Nature, as always, provides the best life advice. Autumn is particularly good at letting go; showing us that there is no need to hold onto old, dead leaves, even if it means we will be left completely bare and naked and looking nothing like we did before. Autumn simply drops its leaves and without anxiety, stands steady and exposed while it attends to the inner work of nourishing its roots and trunk.
We too are meant to shed, release, drop old leaves, and spend time feeling bare and empty and without what we know, as we embark on a new path or simply direct our energy toward nourishing our insides and growing our roots deep and strong for when it is time to bloom again.
WHAT DO I NEED TO LET GO OF ?
What we need to let go of can be obvious and external. Places, relationships, jobs, clutter in our homes and lives. These are the things we can point to and clearly see as dysfunctional or simply outdated. What is harder to notice are the conditions within us that create these circumstances in the first place. What is it within us that chose this place, relationship, job or material item, and what is still within us that doesn’t want to let go of it? This is the true work of letting go. Often it takes changing the outside to reveal what is operating inside, but until we turn our gaze to our hearts and minds and compassionately hold, question, comfort and release what is happening there, we will continue to choose and attract the same set of unchanging, unfulfilling circumstances and call it our life.
WHAT ARE THE GIFTS OF LETTING GO ?
Apart from feeling lighter, more aligned and in congruence with our true nature, the gifts of letting go are the gifts of making space, and everything that is able to arrive when we weed and fertilise the soil of our minds. When we release our attachment to anything we don’t really, truly desire, we free up space for what sparks a light in our hearts. The gift of letting go is, really, anything and everything you desire.
In letting go, we release this tension and allow our true essence to flow out without boundary or restriction. Holding on acts as a hard outer-casing around our being and keeps us trapped in sameness and stagnation. When we are open to life as it organically unfolds, not how we think it should unfold, we can taste its sweet nectar as well as our own.
When we are free from anxiety about life not behaving the way we think it should, we have a well of energy available to help us navigate and cooperate with our life as it unfolds, rather than drain our batteries by resisting and fighting what shows up. New experiences will always fall on our path. It’s up to us to see them as petals or weeds, stepping stones or roadblocks. To let them energise us or empty our well.
HOW DO WE LET GO ?
The question is not how we let go, but rather how we release resistance to what is already falling away. Yoga and meditation practices are incredibly powerful agents of change, or rather vehicles to acceptance of change. When we can feel a connection to our true nature and the stillness that always exists within, the movement and reshuffling of our external world feels far less disconcerting and discombobulating. When we can hear the quiet voice inside, the loud shouting of our mind is easier to tune out and we can rest more comfortably in the knowing that all is unfolding as it is meant to be.
Walk Outside
One of the best things is to walk outside, soak up the beautiful Autumn colours and breathe in the clean, cool air. There is nothing more healing to us that connecting with nature and Autumn is one of the most beautiful times of the year to do it.
Reorganise, Clean & Donate
Autumn is the perfect time to take stock of things in your life, organise and let go of the old, to make room for the new. This is a good practice in the fall in the physical world, as well as the emotional one. Go through your closet and take out all those old clothes that you haven’t worn in ages – donate them to a local charity so that they can be new for someone else. Clean out your computer deleting anything you no longer need. Organise your cupboards.
The best way to stay healthy is learning about the nature of each season and living in harmony with its spirit. If we are living in harmony with the world around us, we see that nature is slowing down and contracting, preparing to rest so it is good for us to do the same. Sleeping a little longer, eating warming nourishing foods and moving inward – paying extra attention to our internal lives. This gives us our sense of self worth, this is the season to give ourselves some extra attention and self love so that instead of seeking value outside like chasing status, money and power, we can be content inside and know that we have (and always have had) everything we will ever need and are all perfect, complete beings.
For most of us, our life would be revolutionised if we simply let go of the belief that happiness is somewhere other than here. Rather than spend our life checking off to-do lists and working hard to control our day in an attempt to minimise discomfort, we can let go of the things that don’t bring us delight, leaving blank space and create time for connection, excitement, inspiration, new ideas and interests, deepened friendships and expanded joy.
Instead of living in perpetual busyness to avoid our imagined inadequacy, we can wake up every day excited to enjoy what life so desperately wants to offer us. This is the greatest gift of letting go, being present enough to know what we want to do, even and especially if that means doing nothing at all. In the end, time enjoyed is never wasted.
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