It’s pretty common these days for people to talk about sitting with a feeling or allowing “negative” thoughts without resisting them. It is in the zeitgeist, whereas just 10-15 years ago you hardly ever heard it.
It’s great that it is more common to hear the wisdom of “let it be” more universally spoken. But, at times, things that are widespread also get diluted. We think this might be one of them. Letting things be is very different than just ignoring them. It is our hunch that sometimes folks are using the wisdom of “allowing” and “letting be” as a way to avoid truly dealing with a challenging emotion or situation.
How can you tell the difference? Letting things be does not mean that we start feeling good. In fact, sitting with those challenging emotions sometimes can be quite unnerving. However, when we let the feeling be, peace is the usual result. One way to tell if you are suppressing something versus letting it be is how disturbed you become when you are reminded of it. If you've been trying to keep it out of your consciousness (suppressing) then most likely being reminded of it will feel quite agitating. On the other hand when we are letting something be, it can remain in our consciousness and we get more and more comfortable with the feelings it evokes.
It can be quite challenging to experience something uncomfortable and not think you should be doing something to change it or stop it entirely. When we face something difficult, we quickly look for relief. Which is why, letting it be, is such a challenge.
Letting it be does not mean not doing something about it, it means not distracting yourself from the experience and feelings you are having. It also means not picking at it, like a scab. It means what it says it means…letting it just be, without doing anything to it.
Pay attention to yourself. Can you start distinguishing the experience of letting something be versus suppressing how you feel? The downstream effects are profound if you can start practicing letting things be more consistently.
To letting it be,
