Transcript
Hello, everyone welcome to another DailyJim It is monday august 1st 2022 today, I want to talk about how the fear of letting go can hold us back. This one might be somewhat intense. So just heads up.
I think in conversations over the last couple of days with friends and some romantic situations, I've. I've realized how afraid I've been to let go of the idea that I would be married, that I would have Children, that I would even just be in a long term romantic relationship or that I would build a life with someone Now I'm 37 years old and so some of you might be thinking, what do you mean? You're afraid of letting go of that idea? Like you haven't let go of that idea yet. And to be honest, I don't think despite my age that I have really questioned that I would get married or have kids especially have kids. I think it was almost a certain certainty for me, it was just about okay, I don't know when I'm gonna find the person or I don't know how it's gonna work out, but feeling pretty darn confident slash certain that it would happen. And.
I wonder how much that's held me back, especially in terms of the work that I do where I'm trying to encourage myself and other people to speak more openly and honestly not just with themselves, but with the people in their lives and also on a more public level, and I've noticed that I get into some of these romantic relationships and I start to close off from friends and family, and I really start to close off publicly as I open up to that one individual.
And I think it's because I'm so afraid of losing that person, or losing the idea of that person that I'm holding on so tightly to that idea, that I start sacrificing in other ways and I can feel that I almost start to resent myself for closing off from the other people because I want to do that, I want to stay open rather and, the analogy that almost comes into my mind, it's, it's almost like, the swimming pool that I'm standing there on the edge of the swimming pool or in the pool and I'm holding on to the side so tightly that I don't want to let go and go off and swim and by not going off and swimming, I miss out on the joy of swimming. Now, I may also miss out on the fear and death of swimming, but I miss out on the liveliness of swimming because I'm holding on so tightly to something now. Maybe that's not the best analogy. Maybe there's some other analogy from zen buddhism that's more applicable. Maybe this one even I plagiarized from buddhism, who knows? But there's this idea of when I hold on so tightly to something and I'm so afraid to let go of a concept of a person of a concept of an idea of a way of life that, it can prevent me from doing other things that I really want to do.
And so I did an exercise yesterday. I'm a little nervous to talk about it because it was so intense, It was a very quick exercise. It was basically asking myself what I'm afraid to let go of. And I found myself thinking of very, specific situations as it relates to romance or dating or having Children or marriage very specific instances and feeling so much joy at that instance. Then immediately feeling sadness at the thought of losing that or never having it. And I don't know what the results are yet. I don't know if I appreciate the exercise because it gave me a little more distance. I don't know if I am scared at how maybe it made me feel a little more numb to things that I cherished so much. I don't really know. I just know that thinking about. The possibility of me not having that type of relationship actually in a way it helps me feel a little more free to say what I'm actually feeling, especially on a public level. I think I've held so much fear that I will say something publicly, that it will come back to either hurt the current relationship or a future relationship. Oh, nobody would ever want me saying this stuff publicly. People don't even want somebody who has any followers, let alone being super public about emotions. So I'm trying to sit here and and just soak it all in. It's so hard. I think sometimes to really understand how certain experiences can impact us emotionally in the short term in the longer term. So yeah, I'm trying to, let go of the certainty that I had over being in some type of relationship, romantic relationship, uh parenting relationship, uh etcetera. And I'm curious what you might be afraid of letting go and how that may be holding you back from doing something you actually want to do. But you're afraid that if you do it it's going to it's going to hurt the thing that you don't want to let go of or make the thing go away that you really don't want to lose or don't want the thing to leave you or the person doesn't have to be a thing.
Oh was that intense for you? Was open enough. Could have went a little deeper. But I still dancing with this here anyways. It's about six minutes and I'd love to hear how this episode went for you. And if you learned anything or if you wanted to have a conversation just about the fear of letting go alright, talk to you soon.
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