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IDEA TO ACTION QUOTE: One problem with gazing too frequently into the past is that we may turn around to find the future has run out on us - Michael Cibenko
 I imagine that if you tied a rock to your ankle and walked around it would be mighty uncomfortable. At least, until you got used to it, because you can. Much like lugging a heavy bag around. You don't realise how heavy it is until you put it down. This is what happens when you have issues you would do better to let go of.
While you are carrying them around, it feels much like the rock around your ankle, or the heavy bag. And if you have been shouldering them around a long time, you may have forgotten what it feels like to be free. Letting go gives you freedom to be you.
What does it look like?
It might mean pulling out all those old and beautiful clothes that don't fit you anymore because you are now 10 kilos heavier than you used to be. Pull them out and give them to a worthy cause.
It might mean visiting your mother's grave and telling her you have been angry enough at the way she neglected you, and now you are ready to move on. It may be packing up that room that belonged to your beloved who is never coming back.Perhaps it's a simple as deleting an ex's number from your phone. Or looking your child in the eye and saying "I am going to be the best parent to you, no matter what kind of parenting I had".
As the following affirmation by Larry James says, you are not your past, nor does letting go mean you are giving up:
"I know that the only thing I lose when I let go of something I am afraid to live without is the fear itself. I am stronger than anything that frightens me! I let go of the past, and I am free to think clearly and positively in the present. I am not my past. Letting go is the natural release which always follows the realization that holding on is an energy drain and it hurts. Letting go does not mean giving up."
What will letting go get you? This paragraph from Kubler-Ross and Kessler in Life Lessons sums it up:
"There is a wonderful freedom in knowing that who we were yesterday does not absolutely define who we are now.....many of us wake up every morning and shower, washing off yesterday's dirt, yet still carrying around yesterday's emotional stuff. It doesn't have to be that way. We can become new and begin anew......When we are not living in the present we don't really see each other or ourselves. And if we are not living in the moment we cannot find happiness."
Today you have a choice to start the rest of your life without baggage from the past. You have a choice to let go.
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