How’s Your View? Does Your Lens Need Cleaning?
Are you looking for a breakthrough in your life or work? If so, quite often, the magic moment isn’t going to happen based on getting something NEW. Instead, the breakthrough happens based on getting to a place where we are willing to let go of something OLD. That could be a belief about ourselves or others, negative emotions like guilt, blame, resentment, or anger, or any other practice or influence within our daily life that is preventing us from moving forward.
Being stubborn about holding on to something that isn’t serving us may not be something we readily recognize in ourselves. All too often, we feel justified in our beliefs and feelings without even realizing their cost. However, if you think about our perspectives as the window through which we see everything in our world, it can get easier to see how hanging on distorts our view.
Imagine that window to the world. Now imagine that every feeling of anger, guilt, hurt, or resentment is like being in a car driving through mud puddles. At first – you can barely see, but eventually, the water evaporates, leaving you with the debris left behind. Some of it will blow away but what remains creates blind spots all over the windshield. You no longer have a clear, unrestricted view of everything available to you.
We struggle to let go most often when it means we’re going to need to forgive or accept something about ourselves or others. So if you are facing this, here are some points for you to remember that can help make letting go a more straightforward exercise:
We often believe that we are punishing someone else with our hurt. But the reality is that whatever we are holding onto – it’s hurting us far more than the other person. How? By allowing the cost to compound. Stop investing where the interest is negative!
It’s important to understand that acceptance or forgiveness does NOT mean condoning the act. It just means we release ourselves from the burden of carrying it with us. Reclaiming lost energy going to negative emotions is one of the best gifts we can give ourselves.
You don’t need to know how you’re going to let go. It is simple. You must be willing to let go and make that decision. That’s it. You’re not going to change the past. Even as we learn from it – it doesn’t change it. So let it go. That’s all you need to do.
Whatever seems the most difficult for you to forget is most likely what is hurting you the most. Does this sound familiar? I can forgive a lot of things, but I cannot forgive: ____! Why not? When we make it the most critical part of our view, we allow everything in our world to be distorted by something that will continue to hurt us and, ultimately, those we serve.
An excellent exercise is to ask what we need to release in terms of belief and emotion about ourselves (self-forgiveness is first!) and then others. Then when we have our list, we can ask how we are benefiting ourselves by holding on to that belief or emotion.
The #1 answer to the question with my clients has been that by hanging on, we are somehow controlling it from happening again. We need to face the fact that isn’t true; because it’s not. We need to shift our perspective and ask how to learn from the experience and grow from it instead of letting it limit our future.
Ready, set, clear your view! And clear your way to a brighter future and richer life.
