Letting go is not an action. It is the absence of action. It is the release of any effort whatsoever in the releasing. It is simply release.
Do a little experiment.
Rest your arm on a comfortable arm rest on a chair with arms.
Tighten your fist as tight as you can tighten it.
Now, let go of your fist.
Did you let go or did you push your fingers open?
Did you let go or did you use energy to open your hand ever so slightly?
If you used any energy at all, then you did not let go. You pushed away.
Most spirit-humans mistake pushing away to be a necessary part of letting go.
It is a basic law of the Universe that force creates resistance. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Letting go is no effort without any action in order to have no action.
It is a decision and then a relaxing into the decision - a letting go into the decision.
For your brain to come to a better understanding of what letting go of a person, place or thing really means,
Practice this exercise many times during the day.
Within a short amount of time, you should be able to let go of the energy needed to hold your fist tight without using any energy to push it away.
Just decide to let go and then let go.
The more you practice this, the more your brain will understand the principle and the easier it will be for you to let go of persons, places, things and especially habits.
The hardest thing for a spirit-human to do is to do nothing. If you attempt to do nothing, you are doing something in order to do nothing. It won't work.
Some say in order to break a habit, you have to get another habit going in the place of the habit you want to break.
This will work. And this has its place in making your life more healthy and enjoyable.
However, this is just replacing one chain for another.
Just release any and all attachment to any action or result. Truly LET GO, without action.
When you accept life as it unfolds, offering no resistance, you become aware of the choices available in this moment. This doesn't mean giving up desires or becoming a victim, but discovering the freedom to respond creatively.
The mind lives in the past and in the future. Your awareness, your body and the situation resides in the now. If you allow your inner defense system to do its thing in the present situation, it will show you the best course of action to deal with what is, even if it means do nothing.
One time I was driving across an intersection. I was doing about 25 miles an hour. Out of the corner of my eye, on my left side, I saw another automobile coming straight towards me. It was doing at least 40 miles an hour. When I noticed it, it was about 20 feet from plowing directly into my door on my side of the car. Amazingly, I did not react at all. I seemed to be on automatic and just continued to drive at the exact same speed, in the exact same direction I was traveling when I spotted the car. All this time, I also noticed the face on the other driver. I looked straight into her eyes. She looked VERY anxious. Her face looked like she was very scared. She appeared to be processing the situation at lightning speed. Within a fraction of a second, I saw her check out the speed of my car, the direction I was going and her awareness of my making no change in either my speed or my course of direction at all. I saw her almost instantly turn her steering wheel so that she drove around the back of my vehicle missing my car by perhaps a foot. Of course, missing me by a foot was as good as missing me by a mile. If I would have reacted in any way but total acceptance of the situation, we would have had a very serious accident. I probably would not be alive today to share this story with you.
If we would have both tried to take evasive action, we were too close to one another for both of to decide on a course of action, apply it and then check the other person and see if our course of action was working or if the other person took a course of action that worked contrary to ours. We did not have enough time to take more than one course of action. Remember, she was doing at least 40 miles an hour coming directly straight at my door. In 20 feet she would have hit my door with the full front of her car, both of her headlights would have hit me at the same time.
Another time I was on the big Island of Hawaii. There is a road that goeds from Hilo, on one side of the island to Kona, directly across on the other side. This road is a two lane road straight across at least 10 miles of lava. It is a road cut into and composed of lave. Only two lanes, just enough for one car in each direction. One foot off either side of the road was the natural lava looking like it was fresh from a volcanic eruption. The road is also very hilly. Small hills, five or ten feet up and down, waving up and down over most of the course of ten miles of road. Ups and downs perhaps with twenty feet between the ups and the downs.
I found myself driving behind a truck, with about a fifty-foot cargo bed in the back. It was doing about fifteen miles an hour. We must have been the only two vehicles going in our direction for a couple of miles both behind us and in front of us. Now one of my favorite things to do on this road was to drive fast, thirty-forty miles an hour, up and down, up and down the rolling pavement. I drove behind this truck for at least ten minutes becoming very impatient. I wanted to get in front of him and continue to enjoy riding the lava road. For the last ten minutes, there had been no car passing us going in the other direction. I finally decided to pass him by going into the road reserved for oncoming traffic. I checked around him as good as I could and then in one quick motion, floored the accelerator and turned my wheel to the left to pass him. Well, remember the ups and downs of the road? As soon as my car got into the other lane, I saw, directly in front of me, perhaps ten feet in front of me, another car coming directly to me. I immediately realized that i was just ten feet from a very major head-on colission. There was not even time to think of alternative courses of action. Within a fraction of a second, I jerkedk my wheel to the right to get behind the truck. As soon as I get in the other lane, the other car missed me by less than a foot. All this happened within one second from the time I started to turn my wheel to pass the truck and the time I got back behind the truck. In the car with me was the future mother of my currently 11 year old son. He would never have been born and I would have missed out on some of the best years of my life as a father.
If I would have thought about what was just about to happen in either of the above scenarios, I would not have had time to decide of a various courses of action. Once I did react, there was no time to try something different. I saw, I accepted, I reacted. In the first, my reaction was one of no action. In the second situation my reaction was one of almost instant action. I lived because of my unconditional acceptance of what was and my instant awareness of my body and defense system telling me the best course of action in the situation.
In martial arts, you must first unconditionally accept the situation as it is. You cannot change what is. It is what it is. How you respond to what is will determine what happens next. The more you resist it, the more you will be at the effect of it, and the less effectively you will see the best way to deal with it. Be aware of what is, accept what is, deal with what is from a state of acceptance - not a state of emotion.
Letting go is simple. The difficulty in the application of the simplicity is determined by the mental and emotional baggage you bring to the application of the simplicity.
Do the experiment. You will be glad you did.
