20 Things You Gradually Learn When Letting Go of the Uncontrollable

Accept what is, let go of what was, and have faith in your journey.

By Mark and Angel Hack Life

It’s always necessary to accept when some part of your life has reached its inevitable end.  Closing the door, completing the chapter, turning the page, etc. – it doesn’t matter what you title it; what matters is that you find the strength to leave in the past those parts of your life that are over.

It’s all about embracing the truth: What has happened is uncontrollable; what you do now changes everything!

Of course, knowing this and actually living a lifestyle that reinforces this truth are two very different things.  Letting go is NOT easy – it’s a journey that is traveled one day at a time.  If you stick with it, here’s what your journey will ultimately teach you:

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1. The most powerful changes happen in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over everything you don’t.
2. Most people make themselves unhappy simply by finding it impossible to accept life just as it is presenting itself right now.
3. If you worry too much about what might be, and wonder too long about what might have been, you will ignore and completely miss what is.
4. When you are lost in worry, it is easy to mistake your worries for reality, instead of recognizing that they are just thoughts. Mindfulness is the remedy.
5. The biggest obstacle to growth you’ll ever have to overcome is your mind.  Once you can overcome that, you can overcome anything.
6. Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a little while, and that includes YOU.  (Read Wherever You Go, There You Are.)
7. You won’t always have it easy, but there is always a reason to be grateful.  And the greatest gift of your gratitude is that the more grateful you are, the more present you become.
8. The secret to getting ahead is to focus all of your energy not on fixing and fighting the old, but on building and growing something new.
9. Letting go doesn’t mean you don’t care about something or someone anymore.  It’s just realizing that the only thing you really have control over is yourself in this moment.
10. In most cases, you can’t calm the storm – it’s not worth trying.  What you can do is calm yourself, and the storm will pass.
11. You can always control the way you respond to what happens, and in your response is your power.
12. Oftentimes letting go is simply changing the labels you place on a situation – it’s looking at the same situation with fresh eyes and an open mind.
13. There is absolutely nothing about your present circumstances that prevents you from making progress, one tiny step at a time.
14. The day you “understood” everything, was the day you stopped trying to figure everything out.  The day you find peace and freedom again will be the day you let everything go.
15. You must let go of certainty.  And you must remember that the opposite of certainty is not uncertainty, it’s openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace life as it is, rather than resisting it.  The ultimate challenge is to accept yourself exactly as you are, and accept life just as it is, but never stop trying to learn and grow to the best of your abilities.
16. Underneath it all, the hardest part is not really letting go, but rather learning to start over.
17. Stepping onto a brand new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation that no longer fits, or no longer exists.
18. Sometimes it takes a little heartbreak to shake you awake, help you let go, and show you that you are worth so much more than you were settling for.
19. When it comes to social drama, letting go of other people’s rude remarks is the best step forward.  Most haters don’t really hate you; they just hate where they are in life, and you’re a reflection of what they wish to become.  (Angel and I discuss this in detail in the “Relationships” chapter of 1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently.)
20. Your heart might be bruised, but it will gradually heal and become capable of feeling the beauty of life once again.  It’s happened to you before, and it will happen again – life is always changing.  When something ends or someone leaves, it’s because something else or someone else is about to arrive – you will feel alive and whole again soon.

Afterthoughts

It can be difficult to leave a long-term life situation behind, even when your inner-wisdom tells you that things aren’t right and it’s time to let go.  At this point, you can choose to let go and endure the sudden pain of leaving behind the familiar to make way for a new chapter in your life, or you can stay and suffer a constant, aching pain that gradually eats away at your heart and mind, like a cancer… until you wake up one day and find yourself buried so deep in the dysfunction of the situation that you barely remember who you are and what you desire.

Don’t do this you yourself!

Things will happen that are unexpected, undesirable, and uncontrollable.  But you can always choose to take the next tiniest step.  Be brave and take it…

Be willing to make mistakes, learn from them, let go of them, and move along.

Your turn…

What’s one uncontrollable past event or life situation that you need to let go of?  What attachments are creating unnecessary stress in your life?  Leave a comment below and let us know how you feel and what you intend to do about it.

By Mark and Angel Hack Life