The Little Book of Letting Go. Hugh Prather

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      Meanwhile, the anxious or judgmental line of thought continues, and, eventually, we give up and resort to just enduring the distress, hoping it will soon run its course. In this way we spend hours or days in an unhappy frame of mind.

      Even then it's not over. As soon as one thing we are concerned about or smoldering over is finished, another upset takes its place. This dynamic is one of a thousand reasons that learning to let go is fundamental to our happiness and peace of mind.

      Once you prove to yourself that any distressing line of thought can be released in the present, the problem then becomes that three minutes, an hour, or a day from now, the thought comes back.

      Where does it come from?

      Any thought that distresses us is a product of our polluted, conflicted mind, which from time to time I will also refer to as “the ego.” The ego part of us wants to distinguish itself from other people. Its goal is to be set apart, different, and unequal, and it correctly sees connection as its mortal enemy. Worry thoughts and attack thoughts create a sense of isolation. The longer we pursue them, the more cut off we feel, thereby fulfilling the aim of our ego.

      Therefore, to permanently let go of a distressing line of thought, we must set a goal of connection and mental wholeness and make that more important than our ego goal of separation.

       Plan out what your response will be the next time your ego offers you the line of thought.

      You want the response you set in place to be very brief and direct. You will interrupt the thought and you will … surround in light the person about whom you have been having revenge fantasies. Or say to yourself, “I put the future in God's hands.” Or think about how funny the new kitten is. Or picture divine light filling and cleansing your mind.

      Once again, any thought that is in some way loving, happy, or peaceful is sufficient, because it contains connection, and your ego does not want you focusing on connection.

       Decide to be sincere. Say to yourself, “No matter how many times my ego brings up this thought, I will respond as I have planned. I will out-endure my ego. If it brings this up a thousand times, I will respond one thousand and one times.”

      Once your ego sees that, for example, you are going to hold the person in light whenever it suggests that you think of her or him in a distancing or separating way, it will stop bringing up this line of thought. Perhaps it will test your sincerity a few more times, but this particular form of distress will fade away surprisingly quickly once you take a permanent stand.

      The procedure I have outlined for stopping a distressing line of thought does work as neatly and consistently as I have implied. Yet I want you to know that I often have trouble applying it. This is not because it's in any way a complex or tiring procedure, but because I am conflicted about actually giving up the line of thought.

      Whether the thought is one of worry or judgment, all distressing thoughts come from our desire to be separate, to be right, to stand apart, and so on. This desire is stronger in us than our desire to be whole, connected, and at peace; otherwise, these struggles would never arise in the first place. When I see that I am not consistently applying the above steps—identify the thought; interrupt the thought; think of a subject of connection; put in place a plan for when the thought returns—I have found that I save time if I take a moment to consciously realize that I do indeed want to stop using my mind to torture myself, shatter my peace, and put myself in a mental position where I am of no use to those I love. Above all, I must become clear that I want to look upon the people involved in the line of thought with gentleness and understanding rather than with censure. This may not be easy if I am angry with them. It always boils down to the question I can only answer for myself: Do I in fact want to walk toward God, toward Love, or, through justification and judgment, away from God?

      Attitude 2: Failure to worry is risky, if not dangerous.

      The general assumption is that if you are “a happy camper” today, tomorrow “the other shoe will drop.” “Happy-go-lucky” is the same as “devil-may-care”—and we all know what happens to those who don't worry (care) about the devil. The word happy itself is sometimes used as a substitute for “reckless,” “crazy,” or “lacking good sense,” as in “slap-happy,” “power-happy,” “divorce-happy.” Many children were raised hearing this cautionary theme in stories such as the parable of the silly grasshopper who enjoyed summer versus the wise ant who spent summer collecting food for winter (then had the self-righteous pleasure of refusing to help the starving grasshopper!).

      Furthermore, we all grew up seeing—and more importantly, feeling—our moms and dads worry about their weight, the weather, insurance, bank balances, and a hundred other concerns. Most school-age kids, having parents who are too careless or insensitive to shield them from their fights, and who already know many kids with step- or single parents, worry about whether their own parents are going to divorce. This can become a particularly deep-rooted and debilitating worry because it relates to safety, self-esteem, and survival. For this and many other reasons, most of us begin our adult years with the basic fear that nothing is reliable, not even our home.

      Not only is worrying fanned through parental insensitivity, most parents aggressively teach their children that they should and must worry—about how much or little they eat, about catching an endless list of diseases, about whether they can trust their own basic nature or common sense (“I can't let you out of my sight,” “You don't care about anyone but yourself”), and about “too much junk food,” “certain people,” bad grades, and on and on.

      Moreover, as children we were given grounds for a basic all-pervasive worry through every “Are you sure?” question we were asked:

      “Are you sure that's the water gun you want to buy? This green one will last longer.”

      “Are you sure you want to invite Ian to your birthday party? Remember, he didn't invite you to his.”

      “Are you sure you don't need to study for the parts-of-a-flower test? You don't want to end up pumping gas for a living.”

      “Are you sure he/she's the right one for you, dear? You don't want to start dating again after you've lost your looks.”

      Even though our propensity to worry comes primarily from our childhood interactions with our parents, other sources contribute mightily. The underlying sense that it's good to worry is part of our overall culture. In the West, we join together daily to hear endless reports of problems with no thought of seeking solutions ourselves. Drinking in the problems is satisfying enough, and the media knows it.

      Religion, which should foster comfort and healing, can promote worry, if not terror. Ministers, priests, and rabbis often use fear to sell doctrine and increase contributions. Even many twelve-step groups try to motivate through fear.

      Clearly, our educational system fosters anxiety as well. Our schools set impossible goals, all the while dispensing “consequences” for a bewildering array of “inappropriate” behaviors. Grades K through 12 have multiple and, in many ways, conflicting aims: responsibility, socialization, selfesteem, environmental consciousness, creativity, racial pride, drug awareness, time management, and the like. Homework assignments are constructed to reflect so many different values that most kids don't know what the teacher expects. Teachers themselves vary widely in how they want to influence their kids because the textbooks and curriculums they are handed contain complex and confusing compromises.

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