Abandonment

(Listen to the audio essay on Youtube)

We talk a lot here about releasing or letting go of unwanted thoughts/feelings/beliefs. Unfortunately, though, many of us hit a wall when trying to rid ourselves of certain limitations.

It can feel as if releasing is a sacrifice — like we’re consciously enduring some discomfort in an attempt to reap the benefits of that discomfort at a later point. Essentially, we think of letting go the same way we think about exercise. I go out and lift weights, knowing that it’s supposed to be uncomfortable but that I’ll reap the rewards of my discomfort in the long run.

The problem is that we all have an uncomfortability threshold that is very difficult to push past. Sure, I may be willing to run a mile in return for slightly improved cardio, but there’s no way I’m going out to run a marathon or 20 sets of 100m sprints in return for greater benefits. Those second two activities will be too uncomfortable — the pain will outweigh the reward. And even if I psych myself up and tell myself I’m going to run a marathon or sets of sprints, I’ll inevitably end up quitting midway through when it gets too painful to continue.

And the same is true of releasing. Or, at least, we think the same thing is true.

You don’t have to think of releasing as a sacrifice, though. And, if you change how you approach the process, things might get a lot easier to let go of.

The problem with the “sacrifice” point of view is that it puts the thought/feeling/belief we’re trying to get rid of in control of us. “Letting something go” becomes synonymous with “giving something up.” And, when we give something up, we’re the ones who suffer the loss of that thing.

The entire point of releasing, though, is that we don’t want to be burdened by the thing that has been burdening us. It isn’t in control — we are.

I prefer to think in terms of abandonment instead of “giving up.” When you abandon something, you do so for your own personal gain at the expense of whatever you’re abandoning. If I abandon my family to go live a life where I can shoot pool and drink beer every day, I’m placing my priorities ahead of theirs. They “lose” so I can “win.”

When I sacrifice, I “lose” first so that I can win later. My win comes at a cost, and if the payoff doesn’t happen fast or ferociously enough, it doesn’t feel worth it. Which makes sacrifice hard. When I sacrifice, I’m always weighing the losses I’m incurring right now at this very moment against the profits I want to reap later.

But, when I abandon, I just win, and there’s no cost — not to me, at least.

Abandonment is the act of throwing away a toy you don’t want to play with anymore. And that’s how you should feel about whatever thought/feeling/belief you don’t want to hold onto anymore — that it’s a toy you had fun playing with for a while, but now you don’t want it anymore, so you’re going to throw it aside.

Tired of being angry all the time? Abandon your anger, then. Don’t wallow in self-pity, saying how hard it is to let go of anger — face the facts of the matter: you fell into a pattern of angry reactions because anger served you at one point, and now it isn’t serving you anymore, so you want to move on from it.

I know this seems easier said than done. But that’s only the case because we all have a bad habit of conflating our thoughts/feelings/beliefs with ourselves.

One way to get out of this way of thinking is to anthropomorphize whatever it is you’re trying to let go of. Think of your anger/fear/desire/etc., not as something that’s “yours” or belongs to you, but as a tenant that you’ve been renting out space in your body/mind to.

At first, the relationship was likely symbiotic. “Anger” needed a place to stay, and you provided one. It always paid the “rent” on time in the form of the little buzz of energy you got whenever you were able to respond angrily to something that made you uncomfortable. You rented part of your mind out to desire, and in return, it promised to deliver you something that’d make you happy later on.

These are fair agreements until they aren’t anymore.

When anger or desire starts trashing your mind and body, and you can’t even get a buzz from them anymore, it’s time to kick them the hell out. You’re not sacrificing these emotions at your own cost; you’re leaving them out in the cold and closing the door behind you. You’re abandoning them.

This doesn’t necessarily mean everything will change in an instant (although it very well might). Without a place to stay, anger or desire, or whoever I formerly rented myself out to might come pounding on the door of my mind, screaming about how they’re going to sue me or how I have to let them back in or else. That might be annoying, sure; but at the end of the day, I’m not the one suffering — it’s my now homeless mental tenant that’s feeling the pain, not me.

This kind of exercise may feel silly, and you shouldn’t take it too seriously or try to convince yourself that your limiting thought/feeling/belief is actually some foreign entity overtaking your mind. But you’d be surprised how much progress you can make if you just slightly reconfigure how you approach the releasing process.

Releasing really shouldn't be that difficult. Nobody is holding a gun to your head, forcing you to continue being angry or lustful or whatever. That isn’t to say you can’t have a very complex relationship with a certain thought/emotion/belief — you might be tangled in an entire web of costs and benefits that make you (on some level) not want to let go.

But if that’s the case, deal with that problem. Stop telling yourself releasing is so difficult and start figuring out why it is you subconsciously don’t want to let go. Because when you really make a decision that you’d like to release, you can abandon whatever no longer serves you in a split second without ever looking back.

As always, good luck.