Letting Go

No matter what kind of relationship we are talking about – personal or business – we all need to learn to let go, and we need to learn to let go in a few different ways.

The first way we need to learn to let go is to surrender the notion that somehow we can control the outcome of any relationship. We can do the best we can in relationship, we can be fully present in relationship, we can be open and receptive to the needs of the other in relationship, and we can be completely honest about our needs in relationship. What we can’t do is control the other, although there are more that a few abusive relationships – personal and business – where one entity does seek to control the other through violence, manipulation, economic coercion, and a host of other techniques. The abuser would assert that such efforts are effective in that they force the other, for a time, to do what the abuser wants them to do. Those efforts also kill the relationship. The honest outcome of such abuse is that while the other may be controlled in terms of their behavior, the relationship is destroyed. In the end, whatever is going to happen is going to happen.

Another way in which we need to learn to let go is in the context of being honest about where we are in our relationship. Some of us are desperately afraid that if we are honest with ourselves about how we feel such honesty will lock us into that place. In other words, if I admit that I am unhappy in my relationship today, I believe that means I will always be unhappy in any relationship, and since I can’t imagine finding another one, I deceive myself into believing the best solution to this dilemma is to be dishonest with myself about how I feel. In reality, if we don’t allow ourselves to admit how we really feel, we will never take the first step toward changing any unsatisfactory situation! We also fall into a place of being inauthentic – and that can have devastating consequences.

It’s time to step up to the plate and start really living. That’s the only way we can ever hope to be happy.