Advance Lessons In Letting Go

By Guy Finley
excerpted from
Let Go and Live in the Now

Just as a storm in the atmosphere of the earth is born of conflicting fronts of different temperatures colliding with one another, so too must there be conflicting forces within us in order to form a mental or emotional storm. Our task is to become conscious of these unseen forces that dwell in the unenlightened parts of us. As we grow to realize that no disturbance can remain within us without our granting it the force it needs to sustain its fury, we realize that we have at our disposal two great powers. We are empowered to dismiss storms when they appear in our psychic system and, with time and practice, we can learn to dismiss these disturbances before they begin!

What are these invisible conflicting forces at work within us that cause so much foul weather? We uncover the first of these unconscious forces by recognizing that the storms in our lives all share a common cause. Each storm, large or small, centers on something that happens to us that we don’t want to be happening for whatever reasons. A few quick examples prove this insight, but best success is assured if you will fill in the blanks from your own experience.

Imagine a woman caught in an emotional firestorm of anger because of how she has been treated. Or a man who feels trapped by a tormenting depression because he doesn’t want what life continues to bring to him. Can we see that these two storms share a common root? Both rise as they do because of our unconscious resistance to something that has already happened.

Whenever we face an unwanted event and find ourselves feeling nothing but resistance, we can discover that this stress-mess is made from our insistence that this should not have happened. And how about when we recall past mistakes, painfully reliving how we fell down—either a moment ago or ten years back? Aren’t we sure that whatever that error may have been—it shouldn’t have taken place? Which brings us to the following insight that deserves a few moments extra consideration. It feels natural for us to go along with the feeling of not wanting what appears to be powerless to change!

What on earth lies hidden in this strange struggle of ours that compels us to wrestle with what amounts to mental ghosts? After all, once something has happened in our life—that moment is over; it’s gone, done with, finished. Clearly, what was no longer exists in the here and now. So, we have to ask ourselves, given this understanding that is above dispute, how can something from our own past feel as real and as alive as it does to us in the present moment? The following answer brings us one step closer to living in a world without storms.

Within our mind lingers an untold number of chemically and electrically stored images of the way things were. These mental pictures include complete scenes of every experience past, as well as pleasurable or frightening images of what is yet to come. And these same images are secret storehouses of all the sensations that accompanied them in the moment of their creation. Each one is laden with its original emotional content that pours into us each time we revisit them. To help visualize how this unseen psychic sequence unfolds within, put yourself in the place of this imaginary person, Barbara, walking down the street.