A Word Aptly Spoken

Letting go is difficult.  

We’ve all had times when we experience this, and thus the statement I made doesn’t surprise anyone.  There are times we are forced to let go.  

Remember when you were a kid and your family moved?  I remember my best friend and I trying to break things in the house so people wouldn’t buy it.  We moved anyway.  My boyfriend, the fifteen-year-old love of my life, moved away on my birthday. I thought the world was coming to an end.  Friends called his parents begging them to stay just one more day so he could come to my birthday party.  They didn’t stay.  

When a loved one dies, we don’t make the choice.  It is thrust upon us.  We kick and scream and cry, but nothing we do can bring back the person or pet.  When a marriage or a relationship with a partner or a friend ends, we don’t always get a choice of whether we want to let go.  Sometimes the decision was made on the other side.  If you don’t let go, you will be miserable and maybe have a future as the crazy stalker.

Some letting go is inevitable over time. Throughout life we are made to let go of things just because we grow up, we change, we move on.  The familiarity of school.  The sport, hobby, or toy we outgrow.  The favorite outfit that lived out its life (maybe long ago) and has to finally leave the closet.  The job we thought was going to fulfill us or the one that did.  Devoting our daily living to raising children who go off to homes of their own.  

Change is maybe the only constant in life. It is inevitable; therefore, letting go is likewise.  Sometimes we welcome letting go and moving on.  Sometimes it causes pain and grief.  Human nature is to hang on to things, people, choices made, and even pain, because what we know is so much less frightening than the unknown.  Thomas Jefferson wrote of this truth in the Declaration of Independence when he said, “mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”  

I’ve lived through letting go of grandparents, my mother, close friends.  I’ve lived through breakups from high school to marriage and since then.  I’ve had to let go of my career, friends who have moved away or moved on, and all of the other normal things that growing up and getting older bring. None of that is unique to me.  Most people have a similar list.  

The hardest things to let go of are not physical things or other people.  The  most difficult things live only inside of ourselves.  There are thoughts and beliefs, patterns of behavior, habits, and ways of expressing ourselves that are absolutely detrimental to our well-being, to our living well, and to our joy.  And yet we tenaciously latch on to them as if life would end if we let them go.  Doing this derives from of a lack of confidence and self-esteem, a belief in not being enough, a fear of rejection, and a fear of what will replace those habits, thoughts, and words. It is the uncertainly that letting go brings.  We fear that we will find a verdict that tells us, “You have been weighed. You have been measured. And you have been found wanting.

In light of my thinking, listening and reading, I am choosing to clear the clutter in my mind.  I’m striving to take Elsa’s advice and “Let it go, let it go, Turn away and slam the door, I don’t care what they’re going to say.”  Do you need to do so as well?  It has taken a whole lifetime for me to start figuring out some of the things that I need to let go of within my own thoughts and heart.  Perhaps you are just now thinking about such things.  I wish I had had the courage and the guidance to start much earlier in life.  Hopefully you can make the changes sooner than I did.

It seems there are areas many of us need to think about and work on adjusting.  I’m tackling a few of these.  And that’s a big chunk of letting go.

Rewording self-talk: Other than the inevitable and normal parts of life that are let go, much of what needs to be jettisoned involves words – those we think and those we vocalize. As a literature teacher, I taught that words have impact.  A word is a powerful thing.  It is why people who would try to control others will limit words through banning books and stifling free speech. It is an effort to control thought. Slave owners did it.  Hitler did it.  Communist leaders and dictators did and still do. The power of words is not only in books, speeches, and conversations, but also in our inner dialogue. 

There are all sorts of adages about never saying things to yourself that you wouldn’t let someone say about your best friend, about being positive, and all of that.  The reason these ideas have become familiar adages handed down as wisdom or shared as memes on Facebook is because there is truth in them.  On the Disney program Turning the Tables with Robin Roberts, a woman said something about “my fear.” Another person in the group spoke of the power of the words we choose and encouraged her to not use “my” but just fear.  Don’t own it. You don’t want it.  

Use words to empower and encourage yourself.  Make your mantra be “I will speak positively and acceptingly of who I am.  I will not accept the learned behavior of telling myself that I’m not good enough.”  For many years I sat in classes or meetings without answering a question or contributing because I told myself that I had nothing right or worthwhile to say and that I wasn’t smart enough.  After having people in my past who pounded those beliefs into me, I realized not only that they were wrong. I saw that I had taken their words into my sense of self.  I diminished myself with no evidence that they were right. In fact, there was more evidence that they were wrong. I became  radical in not allowing others to tell me I didn’t measure up.  But I never got radical with myself.  It’s time to do so now.

