What REALLY causes our upset

This article explores the real cause of our frustration, fears and upset and explores the real meaning of 'letting it go'.

On a call yesterday with one of the fabulous women in my community, she asked about the balance between acknowledging your feelings when you’ve been triggered or hurt and also letting it go so you can move on.

“How do you do that? Because it seems to me, they’re contradicting each other”.

It's a good point.

And sidenote, I think it’s incredibly unhelpful, when someone is struggling emotionally, for a person to say, “just let it go”. It’s like being told to stop worrying…"thanks Dr Stopdishingoutsh*tadvice!"

Here’s what I explore with my clients on the subject of ‘letting go’.

We don’t react to an event or a situation, we react to the story we’re telling ourselves about what we’re making that event or situation mean about us.

For example, your boss sends an email out of the blue and asks to see you…you immediately start thinking about what you’ve done. Did you say something out of order? Did you do something wrong? Why could she possibly want an unscheduled meeting with you?! And you start to worry.

The fact is, you received an email from your boss requesting a meeting. Nothing else has happened. What’s going on in your head, is the story.

It’s the same with any situation we go through. An event happens. We put meaning to it - and it's usually about us and how our life will be affected.

The event, situation or circumstance is always neutral. The meaning we put on it, is where the sting usually lies.

Recently I lost someone very dear to me. She was diagnosed with a terminal illness and it was 7 weeks between the diagnosis and her death. I had a death in the family, that was the facts. My story was, I couldn’t live a joyful life without her, I would be forever lost and life is so unfair!

So, I sat with my grief and despair, I let it wash over me, I cried buckets and I felt the pain of it all…and then I felt an incredible peace that has stayed with me whenever I think of her.

Because I recognised my story and I let go of it. That’s what we mean by ‘letting it go’.

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, Harvard brain scientist explains:

“When a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there’s a 90 second chemical process that happens in the body; after that, any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop”

90 seconds...that's how long it takes for our emotions to pass.

Our stories keep us stuck in the suffering cycle.

You’ve got to feel it, to heal it. This isn't about emotional bypassing. Acknowledging emotions is important, feeling into them and releasing them. But tap into whether you're telling yourself a story which is predicting an imaginery future and if so, let go of it. That shizzle is robbing you of your divine joy.