“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.”Thic Nhat Hanh
You want to let go of the past once and for all.
You’ve tried every possible method of letting go of the past…except the spiritual one.
Can spiritual practitioners teach us spiritual steps for letting go of the past?
As I took my own journey of getting over my divorce and overcoming the past, I tried just about every method and practice to let go of the past.
I visited everyone from coaches and therapists to reiki practitioners and Vedic practitioners. I worked with shamans and astrologers.
Letting go of the past took me a very long time. Nothing seemed to work. As we talked about before, I had a long list of reasons as to why I should live in the past.
I loved it there.
You might have loved it there, too.
It was so comforting, welcoming and familiar.
Ultimately, through my spiritual pursuits over the years, I discovered the path to letting go and moving on.
I had been reading about these practices and principles over and over again.
I’d seen them in so many different places and heard about them from spiritual teachers and practitioners.
When I finally did cross over and let the past be the past, I reflected upon the many steps I’d taken to get to that point of letting go once and for all.
No, it didn’t take time to let go of the past; it took work. Letting go of the past took several steps.
It took spiritual steps that were hard to complete. As much as we talk about them, things like acceptance and forgiveness are hard work when you actually start trying to do them.
Yet, you can’t let go and move on until you walk through each of these steps to letting go of the past.
I studied many of the spiritual leaders and authors of our time and tried to reach a consensus as to the spiritual ways of letting go.
If you walk through these 12 steps, you, too, will be able to let go of the heavy burden of being stuck in the past and breathe lightly again.
This may take months or years; however, knowing what the journey looks like is the starting point.
Once you know what the journey looks like, you’ll know what step you’re on and how many steps you must walk through before you’re able to let go once and for all.
A whole new life is waiting for you once you burn your past in the spiritual fire.
The book details these spiritual steps to let go of the past. It explains each step in detail and helps you apply these principles to your daily life so you, too, can let go of the past that is no longer serving you and, instead, embrace the life awaiting you.
Here are 12 steps to let go of the past from my latest book, The Sacred Art of Letting Go.
Step 1 – the Step of Acceptance. You cannot move on until you acknowledge and accept what happened to you. In this step, Eckhart Tolle reminds us to allow life to just be; we should not judge it as good or bad. When you take away the heavy emotions of your past relationship and view the events objectively, you’re better able to accept what happened.
Step 2 – the Step of Releasing your feelings. In this chapter, both Pema Chodron and Ram Dass suggest ways to become curious and inquisitive about the strong feelings you’re experiencing. You can move on only when you find a way to process the emotional storm you’re feeling.
Steps 3 – the Step of Melting Anger. This walks you through ways to release anger towards – and resentment of – your ex. It gives you a myriad of ways to use the power of forgiveness to wash away the anger you carried with you when you left the relationship.
Step 4 – the Step of Choice. You’ll see how much is truly in your control and how you can take charge of the process of letting go. You are not a wind in the storm. You can proactively work on your healing. You have the power of choice. Use the power of reframing to see your situation and circumstances differently.
Step 5 – the Step of Learning. You’ll see how to turn your relationship and the past into learning. You’ll learn how to find wisdom in your pain and use this wisdom in your future relationships. Learn how to turn your ex from a soul enemy into a heart teacher.
Step 6 – the Step of Connectedness. You notice how your ego causes separation between you and your ex. You start to realize that if you saw people and relationships differently, as your ego wants you to see them, you’ll find yourself in conflict and resentment. If you apply this principle to your life, you can put yourself in other people’s shoes and let go of the pain sooner.
Step 7 – the Step of This Moment. I talk about ways to stop living in the past that no longer exists and, instead, to bring yourself into the present moment. I show you that no pain or conflict exists in this moment in front of you and I reveal why you should strive to be in this place. I provide exercises that help you live in the present moments of your life.
Step 8 – the Step of Going Within. You’ll learn the power of doing the inner work necessary to move on. This step helps you drop all outside pretenses and get more clarity on who you are. As you get to know yourself better, you’ll have a stronger ability to let go of past hurts and move on.
