Advance Lessons In Letting Go

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

From this moment forward, whenever some dark storm appears in us we must neither run from it, nor stand there and hate what we think is happening. Instead we must awaken to ourselves, bring ourselves back into the Now and quietly, deliberately, drop any image that our thought-nature presents within us to justify the brewing conflict. Learning to dismiss the storms that sink our chances to be happy takes dedicated inner work, but you may be assured such powers are possible. Your True Nature already dwells beyond the reach of self-wrecking storms. Remember this simple truth and be self-ruling.

At this point one great, bright, new idea should be dawning in us: we are not meant to be the slave of any negative thought or feeling, nor are we intended to live under the limitations inherent in these darkened states. Our true role is to be the sovereign governor of our interior lives and all that this spiritual estate implies. It is our spiritual right to decide what kind of thoughts and feelings are permitted to roam through our consciousness and to rule their relationships as the overseer of our own soul. Of this let there be no doubt.

In line with this last idea, the following insight amplifies what we’ve learned about letting go and living in the Now: there is not a thought that can stay in our mind, not a feeling that can remain in our heart, that is not willingly remembered. Let me explain this amazing truth about an equally amazing, but as yet unrealized, power of ours.

Have you ever had appear in your mind the image of someone who hurt you, or run a whole mental movie about something that didn’t work out, so that in recalling the event you actually relived the sense of loss? How does such a painful image seem to stay in the mind, especially given the fact of how much we struggle to make it go away? We all know how it feels to try and “fix” such visitations, where we dream up a new solution, tell ourselves what we should have said, hope that something we can think of will make it go away. Of course none of these answers work for one very good reason. Here is the key to unlocking this continuing conflict.

These unwanted images return again and again as they do because something within us keeps recalling them and drawing them to the forefront of our mind. Perhaps your reaction to this lesson is something like: “Impossible! How can that be true since all I want is to free myself of their painful presence?” The answer is self-evident, even though our present senses dictate otherwise.

Since the truth is we do not have to share a single moment with the memory of anything that we don’t want to, this means there is something in our present nature that wants to recall painful past experiences. Such new self-knowledge lends us the light we need to make higher choices for ourselves, based in conscious awareness. Now we can choose to remember what it is that we want to! In other words, rather than allowing ourselves to be drawn into battle with unwanted thoughts or feelings that appear by themselves within our heart and mind, we can do something completely new. We can choose not to focus on what these troubled states want us to; we know that’s the road to ruin. Instead we will choose to remember what it is that we want above all else—the Light of Truth that not only reveals what has been hurting us, but that frees us from these unconscious conditions at the same time.