhaps I should be pinging an elastic band against my wrist when I admit that ... Perhaps it's just that I don't want to let go. I still have parental responsibility for her, even though I am not allowed to fulfil it.
I guess I will let go when she becomes an adult, as I have with my son? But I can't find a way to do it yet - even though I know it pulls me down and stops me from making the most of my life.
@SarahT.... too much for me to share, but briefly, I can equate.
I DO understand.
Letting go is an advanced stage for most of us. Eventually it gets easier as we have no choice but to let go of some things. Our age and looks among other things.
I used to yearn for my 20s, but the past is the past. It's not for me to cling. I'm happy to be alive at age 56...I'm grateful to still be alive and well.
You an' me both.....