Step 9 – the Step of Soul Awakening. You learn how to remove the mask of the ego and get clearer on yourself. This is the process of burning or stripping away all those things you’re not so that you become more of who you are in a spiritual sense. This is the step of opening your soul. It’s about getting curious, discovering your soul’s calling and arriving at your essence.
Step 10 – the Step of Compassion. Here, you’ll learn how to radiate empathy and compassion for yourself and others. The longer you beat up yourself or blame your ex, the longer you’ll remain in the past. The sooner you figure out how to put yourself in other people’s shoes, extend compassion to yourself and others, and see your relationship in a new light, the sooner you’ll move on.
Step 11 – the Step of Strength. You will see how to use your weakest and lowest life experience, heartbreak and loss to your advantage. This step shows you how to use past experiences and loss to build your resiliency muscle. It also shows you how to use the power of your friendships and inner circle to get through the tough times.
Step 12 – the Step of Trust. Discover how to trust the process of letting go. This step reminds you that you can get through this but you’ll have to trust yourself and the process. It shows you that others have walked a similar path. It asks you to believe that letting go is possible and to take a leap of faith into a better place.
If you enjoyed learning about these principles, please consider checking out the book, which describes these steps in more detail and gives you concrete steps for letting go of the past and moving on.
If you’re stuck in the past and having trouble letting go, please pick up this book to help you get unstuck from the past and move on with your life. Learn from the spiritual and wisdom teachers of our times on how to spiritually let go of the pain of past relationships.
Thank you for your continued support of my writing and this blog. A small way to help my work is to pick up a copy of this book when it’s on sale.
“There comes a day when you realize turning the page is the best feeling in the world, because you realize there is so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on.” Zayn Malik
I hate endings.
I hate when the movie A Star is Born ends.
I hate when a lunch date ends.
I hate when a pot of Indian sambar in the fridge ends.
I hate when a cup of tart frozen yogurt I’m eating ends.
And, for sure, I hate when a relationship ends.
Like I said, I hate endings.
And when you hate endings, you try your hardest to hold onto the ending.
If it’s a movie, you can replay or rewind it.
If it’s a pot of delicious tofu curry, you can water it down and have more of it.
And if it’s a relationship, you can do one of two things.
You can prolong the end by trying your hardest to hold onto it, avoiding your partner’s attempt to break it off.
Or…you can simply end it and continue holding onto your relationship in your heart and soul.
You can hold onto the relationship in your mind and consciousness, replaying the highlights of that relationship over and over again.
When my relationship ended, I did all these things.
I stayed in the relationship way too long. We did every single thing we could to avoid breaking up…until it got to a breaking point.
And I continued to imagine that this relationship still existed even after I’d gotten out of it.
I replayed our trips to Lake Tahoe, our honeymoon to Kerala, our first trip to Las Vegas and Disneyland, our many conversations on Skype, my secret trip to India to visit her months after we met.
I continued replaying these memories because they felt good and when I had these memories, I felt good.
Like I mentioned last week, memories of the past are soothing and comfortable.
The past is like a cup of hot chocolate or a warm blanket as you sit by the fireplace on a rainy night.
Who would ever want to let go of these warm and comfortable memories?
Yet, to move on with my life, I had to find ways to do exactly that.
I had to let go of these memories so I could move on with my life!
Although it took years of reading, therapy, spiritual discoveries, meditation, learning and understanding, this concept helped me break through and shift away from the past.
It was this teaching about impermanence by the Buddhist teacher and poet, Thich Nhat Hanh:
“We are often sad and suffer a lot when things change, but change and impermanence have a positive side. Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Life itself is possible. If a grain of corn is not impermanent, it can never be transformed into a stalk of corn. If the stalk were not impermanent, it could never provide us with the ear of corn we eat. If your daughter is not impermanent, she cannot grow up to become a woman. Then your grandchildren would never manifest. So instead of complaining about impermanence, we should say, ‘Warm welcome and love live impermanence.’ We should be happy. When we see the miracle of impermanence our sadness and suffering will pass.”