The judgmental words silently repeated in my mind or aloud in self-deprecating humor became my truth.  I still hear my mother’s “what will others think” in the self-judgement I assess on myself.  If you too hear that voice in your head, we both need to let go of putting ourselves down as a habit, be who and what we are created to be, and accept ourselves as “fully and wonderfully made” humans the Bible says we are.

Start being honestly who you are, who you were created to be:  Trying to be what others expect or assume or want you to be is being untrue to yourself.  Don’t strive to be liked.  Be yourself and say what you feel and think.  Recently I heard Rita Wilson express it beautifully by adding to an old adage. Her version is “Say what you mean, mean what you say, and don’t say it in a mean way.”  When people talk about being brutally honest, I am always confused about why it must be brutal.  Speak the truth of who you are politely and lovingly but also unequivocally.  It is far better to have friends and be liked for the genuine you than for a character you’re trying to play.  If you have to pretend in order to have someone’s acceptance, that person isn’t a friend or worth your time.

Recognize others for who they are:  Sometimes we allow people who are in our lives, be they family or friends, to dictate who we are and to put us in a place where we are not respected.  Everyone should absolutely start listening to Maya Angelou’s wise advice regarding others.  “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”  Do not keep those in your life who lie to you, betray your trust, or hurt you.  Accept a sincere apology once. If the behavior doesn’t change, then it is a choice they made no a reflection of your worth.

There are people who show up if they don’t have a better offer.  They make plans if it is convenient to them and their agenda.  The desire to get along often has us accepting that behavior.  We make excuses for them — even the lamest of excuses, “That’s just *** and you know how he (or she) is.” 

You too?   Well, no more.  Acknowledge but don’t accept.  When someone demonstrates that you aren’t a priority in their life, when they are taking advantage of you…if they’ve made it clear that they don’t really know who you are and don’t care to…well, they should not expect to be invited or included.  Stop welcoming that behavior.

Stand firm when confronted;  Stand ground when involved in a conflict or when someone disrespects your beliefs.  Hold onto the thoughts and words needed to express yourself without letting them and you flee in fear.  Don’t go silent just because someone else got worked up and loud.

We’ve all had those interactions that we recall or recount later and think, “I should have said…” My “should haves” usually involve a pithy comeback or a smart-ass retort.  Sometimes the anger that boils up later makes us think of things what would have put someone in their place, but that is wallowing in the same mud.  

What we need to be able to do is let someone know quietly and unemotionally that they have insulted or hurt us in some way and that it isn’t acceptable.  We need to be able to set boundaries and be free to speak truthfully. Maya Angelou, the source of so much wisdom over the years, had a policy in her home.  When someone was disrespectful, when they spoke in prejudice or hatred toward anyone, she asked them to leave and take anything they brought along with them.  She maintained that it poisoned the atmosphere.

Standing firm doesn’t mean shutting someone down or being irate.  (see above about brutal comments).  It just means not being cowered into silence or going along to get along.  It means being confident enough to walk away or ask the other person to leave.

Like yourself enough to be your own company.  Don’t be nervous to step out alone and do things that you enjoy whether others come along or not.  There is a stigma of being alone and therefore lonely that we place on ourselves about going places alone. That goes back to worry about what others think. Yet that isn’t what I hear from people when they talk of having dined, gone to the theatre, or traveled alone.  It is a rich experience and opens pathways to joy and discovery.  Learn to enjoy your own company. Pursue your own interests. 

I learned years ago that going to a restaurant alone is not fatal.  Bring a book.  Text (Do not call – talking loudly, or worse, on speaker – is rude always).  Play a game on the phone. Or just savor the meal and the time to reflect.  

Be comfortable with who you are with or without other people for company.  If you haven’t been able do this, you found yourself wanting to attend events but skipping them because there wasn’t anyone available to go along.  Maybe you’ve wanted to go somewhere because something that interested you was occurring, but it doesn’t appeal to your friends.  Go.  I’ve started going on my own.  It has been fun and rewarding.  I usually meet people and have conversations.  Sometimes just the entertainment or learning is plenty.  

Next I’m going to vacation solo.  I’ve always waited for others to come along. Traveling with people can be a joy but just as often is hard work. My nature is to do what others want on a trip and keep to their agendas, but there is something freeing in not having to make concessions for others all the time, in being able to follow your own arrow.  

These are certainly not the only internal ways many of us need to let it go.  Maybe these aren’t issues you’ve had, maybe they are. The real point of this is that we need to reclaim who we are.  Start listening to yourself.  Don’t be afraid to tell that voice that lives in you head, “You are wrong.  Shut up and go away.”  Tell that negative resident, “You have been weighed, You have been measured, And you have been found lacking.” Don’t believe everything you say to yourself without real, honest reflection.

Video clips from A Knight’s Tale