Letting Go

Happy New Year, Friends! I hope by now you have slept off any late night parties and begun 2018 with vim and vigor.

It is very cold here in Minnesota, only -11F as I write this (without wind chill). My husband and I laughed at the NYC ball-drop countdown last night when they were complaining about 12F. Wimps, we said! You don’t even KNOW what cold is.

Then we went to bed around our usual time after a few episodes of the Twilight Zone, an annual tradition on NYE. I used to stay up late, and as a morning person, the result is that I nearly always ushered in the New Year tired and cranky. Oy, SO not worth it to me.

I dearly love my sleep, the older I get, and I refuse to sacrifice it for something arbitrary like midnight. So I let go of that habit when I realized it was not serving me. When I embrace what makes me happiest and most vital, and let go of doing things just because our culture encourages them.

I spent a lot of New Years in my youth trying to start a new habit, or get on a better eating plan, or become more committed to some new activity. I realize that since I look at January 1st as arbitrary, I do better at starting new things on a date I choose.

Perhaps I use a new season, or a new month or a new week. The past year, I started writing daily as of October 1st. 330 days ago I started meditating daily. So that was February. It happened to be Super Bowl Sunday. Coincidence? Perhaps. I also attended a Satsang session at a local meditation center. But I do not do that regularly. It just helped initiate the ritual for me.

What is more relevant to me this year is not necessarily starting something new, but instead letting go of what does not serve me. They say that adding something new is actually much easier than breaking a habit we do not want. I can see how that is true.

But at the same time, there are a few things that I realize no longer serve me, and I will  work on letting them go, replacing them with habits that are more compassionate and that honor my needs. Here are a few:

Self-criticism – this is a hard one. I have a pretty tough inner critic. But I have worked at being more forgiving lately, and realizing that I am doing my best. That’s really all I can do, and I will continue to honor this.

Self-blame – I have been told I sometimes feel “inappropriate guilt.” A mentor mentioned this to me once when I talked about moving onto a new position but not wanting to let my team down. It would probably serve me to let this one go as well.

Judgment of self and others – It really is impossible to live someone else’s life, and understand what they are going through. Empathy is something to practice, for sure. But beyond that, people need to just be allowed to be who they are, without my imposed story-lines of what they should or should not do.

Doing others’s work – There is another manager on my team (a physician) who conveniently does not always follow the bureaucratic procedures we need to follow for things like hiring at work. In the past I would often pick up the slack to be sure things were done correctly. This year, I intend to let him do his work. By himself. Yes, I want to be a team player. But last year I did more than my share. This year I will let him fail when he does not do what is required for managers. His boss (and mine) is ultimately responsible, not me. My husband will be proud of me for this one, if I can follow through on it. He heard me say last December “I’m done!” when it came to another scenario where my colleague’s lack of follow-through put me in a difficult position.

Whew I guess you can tell what pushes my buttons. And it felt great to get that off my chest. The first three of these things, I have worked to let go, especially in recent months and over the past year of committed meditation practice.

It takes some work, awareness and commitment to change old thoughts that do not serve us. For some of them, they have worn grooves into our brains after thinking the old and tired thoughts too many times. It is not because they are TRUE, it is just because we have practiced them. The good news is that we can practice other thoughts! And over them, we then “weed out” those ones that no longer serve us.

Some thoughts I prefer to practice are:

“I have time to do what I need to do today.”  

“I am doing my best, and that is enough.”

“I trust myself and deserve compassion.” or “I trust my body to tell me what I need.” 

I may set a few goals this year with my husband, because I want to work better as a team when it comes to things like money and savings goals. That will undoubtedly be a topic for a future post, as I examine my own obstacles in learning this new practice.

But for now I feel satisfied with letting go a few things so I can welcome in more compassion and love for myself and others. I’m ready, 2018!