What are you holding onto?

2nd July 2022

Recently I have been experiencing pain in both of my hands. This has seemingly come from nowhere and I am hoping it goes again soon.  However, I have found this aching in my hands pretty debilitating on a daily basis, some days it is pretty constant and can get worse.  A sort of dull, numbing ache, that does not stop me from getting my jobs done, but just sits there in the background feeling uncomfortable.  I realised the other day that this continuous aching was also causing me quite a high level of fatigue, but it was only when my partner asked me how I was towards the end of a working day earlier this week, that I realised how exhausted and irritable this aching was making me.  It was in that moment when someone was genuinely interested and listening to me that I was able to be honest with myself about how I was actually feeling, this aching in my hands was causing me a level of distress that I was stubbornly tolerating and pushing through, and beginning to accept as part of my daily life.

This moment of stopping and observing allowed me to think about things from a wider perspective.  I looked at my hands, twiddled my fingers, touched and pressed them against each other and I turned my palms upwards to face me. As I turned my palms to face me, I felt it, I felt the weight.

‘These are my hands, so what am I holding onto?’ 

‘What am I holding onto here that is making me ache, feel exhausted and irritable and that I am tolerating because it has become part of my daily life?’

Phew! That landed for me with a bang! Boom!

I soon realised that there are a lot of things that I have been holding onto at the moment, things that I have had my grip around very tightly. These are the things I have always been holding onto for years and never thought to put down.  I have never even thought to at least take a look at them, let alone prize them away from my tight grip.

These things that I have been holding onto so tightly are beliefs, beliefs about how life works, and about how I succeed in life.  

A handful of them on any given day may include:

• the harder you work, the more you will achieve;

• say ‘yes’ to every opportunity;

• if you have a good job you are lucky and would be foolish to change that;

• put in more hours and you will get better results

• people will think you are lazy if you do not give 110%

As I read back through that list, I can see that every one of those beliefs has been extremely useful to me in my life.  I have worked hard to achieve what I have; I have said ‘yes’ to so many opportunities, even the scary ones; I have stuck in difficult jobs when times were hard to make ends meet; I have put more hours in then anyone else and seen the positive results from that and people know that if I commit to something I will go all in and that makes me a great person to have on a team, or to trust to get a job done.

These beliefs have, in fact, been fantastic for me, so why am I thinking that I need to let some of them go, or at least relax my grip on them?  

Because what served us in the past may not be what serves us now.  Because there are many ways to get things done.  Because all of these things, which may have been extremely useful to me in the past were now causing me to ache, feel exhausted and be irritable.  They were no longer serving me, they were causing me pain and distress, and were stopping me from progressing further in my current chapter in life.  

When we want our lives to change for the better, when we go after that dream or take our purpose to the next level it can cause what we value in life to change, it can require our mindset to shift, it can mean taking a new perspective on things.

It is usually scary and challenging, but what is the alternative…   tolerating the pain, the aching and daily discomfort of the status quo?

It’s a funny one, letting things go.  As humans, we love things to be clear cut and binary.  Things are good or bad, right or wrong, true or false.  However, in this case there are no binaries.  These beliefs have been bloody awesome for me, but I have outgrown them now and they no longer fit me, they do not work and are actually causing me pain and discomfort.  

Can you imagine still trying to wear the clothes you wore when you were 10 years old?  They were great then, but no use to you at all now and the thought of trying to fit into them is impossible.  Well, it’s the same with letting go of some of our beliefs or ‘life rules’ – they may have fitted us really well then, but they don’t anymore and it’s time to let them go.  

Marie Kondo (the ‘Queen of Tidying Up’), has some great wisdom when it comes to letting things go.  When clearing out the house and getting rid of things she suggests we thank each item that we no longer need and are getting rid of.  I think this is applicable to our beliefs,  let’s thank them, have some time to remember everything that they helped us with and then let them go, unfurl that tight grip and watch them drop.

This reminds me of the apple trees we have in the garden.  At this time of the year the apples are growing fast, however we have noticed a number of small apples on the ground in the last week.  At this crucial point in growth apple trees will shed some of the fruit.  They do this so that they can give the goodness, nutrients and space to the remaining fruit in order for it to grow to it’s optimum size and flavour.  The apple trees let go of what they no longer need and that which is hampering the overall growth of the tree and its fruit.  

Letting go helps them grow. 

My hands are feeling a little better these last couple of days.  I will still go to the GP to get them looked at.  But I will be paying more attention in future to what I am holding on to and what I am choosing to let go of.

What about you, is there anything you need to let go of?