Getting deep… on letting it go.

So I’ve been reading this book. I bought it off Amazon while combining it with the sequel to The Happiness Project so that I could get “free super saver shipping” (I’m sure you can relate to this situation.) It had good reviews and it was along the same vein of thought as all of the other “self help” type books that I so love, I decided to give it a chance. Let me admit, it sat in the box for quite some time. Probably a year, actually. But after I picked it up during my usual summer reading kick I’ve had a hard time putting it down.

To say that it has helped me begin to heal some major emotional scars would be an understatement. I firmly believe that if it weren’t for this book (along with advice from the good book, the b-i-b-l-e) I would still be walking around with open wounds that I kept poking at in hopes they would heal themselves.

Without getting into too much gruesome detail, whenever something traumatic occurs in my life I tend to dwell on it. You might say I obsess over it. My train of thought has always been “time heals all wounds.” Not necessarily. Especially if you’re spending your time letting those old thoughts and emotions rear their ugly head and get you obsessing over it all over again.

With the help of this magical book I have learned that in order to heal, in order to not let my world revolve around these emotional disturbances, I must LET IT GO. That doesn’t mean shove it back down deep inside and try to forget. It means that when something triggers a memory that brings back old emotions and events, acknowledge it, acknowledge how it’s making you feel, but let it go. Fall behind the bad “stuff” and watch it go away. It sounds so corny but it totally works. Not to say that it isn’t hard work because it is SO hard to keep “letting it go” when your mind wants to go somewhere else, but every time I do it gets easier.

A small example of me putting this new tool to use… anyone who really knows me knows I have a slight case of road rage. I was on my way to the grocery store the other day. I had gotten slightly annoyed that an SUV had pulled up in the lane next to me blocking my view so that I couldn’t see if I could cross the intersecting street or not. Then this SUV had the nerve to go straight in his lane even though it was a right turn only lane and I OBVIOUSLY was waiting on him so that I could go straight. I started to mutter obscenities under my breath when it hit me, “let it go.” This slight inconvenience that, luckily I was paying enough attention to so that there wasn’t an accident, sure it slowed me down a bit but it was so not worth getting worked up for.

I don’t want to go into too much detail about the book so that a. if you want to read it for yourself you can without having my thoughts in your head and b. this post doesn’t morph into an entire book itself. I just know how incredibly helpful it has been so far, and I’m only half way through it. So if you are also trying to heal old wounds or get over something major, give this book a shot. It’s worth it. And if you need someone to talk to I’m your gal.