The Jumbled Messy Art of Letting Go

I had to let go of something today. Something significant to me. Much like trying to remember and capture a dream before you lose the memory and the feelings, I am attempting to capture the internal happenings within my soul over letting go.

My chest hurts. High up almost in my throat. I feel tight all over. My muscles, ramped with tension, need a release. I had to sleep. Deep. Deep sleep. My body and emotions were so overwhelmed I just had to stop. Lie down. Still, still, until sleep overrode my overwhelmed feelings. The only signs on the outside were visible fatigue to others and an awkward attempt to vocalize that I was experiencing melancholy within. This was not enough. I had to do more. Find a way to assuage the turmoil within.

I had to let go. I knew it was time, and the last-night me was excited about the prospects that lay ahead with the release and change. But the here-and-now me, not so much.

As the letting go process began, the internal turmoil was warming up within me, slowly, slowly, very slowly, heading to a boiling point. Overall, logically, this letting go of this something; this is a success. Still, I have learned to pay homage to and not ignore the sadness, the grief, the uncertainty, lostness, aloneness that overwhelms a soul in a time of letting go. I stuffed, squelched, and overall ignored my emotions for the past 40 years—bad, bad news. Do not do this. It alters your very being. I have learned that to ignore and otherwise turn my back on my internal struggles with high emotional situations will only hurt me. So I don’t. Not this time.

I bravely and courageously deal. Dealing for me started with an attempt to verbally acknowledge to others and mainly myself that this is hard for me. It felt awkward to say, but I didn’t care—no judgment from me.

I pushed through as far as I could. I upheld my responsibilities but then made a hasty retreat warning the others I had to lie down. They knew enough that I meant, “Don’t bother me for a while.”

My next step is to sleep. Rest my soul, body, and mind. As a highly sensitive person, I know this is a way to recharge and not a form of escapism. It is a good, positive action for me as a whole, not a sign of depression, but just the opposite. I need this to keep from depression.

Upon awakening, I was unsure what to do next. I lay there and thought. Thought, thought, and thought some more. STOP. This is not good. Overthinking is an old habit pattern. The only way I know to stop the “thoughting” is meditation.

With my heart and soul saturated in sadness, I don’t think I can do it. “It” as in anything. I don’t want to eat. I don’t want to pray. I don’t want to meditate. I don’t want to self-care. I just don’t want—at all. But I know I must deal for the sake of my own mental, emotional, and physical health.

So, I start. I sit on the floor on my cushion and simply start. I know I do not have the wherewithal to do this alone. Using different guided meditations from my Calm app, I try to follow the guides.

Aware, breath, home base, tension, breathe, release. I feel it building. It is as if the meditation tools were creating an escape tunnel for the negative emotions letting go brings. Building, like the slow build-up of heat and then it hits the boiling point.

The tears come, crying, crying, crying. Crying in different forms. Not uncontrollable at first, just eye leakage, then the chest tightness that kept pushing, pushing those emotions out out out. Out through my tear ducts. Out through my gasps, sobs, and snorting that comes with the anguish of letting go.

Very very painful at first, but I release. Release, release, and release some more. The guided meditation ends, but it is not over for me. I need to continue. I pick another guided meditation and keep going. Keep going. Keep going—no premature stopping. Just keep going and keep letting go. Let it go. Let it all go. And I make it. I make it to the end.

That wonderful relieving end. The huge sigh, the chest expansiveness, the deep breath. I feel it all. I went from uncertainty to sadness, to tiredness, back to uncertainty, to finally settle on contentment. I am content. I made it through.

I feel somewhat fragile while simultaneously; I feel courageous and proud. Proud of myself for having made it through. Proud to be able to have the energy to express in writing an otherwise overwhelming experience.

I know this is jumbled, but emotions and especially letting go is messy and jumbled at times.

This is it. This is me.