4 Reasons Why It's So Hard to Let go

Last Saturday I hosted my free monthly meetup where people can come and let go of stuck stuff. If you want to get notified about that and join us for the next one, just sign up for my newsletter and I will let you know when the next one is. There is a sign up pop up on my website.

Anyway, the theme for this particular one was letting go of resentment, and I have a theme because what we’re doing is energy work. A theme helps us to be more specific about our intention. The more specific you are, the better and deeper the benefits.

Now energy work is really efficient. It can allow me to work with a lot of people at the same time and at a distance.

This works because once the energy starts to move, it doesn’t just move for the person that I’m working with. It will move in anyone in the room who also has that stuck energy. It will move in someone who listens to a broadcast of it that is played a month later. It works for someone who is in Tennessee and someone who is in Taiwan. 

This works because everything is energy. Anger is an energy. So is a chair, meatballs, and the sun. When the energy of resentment starts to move, it moves everywhere. And energy just wants to move. Nature is a self-balancing system. 

In Chinese medicine, dis-ease is simply a state where there is too much energy, too little, or it’s stagnating, which means it’s not moving. All acupuncture, qigong, and tai chi do it open up the energy channels in the body so that the energy can flow and that’s how the body balances itself. That’s the basis of any energy work type of practice. 

So what does a person who is hurting or anticipating hurting do? We do it automatically. We tense up, don’t we? We brace for impact. We shut down and block things out. We hold our feelings in because we don’t want to be embarrassed and we don’t want to feel bad.

And that’s the condition that most of my clients are in when they come to me. They are shut down and have lots of stuff locked in. This is the first reason why it’s so hard to let go. 

This is super important because if you know this, you’re already way ahead of the game. So, let me say it again in a different way. People have a hard time letting go because it hurts. They don’t want to feel the hurt.

So, let’s go back to the live meeting I hosted last Saturday. I worked with someone I had never met before. I could tell that she had done some work on herself before and this wasn’t her first rodeo. She’d done the things that experts tell her to do.

Lots of experts say that we affirm the things that we want and cancel the things that we don’t want, right? We visualize what we want, speak as if it’s already true, and avoid speaking negatives.

Well, that’s not what we did on Saturday, and I know that makes some people uncomfortable. We moved into the hurt. We spoke the hurt. We felt the pain, and I know that makes some people really uncomfortable. They are afraid that if they speak all those horrible things, it will overwhelm them and they will go into a hole so dark that they will never climb out again. They are afraid that they will feel so ashamed that they can never hold their head up high again. People will see how small and insignificant and damaged that they are and will laugh at them or never want to be associated with them ever again. 

But guess what? The truth does actually set you free. Moving into the pain, letting it be as it is, and being willing to free it is actually what gets it moving. 

Any movement is an improvement, but if we can open up enough to get some good momentum going, it will continue to keep moving until it’s just gone. And how amazing is that? 

It’s so cool and strong that if you are sensitive, you can feel it moving. And that’s how it works for other people in the group too, and me as the facilitator. I can feel it.

I can feel if I am connecting to the client’s pain. I can feel it moving in her. Sometimes I get people who are embarrassed to acknowledge what’s happening. They don’t want to validate that I am speaking their story, so they will say nothing is changing and keep a straight face. That’s okay. It’s not about me, but let me tell you, I can tell when we are on target. I can feel it.

Anyone else in the room can feel it. If it’s remote or a playback, people who are listening a month later can also feel it. 

Now, to protect the privacy of the people in the live, we don’t record it, so if you want to experience it for yourself, you will actually have to attend, but if there were a recording, it would still be as effective. 

It’s like sound healing. It’s vibrational, and the energy change is felt whether you are live or hearing it again in a recorded version. Having done live sounds baths and recorded ones, I can say that the live one is better, but recorded ones are also really good.

Now, while I am talking about this, let me tell you about the benefits of doing energy healing in a group. If you get a one- on-one session, it can be targeted to your specific needs, and of course, it’s private. This is like working with a laser beam. It’s super effective.

