Letting go is not the same as giving up

The holiday season is a time for all kinds of traditions. Some of them are ones that in themselves bring the spirit of the holiday season. Holiday traditions, preparations, and directing your thoughts toward a celebration is, in fact, much of what makes the holiday season so special.

However, some traditions carry a certain kind of burden on their shoulders. Things are done only because it is a “must”, an “expectation” or an “obligation”. Giving up any of them feels difficult and evokes a wide range of emotions - longing, guilt, insecurity - what will replace it if I let go of this? What if it’s something worse? Or if nothing comes to take its place?

Giving up can also feel like a failure: I couldn’t do everything that was expected of me. - But stop for a second and ask yourself; who expected? Quite often expectations we set on ourselves are actually our own.

And this thought process often doesn’t just apply to the holiday season.

Are you trying to finish every single thing on your task list before the end of the year too?

Sometimes our lives seem to be full of all sorts of demands: in addition to work, we have to find time and energy to study and to develop ourselves; cat hair needs to be vacuumed and stacks of paper have to be gone through before a friend can be invited to your home; triathlon workouts have to be done if they have been entered into the training program. Playing must be practised before going to guitar lessons, news must be watched and documentaries too. The wardrobe must be arranged according to colour codes, the toddler must be taken to a dance class, even if she is tired. Invitations and requests for assistance must be accepted.

And of course, the requirements do not shy away from your desk at work or home office either. After all, the world must get ready before the end of the year. The last great results must be shown before New Year if you want to advance your career early in the coming year. Projects need to be completed, summaries made and goals reached as if January never came.

Shall I continue? Maybe I don’t need to.

Things tend to work out for the best 

How would it feel to let go and trust that even if I skip a task or postpone it until later, everything will work out? The morning will come, the party will happen, there are plenty of opportunities and people will be here in the future too.

Perhaps there will actually be more room for all of this; for mornings when the day ahead with whatever is  happening actually feels like a pretty nice idea; for a celebration where the reason for the celebration is ultimately more important than the setting; work where many things are handled just as well with a little less effort; people for whom we are good enough just as we are.

One of my wonderful clients once voiced their insight wisely: What if letting go is not a surrender but a way to give something new more room - something that does good for oneself and is therefore actually more important.

So, what if?

The idea of ​​letting go can be explored in Auntie's Overachiever, Stressed Out and Lost In Transition packages, for example.