Letting Go: The Art of Not Trying

The myth of perfection

Letting go was never a natural response for me, and for the greater part of my life I was always trying to reach a certain idea I had around success.  I tried to attain perfect health, the perfect lifestyle, perfect abundance, and the perfect relationship.  My life was hinged upon one thing… trying.  Trying to reach an unrealistic ideal of perfection. This way of living took a lot of energy and not only that, it became increasingly obvious that perfection was not happening.

Letting go

In 2010 things began to turn around.  The change came through the very opposite of trying, which was that of letting go. It was not that I didn’t want a great lifestyle, good health and so on, it was just that I began to let go of the need to have them in a certain way, or at a particular time.

I noticed that all the effort I put into trying, was in fact a distraction to my experience of life here and now.  Not only that but my need to control life was placing limits on the very goals I was trying to achieve.  While I was mentally formulating the way things ‘should’ go, the potential of the moment to manifest something wonderful was invisible to me.  Said another way, because I declared that things must go my way, I was missing out on the avenues for Life to give to me in even greater ways.  I lacked trust in the natural unfolding of Life.

But how do things get done without trying?

There’s a difference between trying and doing. One involves a master controller. To control life too much often results in meeting obstacles due to us becoming ‘out of sync’ with the natural harmony and flow of life. The ‘trying’ way of living, in my experience, is exhausting.

When we live from the present moment, however, there is an impulse from within that moves us to act.  This always occurs at precisely the right time. The ‘doing’ prompted by the in-tuition is of an effortless nature, because it has been prompted by the exquisite, invisible, mysterious flow of Life Itself.

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”

– John Lennon

Letting go means to meet life exactly where life is happening… here and now 

When we are truly letting go, it becomes easy to allow the full unfolding of each moment, as it is, not how we want it to be, or how we think it should be.

Allowance is the key to freedom

By letting each temporary thought, sensation, or emotion simply be, without judgement, it allows the stress that is associated to move through and out of the nervous system.  This creates a significant positive contribution to overall good health.

I can see some of the greatest things that occurred in my life have been the things that happened without a ‘me trying’.  It appears as though the less I try, the greater and more brilliantly life unfolds.

So practice a little less over planning, controlling, trying.  Why not instead play with cultivating a trust in pure mystery.  Observe life unfold, follow the momentary impulse to act, and be completely content with what is occurring NOW.

Meditation is a great tool for being comfortable with ‘not trying’.  It may seem opposite to the way we are taught, but try ‘not trying’ for yourself and see what happens.