Letting Go of Heaviness

A lot of the people I work with feel a lot of heaviness in what they’re taking on — whether it’s work, their finances, relationships, health, etc.

We often don’t even realize we have heaviness about something — but other people can feel it if we talk to them about it. Things feel really hard, overwhelming, discouraging, frustrating, pointless.

If you’re feeling heaviness about something … that’s OK! You’re human, and you are allowed to have heavy emotions. Giving ourselves full permission to feel whatever we feel is a powerful way to be.

That said … what if you’d like to experience life in a different way? What if you’d like to make things feel easier, more empowered, more inspired, more on purpose?

This might require us to let go of the heaviness — not because it’s bad or wrong, but because it’s not serving us in creating the life we want.

Let’s talk about how to let go.

Start with Being with Heaviness

Ironically, it’s pretty much impossible to let go of something if we think there’s something wrong with it. If you think something about you (like heaviness) sucks, then you’ll try to let go of it, but it won’t work. It’ll just dig its heels in even harder.

That’s because it’s a part of us. Fear is a part of who we are as humans, as are emotions like frustration, disappointment, discouragement, pointlessness. We try to disown those parts of us because we don’t like them, and can’t be with them. So it’s like wishing you didn’t have a brain or a heart — pretty hard to get rid of them!

So we start by just letting ourselves be with the emotions that are there when heaviness shows up. Can we allow them to be there? Welcome them? Bring curiosity? What about love? This is shifting how we relate to these heavy emotions.

Only once we’ve practiced with this, and can accept these emotions, can we practice creating something different.

Catching It in the Moment

It’s important to practice noticing the heaviness when it shows up. If you can catch it when it’s happening, then you can work with it.

If you notice it … first, practice just being with it, bringing curiosity, bringing love, like we discussed in the section above.

But then, you can decide if you’d like to choose something different. In the moment, if you’re aware you’re in the heaviness, you can decide if you’d like to let it go and choose something fresh.

We’ll talk about that in the next section below, but it’s important to remember that it happens in the moment — so catch it when it happens!