Worsening Unrequited Love.
The feeling of obsessive jealousy is extremely unpleasant, but you cannot do anything about it until you accept that you are jealous of people who are closer than you are to your object of desire! Accepting it requires a lot of courage, and mostly you are not even willing to do it. Hence, you continue to be jealous, making the situation worse, like driving your partner farther away. As discussed in my blog Therapeutic Unrequited Love, apart from jealousy, there are several other situations and feelings that we need to let go of. This requires delving into the unpleasantness of our emotions and learn our own secrets. Ask ourselves some questions and get some unpleasant answers.
One thing that is pretty certain is that you are not going to let go of a person or a situation unless you are ready for it. And you are probably not going to be ready before you understand what is really going on inside you that keeps you holding on. The above jealousy example illustrates the most probable answer to why you are holding- You perceive a need for something. Thus, the first thing that needs to be done is to uncover your needs. Particularly as they relate to whatever it is that is giving you discomfort, creating an experience of unpleasantness. Understand that you are searching for something outside of yourself to complete your sense of self. You do not feel whole and then you mistakenly look outside of yourself for someone to make you whole. The important point to understand here is that since you are already whole, but only think you’re not, this search does not work. I have always said in my blogs that finding love in someone who doesn’t want to reciprocate the feeling is looking beyond the universe, because you are the universe; everything is within you. The best relationship is your relationship with yourself. The best experiences in life manifest with the highest levels of self-love and self-esteem.
So, very often a process of letting go begins with a process of digging within yourself and uncovering your fears or insecurities. This leads to understanding. You know you feel a need, yes, but is the reasoning behind this feeling sound? Probably not. In fact, it probably stems back to your early childhood, and hopefully things in your life and your level of understanding are somewhat different now. But you are still acting on the basis of a strategy you devised when you were, say, 2 years old. And unconsciously you are still busy believing in this strategy and in the reasoning behind it.
Letting go is a state of mind, a state of being, and this is completely a matter of practice and habit. So, as time goes by and you practice the concept of letting go, it becomes much easier to do so. Let’s say you are experiencing an unpleasant thought- my boss hates me. Now, you need to let go of this thought in order to attain peace of mind. Put the thought into words for yourself; speak it out, or write it down in your diary. For example- my boss hates me because I am not good at my work. Repeat the thought to yourself, several times, emphasising your belief in it, like- my boss totally hates me; my boss hates me utterly and completely etc.
Now answer this question: What lies behind or beneath that thought? Is it probably another unpleasant thought, or perhaps an unpleasant feeling? Perhaps, you really believe that you are a failure? Now repeat the underlying thought to yourself, several times, emphasising your belief in it, like- I am a total failure; I am utterly and completely a failure etc.
Now add a reason to it and repeat the process – I am a failure because I never studied and never learned to please people like my boss. Now add to this why you never studied or learned to please your boss? Probably because you were too careless or lazy? Add this to the sentence and repeat the process. Keep adding information and sentences until you reach clarity.
That’s it. You’re done. Your boss hates you because you are a failure because you never learned to please him because you were too careless about your career! Now let go of the thought and move on. Do better the next time!
I hope this article helps in understanding the method of letting go. I am going to come back with more examples, so please keep looking out for my newer posts!