What is so difficult about letting go, moving on? Larry Easto New Business facilitator and author of over 30 books shares why in his recently launched new book “New Beginnings & New Opportunities
My Review:
Very early in my career, I had the opportunity of practicing law in a small town. In total honesty, that was one of the most significant and formative periods of my life.
After many years of doing much the same kind of work with much the same kind of people, I began to feel that I was running out of growing room. Through total happenstance, I attended a weekend workshop focused on creation spirituality, conducted by Matthew Fox, then a Dominican priest.
The workshop was nothing short of a game changer in my life. The key takeaway was my introduction to the now popular concept of letting go. From the perspective of creation spirituality, letting go is about letting go of something familiar to make room for something newer, hopefully better.
By way of example, think of the process of letting go in nature. At the end of a growing cycle, perennial plants, that live for more than two years, start to let go their foliage. In effect, they are letting go of the current year’s foliage in order to make way for the new leaves to follow in the next growing cycle.
It’s like letting go of our drab winter clothing to make room for our fresh new spring wardrobe.
From my first introduction to the concept of letting go, the concept has totally resonated with me. It resonated with me so much that my most recent book include the phrase in its subtitle.
It was early in our discussion of this book on his Café and Networking podcast when Tom Reaoch raised the question of why it is so hard to let go and move on. What makes this such a great question is that it is the single biggest obstacle that most of us face in making the transformation from where we are to where we want to be.
Drawing upon the wisdom of experts in the field of human behavior, I suggested that the fundamental problem lies in our ego mind. This is the part of our mind that primarily acts as our guardian angel, protecting us from harm.
From experience, we have learned the absolute best place to avoid or otherwise prevent harm is to remain tucked safe and sound smack dab, in the middle of our comfort zone. The closer we get to the edge of our comfort zones, the closer we get to the biggest boogey man of all time—the fear of the unknown.
As a result of this fear, many people are reluctant to let go. Unfortunately this fear of whatever factors might be unknown also prevents us from or otherwise limits new growth and development. As a result, instead of enjoying the benefits of new and improved ways of doing things, we continue to do what we’ve always done. With our planned activities recorded on a paper calendar on the desk at home, it’s difficult to plan future events with friends over lunch at a restaurant.
During this discussion of fear as an obstacle to letting go, Tom suggested that many people simple don’t know what they want. Not only is this observation absolutely true, it’s exactly what keeps many people doing that they have always done—and getting the results they have always gotten.
One of my joys of creating my new book was to consolidate some very intriguing ideas.
What’s even better than this process is discussing the ideas with insight hosts like Tom Reaoch.
Another great conversation Tom—thank you so much.
To check out this conversation, click here.