But it can be really great working with a group too because the energy is amplified. If I release the water from one garden hose, that can have a lot of power behind it. But if I combine the power of five or twenty-five, or a hundred, that’s a whole lot more, right?

That’s what working in a group is like. If I am releasing my resentment and you are releasing yours, and so are twelve other people, that’s got a lot of momentum behind it to break through any stubborn blocks that are in the space. It’s very powerful.

And if you have a nuance, I have a nuance, and third person has a nuance that wasn’t talked about or brought into the conscious space, everyone with that nuance could also be positively impacted because working in groups is more like working with a flood light vs. a laser beam. It’s broad vs. specific. 

So, the first reason it’s hard to let go is that we want to avoid pain. The second is that we may not know what we need to let go of.

This might sound ridiculous. Let me tell you a story to show you what I mean. This is a really specific story, but it happened to more than one person, believe it or not, so I guess it’s pretty common, but I worked with a person who had knee pain once.

They knew exactly when the pain started because a physical thing happened. I don’t remember what it was, but maybe they fell down or something struck them- something like that. It was damaged and never healed properly.

So, they are thinking, “This is physical. This is not emotional. I got this thing figured out. There is nothing you can do for me.”

And how do you think I responded to that? I said, “Indulge me. Let’s take a look.” So, we checked in with the body and asked the body, felt the feelings, found the truth, and guess what happened? Energy started to move. The pain started to resolve. And the pain has never returned. 

Everything is energy, guys. Stuck energy turns into pain. Unexpressed emotional pain turns to physical pain. Our bodies know the truth, and even if your mind doesn’t know what’s true or what’s inside, your body does. So we always have a pathway to healing through our bodies. 

Our bodies tell the stories of our lives. Aches and pains aren’t a normal sign of aging. If they were, all 80-year-olds would be in pain, and they are not. I recently took a group on a spiritual tour to the Asheville, North Carolina area and we went to Chimney Rock. That’s quite a hike, but up at the top were lots of old people without canes. They were just as spry as the next person, and I want to be one of them, so I do the work of letting go so my body doesn’t start screaming “stop” when I wake up in the morning.

Diabetes, heart disease, lower libido, and slowing down are not normal parts of aging. They are signs that something is out of balance. Since everything is energy, adjusting your lifestyle and owning your emotions can bring things back into balance.

If you are into self-improvement at all, and I know you are if you are listening to this podcast, you have heard lots of stories about people who have healed themselves by changing their diet, breathing, or doing some natural lifestyle change. We all have the power to do this. 

So, if you don’t know what you need to let go of, listen to your body. Learn the language of your body. Be present with it. It’s talking to you all the time. 

And if you’re not there yet and want to get started letting something go, I started a 365 days of letting go challenge. For the next year, I am posting a blog post every day with ideas of things that you can let go of. Just pick something easy that you think will result in an improvement and stay with it until you have a new habit. When you’re done, pick another one and do the same thing.

Do that for a year and you will be a different person a year from now. You will have developed the habit of self-reflection, persistence, and mindfulness that will enhance the rest of your life.

And if you think a year is too big of a commitment, well, how long did it take you to get where you are? How long did it take to finish high school? How long does it take to train for a job? This is your life we’re talking about. Doesn’t it deserve the same attention that you’ve given to far less important things? 

So, the blog is at https://lauragiles.org. If you are in the let it go now community, they are on the social media wall. 

As I say, you will develop self-reflection and that’s a huge benefit to figuring out what you need to let go of. Lots of people come to me saying horrible things happened in their past and that was a long time ago. They have forgiven and moved on and it doesn’t bother them anymore. 

They may not even tell me about it because they don’t think it's a big deal. Or they don’t think to bring it up because the mind says they have accepted the idea of forgiveness, but they don’t think to ask the body. So, they don’t know that it’s really a problem.

I have ten thousand examples of this as well. It’s super common. Let me tell you about someone who had this problem with people touching her forearms. It just seemed like a quirk to her. She didn’t like it, but didn’t think it was any big deal. 

