There Is Power In Letting Go

Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.
-- Oprah Winfrey 

 

A few years ago, my car got stolen. I could remember my first reaction after finding out about it. I was dumbfounded and didn't know what to do. I was in Malaysia that time, miles apart from my home country when it happened. 

My first reaction was of course I got so angry. I started blaming, feeling bad about the loss and really got so frustrated. However, after like an hour of hating everything on what went wrong, it struck me that I was actually helpless on that particular moment. I saw myself behaving like I still could control what happened.

A few days after that incident, I was with a friend. I mentioned that my car got stolen. She gave me a surppirsed look and told me that how come I didn't look like someone whose car just got stolen. What she meant was, she did not see or hear any bitterness, anger or even disappointment. 

Of course, I definitely got angry during that time. While I was at the airport in Malaysia, I expressed my frustration and blame the people who were with me and yet not even there when it happened. I got back to my senses and realized that I was all the time trying to control the ucontrollable. I realized that the only thing I can control was my reaction towards what happened.

Instead of giving time and energy blaming the circumstance and people, I learned to choose finding and understanding the lesson from it. I told myself that perhaps something bigger is going to happen for me. I guess I was given that problem for I am the type of person who could handle it, perhaps that experience was teaching me not to be attached to things and perhaps, its trying to teach me about letting go.

I arrived back in the Philippines with a different perspective.I gave up on what should, could, have happened. I accepted the situation and tried to look for the best way possible to move myself forward after what happened.

Although I made it clear that I was not happy about it, I didn't blame the one who was responsible for guarding it while I was away. Yes, I never got back the car, yet I got back a lot of lesson about choosing peace of mind over being right and letting go over trying to control circumstances and things.

I know for sure that life will give us a lot of surprises and sometimes those surprises might be things we don't really like or something that will really hurt us or not even make us happy. That experience allowed me to accept that we don't have any control at all on what life will throw at us however, we have total control over ourselves on how we will handle it.

Yes, it's really difficult to do this most especially if we will look how things could have been prevented even before it happened. Its difficult to clear our minds when we are emotionally charged. We will definitely get frustrated for we know what we could have done something even before undesirable things could happen. 

 Most of us will just get stuck with these undesirable experiences and find it difficult to get unstuck. Most of us will dwell on how bad things happened instead of looking into the other aspect of learning to let go of trying to control things and focusing our minds clearly on what needs to be done.

After what happened, I decided to choose the kind of story that would allow me to move forward. I'm sure if I still dwell on how terrible things happened, I'd definitely bring it in all aspects of what I do. I realized that at the end of the day, my peace of mind depends on me and not on others and part of achieving peace of mind is sometimes learning to let go over the need to control and the need to be right.