I may have written about this before in different ways, and it needs repeating! Let’s examine the statement above.
First, the reason why I say this is because I hear the following from students:
- “If I let go of my anger or fear, won’t people be able to attack me?”
- “If I let go of my sadness, won’t others be able to hurt me?”
- “If I let go of my guilt, will I start doing bad things?”
The problem with these questions is that they imply you don’t have the resources to become better, and to become smarter. They also imply something worse. They imply that negative emotions somehow serve a purpose.
Now, I do believe that negative emotions in the moment are appropriate. If you go into work every day and your boss makes you angry, that is a clue. Maybe you work in a toxic environment.
However, if you hold on to the emotions for the next 20 years, and in your 60’s you are still angry with your boss from college, then we have a problem. In fact, the Journal of the American Medical Association published research back in the early 90’s to show the negative effects of holding onto anger long term.
So let it go!
We have a technique called Mental and Emotional Release™ that has been validated through clinical and academic research to be more effective than CBT. By the way, CBT (or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) is one of the most cutting edge techniques in Psychology. And guess what? It turns out the biggest block to releasing negative emotions is you!
I say this all the time in my NLP trainings, “It is so easy to let go of the baggage… If you want to and are ready to.”
Now let’s look at the title of this post again. When my daughter let go of her fear of the dark, did the monsters come and get her? Did she become more vulnerable? No.
When my son released his fear of being in an elevator because of past negative experiences, did bad things happen? No.
When a recent student of mine let go of her fear of talking to the opposite sex, did men start treating her poorly? No.
In all of these cases, a positive experience came out of the negative release.
Are you wondering why letting go of baggage actually makes you smarter?
It is called the learning.
When you let go of the negative emotion, you naturally and automatically bring in a positive learning. For example, letting go of the fear of the dark teaches you (or gives you the learning) that you can turn on a light and everything is still the same.
When you let go of issues in relationships, you become more congruent and are able to be more fulfilled in your experience with your partner. This is exactly what my student experienced.
Be ready to let it go. Imagine being that child who wants to let go of that fear of the dark. When you do release it, you may look back and wonder why you were ever afraid in the first place.
Mahalo,
Dr. Matt
Photo by: hang_in_there
