The art of true receiving, is the art of letting go.
I have been a procrastinator for years. It is a give and take process, the main indicator of whether you are someone who is not letting go naturally is if you are a procrastinator. Well at least I used to be, until I learned the energy that causes procrastination.
I was infamously the just in time, deadline girl. Constantly putting things off just to save the day for myself like some not all the way thought through super hero. I would just barely pass tests with only a few hours of studying (cramming late night the night before of course). I would show up five minutes late to work just to push my limits. You get the point, I would come through time and again.
Until one day of course this tug and pull, stop and go energy; did just that.
It all stopped. And I didn’t come through.
Actually it turns out this caused me a lot of missed deadlines and under performed task that just really didn’t represent my life essence. When you are a creative person the thought of a task can sometimes feel like a weight holding you down, so you set it to the “side” and say to yourself, “ I’ll get to you later task but for now I am going to do what feels good.” The problem is that with procrastination the formula is feel good now (kind of because you are always thinking about the task) and then feel worse later because you didn’t accomplish anything. Not so good, everyone gets it.
I tried a lot of things but nothing seemed to work. I tried planners, to do lists, goal setting and accountability. All are great methods, but they only last so long with a creative mind. Nothing really worked long term.
That’s because I wasn’t getting to the root problem.
I hadn’t figured out the skill that would set me free.
Until I learned about letting go.
I first learned to let go when I quit smoking. From what I know about smoking the Native Americans teach us that tobacco is an herb that is there for us to help ease emotional pain and a channel to see the grande woven web of reality to help identify and heal the pain. I had to dive deep within and really ask myself why I enjoyed smoking. I had to let go of the “need” to smoke to be a vessel of pleasure instead of healing the pain and truly being able to experience joy through clear emotional awareness and my lifelong wellness as a result.
From this I learned to let go of other false “needs” or attachments: material possessions, alcohol, junk food, meat, make-up ( yes I am a girl). I am not saying that these things are “things” everyone needs to let go of. But for me, the deeper I seemed to dive within myself, the more I could see why I was leaning on those things in my life and how lighter my life was without them. How truly freeing it is to just let go. I learned that when we attach ourselves to people, things or outcomes we actually negate the best (even more awesome then we possibly could have ever imagined) design the universe has in mind for us.
Here’s the process I used to let go of the distractions and attachments:
- I realized my creative imagination could be my help or my harm. Just as much as our imagination can make every moment exciting and interesting, our imagination can exaggerate a task to be way more grisly than if we just sit down and do it.
- I funneled the energy of joy I thought I would have by avoiding the “task” into the “task” itself. Take the joy you would be having procrastinating and implant it into your task. Literally project yourself into your project, see what I did there?
- I set my intentions to do the best work I knew I could do. I let my imagination go wild and really pictured the end result and how that would make me feel. (I.E. accomplished and awesome)
- I became more aware of my urges to run from the current moment. By running from the current moment and current task you are literally swimming against the stream of natural motion within all of the universe. No wonder we feel bad after.
- Finally and most importantly I realized, I could be in discomfort and nothing bad would happen. In fact, the best things happen when I’m in discomfort. I learn to transform a situation that I thought would be uncomfortable into being an awesome lesson. Making me a multidimensional, more interesting person with a bonus of completely accomplished awesome projects! This then opening time and energy to move to more challenging and amplified version of your talents and gifts.
I’ll use a quote now to end this that I think rings true to this day:
‘You can only lose what you cling to.’ ~Buddha
When you learn to breathe, be in the moment and let go.
You receive your ultimate joy in return.
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