I have been thinking a lot about letting go since the year began because let’s be honest whether we mean to or not. At the beginning of every year we take stock, we think about what the previous year was like, what behaviours we want to change. What we want to take forward into the new year, maybe not necessarily resolutions for everybody, but at least our intent for the year. 

I never make resolutions because I don’t want to set myself up to fail because  I will always think I’ll go to the gym more but I never do. I always think I’ll eat healthier and I do for a little while and then I don’t and then I do again and it’s a yoyo effect, but an intent is something much more defined for me – much more intentional if you will. 

I want to intentionally do Y, or I want to be more intentional in doing X. I think about that at least for the first two weeks of the year. The thought that has rattled in my head for the almost six weeks of the new year has been: How do I learn to let things go? I am so bad at it. There are moments where I just stare at the reflection in the mirror and I say to myself: “Michelle, what are you doing?” It’s really quite fascinating to confront yourself in some of your lowest and darkest moments and just try to understand your own psyche. 

My therapist and I have been on this journey for some time and he’s patient and kind on this. He always tells me not to be so hard on myself that we are all works in progress and my struggle to let go of things is not a unique one, it’s human nature. It’s human nature to want to hang on, it’s our need to understand. I struggle to let go of things without having an explanation of why they happened. If a friend were to hurt me or betray me, I want to know why I want to understand it. What and why they did it. If someone were to decide that they wanted to no longer talk to me or exist in my space.  I want to understand why.  If I have those kind of behaviours with someone, I want to explain to them why because more often than not when I am standoffish or not as extroverted as people would like me to be, there’s a reason and it’s usually not them and it has more to do with me and my inability to communicate my current state of mind – something I struggle with too. But there is always  a reason and I want them to know it so they understand they did nothing wrong. When they do something wrong, I also want them to know that this is what they did wrong and why it affected me in this way. 

These reactions never change our relationship or who we are. I just need them to understand why. And in some cases where unfortunately it does create damage and a truncation of trust that breaks bridges. I also want to be honest with them, so they also know. However, that is who I am and I cannot expect that from everyone.

So in not trying to be this person who expects other people to tell me everything; I also have to acknowledge that sometimes it is not easy to tell people everything. I also learnt in the last 12 months, though I hate silence, I have come to cherish and hold on to it like a safety blanket. Because, every time I have been honest about the purpose of an action, there have been unintended consequences. 

My emotions are easily readable on my face, so letting go sometimes proves difficult when my brain and heart don’t connect on the task at hand. So I’m trying to find an explanation to let go of something. It’s very hard to pull myself out of that funk if you will. I’m so grateful again to my therapist because I beat myself up about this quite often. I get mad at myself for thinking. Oh my goodness. Here I go again, and I have now upset these people because I was upset with this one other person or this thing happened, that really fucked with my head. Now it’s creating friction for everybody else. I beat myself up for days about things like that, I stress about it and I worry and in that worry I get anxious and it creates even more introspection then I retreat more into myself so that I’m not useless to myself and everybody around me. It’s exhausting! My therapist ( he really is doing the Lord’s work) always says to me: “why do you beat yourself up so much? If the people in your life cannot understand cannot the crippling nature of your anxiety and see you in your darkest moments and understand there, why should they have to see you when you’re on the light? Why should they be in your life?”

I think about that often for me to be able to let go of something. I need to understand that the people who are in my corner will see me in my darkest moment and understand it, just because I will see them in their darkest moment and understand.  Letting go without explanation is a journey that  moves in mysterious ways and one day it will move in a way that allows you to truly let go with explanation, just as you learned to forgive without an apology. 

So, my intent for 2022 is to work at letting go without explanation and move on from things quickly because life is both long and short at the same time but it is for living not dwelling.