When we took a look at it, it ended up being a symptom of something much deeper. This is what I mean when I say, “Listen to the body.” We don’t have quirks or pains for no reason. There is always a story that we’re still holding on to that is keeping that energy in place. When we let it go, the symptom typically goes away because it doesn’t have a purpose anymore. 

In this case, touching her forearms was a reminder of the pain she felt when a teacher grabbed there in third grade. He yanked her hard, hurt her, and she felt humiliated by the whole class. That’s when she began shrinking from view and hiding her light. She was afraid of being seen and didn’t want to be the target of ridicule, so she started disappearing. 

After we worked on that energy and helped it to open up and flow, she started becoming more assertive at work, learning to say no, and having an opinion. She started participating in life rather than living it on the sidelines.

So, you see, something that seems really insignificant or that you can’t really tie anything to could actually be the key to opening up a whole new world for you. It could be the key that you are overlooking and dismissing. There are always clues to what’s going on inside. It’s not really hidden. We just don’t know what we’re looking for.

But let’s say that you do know what it is. You know exactly what it is, but you are that person who is feeling the release and is reporting that nothing is happening. That’s the third reason why it’s hard to let go. 

You have to be vulnerable. Even if you are working alone and helping yourself, you have to be willing to be weak, defenseless, and open to ridicule because you’re being authentic to the moment. If you feel like crying, you cry. If you choke on your words, you do that. If you have to break down for a moment, you do that. 

The space between healing and pain is uncertainty. You don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t know if you will actually break, if someone will laugh at you, or if you are the only one in the world who has this problem. You could be abandoned. You could be judged. Maybe you lose your mind. Or you could come out stronger, wiser, and lighter. You just don’t know.

But the only way to heal is to step into that space of uncertainty.

Think about the wheel of life. Everything moves in a circle from birth to maturity to decline, death, and rebirth. It’s fall right now, the time of decline and death. Death is not a season. Fall is the season of decline. Winter is the season of gestation. Things are happening beneath the surface that we can’t see. It’s like a moth inside a cocoon. We can’t see what’s happening there. It looks pretty dormant on the outside, but lots is happening on the inside.

But death itself is a moment. It’s a doorway. The same is true of healing. The moment of release is full of uncertainty. We don’t know how it’s going to go, but we let go and surrender, anyway. We have no control and that is actually necessary for the healing to happen. 

That’s vulnerability. 

So, in last week’s healing session, I worked with someone who clearly did not want to go there. She didn’t want to be exposed, and who does. But here’s the beautiful thing that happens in spaces like the monthly healing sessions, and this is the fourth reason why it’s hard to let go.

We need safety for that transformation to happen. People don’t want to feel vulnerable because it doesn’t feel safe. The very thing that we need to let go of is the thing that makes it so dangerous to let go. So, if I have a program that says, “I’m not safe” or “I can’t trust people” or “I can’t do this” am I going to let go? Probably not.

But if I surrender, trust, let myself be vulnerable because I kinda sorta have a safe place, I’m testing the belief that it is a safe space. And when it is, it helps us to move even more deeply into the emotions, open up, and let go. And if we do that often enough and it doesn’t kill us, we learn to trust it. And in time, we may even be able to provide that for others.

I’m saying this like I’m an expert now and like it’s easy, but it’s not. It’s not that long ago that I would have slit my throat before being vulnerable in front of other people or admit to feeling something negative or having a less than fabulous experience.

It all changed for me when I started leading moon circles. Vulnerability is a hallmark of the moon circle. The full moon was yesterday, and Moon is the emotional side of our nature. It invites us to go within, see what is hidden, be with all that controversial, scary, emotional truth. Be inspired by it. Get real with it and use it to be more authentic and natural.

So, I signed up as a Moon Circle leader. I wanted that feminine energy in my life, and I was now the one who was leading other women to tap into it. And part of that job was to demonstrate what it was like to be vulnerable. 

