Be willing to let go

What are you holding onto that is not serving your real purpose? What relationships do you continue to nurture that are detrimental to your mental health and fitness? What mindset do you continue to feed into that prevents you from truly be the person you are designed to be?

Many times, the thing that keeps us from growing or moving forward is our unwillingness to let go of things that we don't need in our lives.

To do so would involve a degree of change, and people are extremely uncomfortable with changes. Change brings about unfamiliarity and uncertainty. We don't know what we are going to get with a new set of circumstances, opportunities or even relationships. It would be much easier to just hold on while still trying to make room for what we should be receiving.

But in order to receive all that we need, we have to have the room to receive it. If your life is filled with things you cannot use to benefit your life or purpose, you must not only be willing to let it go, but you must be proactive about doing so. Don't just wait and wish or hope those things will go away on their own. Take action to rid yourself of the toxins in your life.

Let's take a look at some of those things you might be holding onto that you know you need to let go of:

* Emotional garbage;
* Toxic relationships or networks;
* Mental sabotage.

First, let's take a look at emotional garbage that you may be keeping.

Two questions to ask yourself:

* Are you holding a grudge against anyone?
* Are you still harboring pain, anger or frustration?

When we hold someone else responsible for our ill feelings, we continue to give that person control in our lives and over our emotions. Many times, as we continue to hold onto what we believe has been done to us, that offender has gone on to live his or her life, unaffected. Yet we continue to stop our own growth process, waiting for the person to right their wrongs so then we can let it go.

Well, newsflash: You may never get that apology or that person may never acknowledge any wrongdoing. The time you spend waiting for that to happen is wasted time.

Think about this as well: Hanging onto resentment (and other emotional garbage) is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head. Evict them and let it go.

Assess the emotional garbage that may exist in your life. You may not have a long list of emotional garbage, but if you have one thing that needs to be tossed out, it's enough to take up space that could be better served by something more positive.

Write down your emotional garbage now. What immediately comes up for you? What is that emotional garbage that you feel in the pit of your stomach or in the middle of your chest? Identify that right now. Write it down. Get it out so you can see what it is your holding on to.

Now, let's take a look at the toxic relationships you may be holding on to.

Ask yourself these questions:

* Who are those naysayers or dream killers in your life?
* Who are those people that are not supporting or encouraging you to walk in your purpose?
* What networks are you involved in that are not beneficial?

It really shouldn't take you long to identify if there is a toxic relationship in your life. You know who that is. You know the detriment that person may be having in your life, yet you hold them close anyway. It may not be that the person intends to be a negative factor in your life, but nonetheless, they are. What are you going to do about it? How do you make sure you don't allow that negativity to become who you are?

Identify those toxic relationships. If you have any that come to mind, write their name down on your notebook. If you have to give it some thought, come back to that later, but definitely make the time to explore your relationships and associations.

Now that you've identified what you must eliminate, what can you do to remove that toxin from your life? Write down what you WILL do to let it go. Commit to letting go of that junk this week, or at least begin the process. Some things will take time, but you must make that time so you can move past that and make room to discover the greatness that is being impacted by those things.

Until next time, remember: “When you become good at the art of letting sufferings go, then you'll come to realize what you were dragging around with you. And for that, no one else other than you was responsible.” — Unknown

With definiteness of purpose,
Gwen Thibeaux