Do you hold onto things? Do you dwell on them and let them run around in your head? I use to do this a lot. I did it because I was trying to get things right and I was so afraid of messing up that when I made a mistake I went over it and over it to see where I had gone wrong and how I could have done it differently. What I hadn’t learned at that time was the art of letting go.

“One of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself, and everyone within screaming distance of you, is the gift of letting go.” – Jen Sincero

When we hold onto these things we are holding ourselves back. We are putting more stress on ourselves and it affects us emotionally, physically, and spiritually when it continues over time. If you hold everything in and bottle everything up don’t you run the risk at some time of exploding into a million pieces. Yes, you can do it for a while and even for a few decades but at some point, things will erupt. And unfortunately, the eruption is not always convenient or pretty.

I had an eruption of that sort back several years ago. After it, I had to start letting go of things and let my heart heal. I called it letting my heart heal because at that time I couldn’t fathom that my heart wasn’t going to break in two. What I learned coming out of that time was my heart is strong and there is a lot of courage housed there. I learned from that space that I would never again stuff everything down because it wasn’t healthy for me. I also learned at that time that it was okay to have feelings and let my feelings show. I joke with friends now that my tears come easy now because they know they are allowed to follow freely as the fear that held them in no longer lives inside me.

Letting go in my mind is letting the past stay in the past. I want to live in the present and dream of the future and without that letting go of the past casts shadows on both. There is a fabulous quote from Sam Elliot that sums this up beautifully. “Even though there are days I wish I could change some things that happened in the past, there’s a reason the rearview mirror is so small and the windshield is so big, where you’re headed is much more important than what you’ve left behind.”

So with that in mind as you move forward throughout your day I hope you grant yourself the gift of letting go and you’re looking straight out the windshield to see all the possibilities that are waiting for you.