Now, I’m an INTJ. For those of you who don’t know Myers-Briggs, that’s like asking Dr. Spock, Severus Snape, or Gandalf to be your midwife. You want someone soft and nurturing to ease you into a place of warmth and comfort, someone to bake you cookies, and to listen to soft music and hold your hand when you’re going into the moon energy. It could be a bumpy ride. 

Instead, you’re getting someone who is more at home, taking a sword to emotions and cutting down the thing that is hurting you. 

Nevertheless, that’s what I signed up for, so one of the first things we do is check in and share how we are feeling, how we know, and anything that is on our hearts in that moment. So, I don’t remember what I said, but it was true. It was emotional. It was raw and real. It felt good, brave, and strong. It opened the door for others to do the same, and they did. And it was a meaningful, connected, emotional event. I felt that we understood and saw each other. It was that warm, sacred, safe space that I hoped to create.

And when it was over, I wanted to take it all back. I felt exposed. I shared things that I frankly made me look human, frail, real. I looked like someone who had problems and could be confused and make mistakes. That was a picture of myself that I didn’t want out there. I started second guessing the whole thing.

And when I was done with all that mental tug of war within myself, I took a deep breath, and thought, “Well, that didn’t kill me.” And I kept on trekking. 

It didn’t take long to realize that I didn’t burst into flames for having feelings and exposing myself. And if someone violated the sacred space of the circle and told someone about what I said, so what? Everyone is human. We all do things that aren’t fabulous. We all have a bad day. And everyone is not perfect.

And when we can be imperfect in a space with others who are not perfect, that’s safety. At least it is for me. So, it really helps to either have people that you feel safe with or to create that safety within yourself. 

Being vulnerable is scary. You’re putting yourself in a position to be criticized, judged, or unloved, but if you know who you are, it won’t matter if the worst happens. And you really will be stronger on the other side of it.

See, we’re all light and dark. We’re strong and weak. Wholeness isn’t just the good, desirable things. It’s everything. So being honest about the things you’d rather be quiet about is being whole. It’s being real.

So here’s the revelation that happened to me in moon circles and that happened last Saturday. When you are able to be that vulnerable in the presence of others, it helps you to feel held. It helps to create that sense of safety and belonging that we all want. It makes life a lot less scary. So teaches us that it’s okay to be seen in all our facets of life and that we don’t have to be flawless, put together, optimistic, and in a great mood all the time. We can still have love and be lovely. 

It’s a compassion creator. It’s a bonding moment, so I really love group work for that reason. It doesn’t even have to be with something deep and personal. This connection can happen with shared happy times, too.

So just because letting go is hard doesn’t mean you can’t do it. It just makes it challenging. Anyone can take a no excuses, hold your nose and do it approach and get it done. I mean, having you been holding on to something long enough? 

Don’t you want to let go of that feeling that you’re never going to find love, break that financial ceiling, or heal from that hurt? All that’s just energy. It’s being held in place by a belief. And whatever belief that is, you can let it go.

If you want help, there are a few ways I can help. 

If you need to rebuild from the ground up, or you have been on a self-help hamster wheel that hasn’t really resulted in a lot of change, I have an online community that can help you get the foundational things you need to prepare you to change so that the change sticks and also give you the support you need to keep going. You can find that at letitgonow.org.

If you have a stuck place that you just can’t get past, contact me for a break through session. These are 25 minutes of focused attention on your specific issues. You don’t have to know what is blocking you, and you don’t even have to tell me what it is. So that vulnerability piece is a lot easier because we aren’t going to be working with words. Words lie. We’re going straight to the source and ask your body. You can find that at lauragiles.org.

I haven’t found a way to cheat the growth process. My experience is that life is an “If you pack it, you carry it” type of situation. Pills won’t take the pain away. Faith healing has worked for some people, but it’s not a reliable method that works for all people all the time. You can’t go to sleep and wake up brand new. We all have to do the work of creating the life that we want to live and cleaning up our own messes. So, yes, letting go might hurt, but it’s like pulling off a Band-Aid. It’s quick and then it’s gone. Everyone can do it, and that includes you.

Thanks for sharing a bit of your week with me. See you at the same time next week.