This helped me realize that change and impermanence can be good things.
If life didn’t have endings, we couldn’t have beginnings.
Without winter, there would be no spring.
Without darkness, there would be no light.
Without night, there would be no dawn.
Once I learned this lesson from Thich Nhat Hahn and other spiritual teachers, I started looking at life in a different way.
I could slowly loosen my grip on my past relationship and my marriage because, in its dissolution, I would find discovery and the blooming of new relationships and love.
Growth, understanding, compassion and inner change will fill my life.
In the messiness and complications of a sad ending are the seeds for so many other things to come out of my life.
It was the moment when I realized that practicing law was no longer the thing for me to do.
It was the moment when I realized that I didn’t have to buy into and live the consumerist American dream that everyone around me was living.
It was the moment when I realized that profound spiritual lessons and truths were awaiting me.
So, really, the end was the beginning of change, understanding and growth.
The end was truly the beginning.
This was how I slowly transitioned to present-moment living.
A slow and growing realization that death and endings are the foundations of birth and beginnings.
The idea isn’t to stay stuck on a page. It’s to let go of things that no longer work so you can read the rest of the book.
As the above quote reveals, you can get to the good parts of the book only after you finish the parts that have kept you stuck.
Bottom line: So many good things can come your way but you won’t find them if you don’t let go of the past.
The beautiful thing is, you have the power of choice. You get to decide how to view the impermanence and changes that enter your life.
Not only did I walk this journey but I confirmed each of the 12 steps of that journey I took on the wisdom of spiritual masters and teachers.
These are not just my steps of walking back from the past to present-moment living. Rather, these are actions that teachers, old and new, have prescribed – everyone from the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh to Deepak Chopra and Ram Dass.
As comfortable as it may seem to remain in this space of living in the past, at some point you must give up this place and return the keys to its rightful owner: the past itself.
You may not have a new place to live yet but the future promises soul expansion, heart growth and new opportunities to fulfill your destiny.
A little uncomfortable but so worth it.
You can pick up The Sacred Art of Letting Go on June 1, 2019 on Amazon.
You don’t have to merely survive divorce if you’re going through one.
You definitely won’t be surviving divorce if you did divorce the charmed divorce way.
Leah Scott and Robin Sassi, bloggers and authors over at Charmed Divorce, wrote a book in 2017 that I’ve been reading over the years whenever I needed a shot of inspiration or a good laugh.
This book is like having a couple girl-friends giving you divorce advice over a glass of wine.
You’ll cry, you’ll laugh, and possibly forget you’re going through a divorce by the time you finish this book.
Interestingly, the two women start and end the book with the two words, “Get Laid”.
Now, this is in no way a sex book of any kind but the authors do stress the importance of sex in the first and last page of the book.
This is one sure way to have a charmed divorce, right? Lots of sex?!
Here are their other 10 tips on surviving your divorce charmingly well from the book Charmed Divorce.
10 ways to survive divorce charmingly well.
1. Taking care of yourself.
“How your body feels affects the way your mind operates and positive body conditioning is good for the soul. Working on yourself from the outside in is a way to feel good inside out.”
One of things that both women encourage is taking care of yourself and treating yourself well in divorce. They suggest an hour a day of self –care for your body, mind and soul. They say it’s time do whatever it takes to feel good even if you might be feeling lousy.
2. Appreciate the small stuff.
“With all the changes you are going through, life can appear overwhelming and unstable. Appreciating the small things will make the big things less daunting. Remember: small things. By small, we mean miniscule.”
They encourage showing appreciation for all the small things that are going right in your life. Remind yourself how good you have it. You may not be able to control the bigger things in your life but replace that with the tiny joy of everyday life.
3. Get through the hard stuff.
“Cry, stomp, rage, scream. Do these things and then be done with it. It is only when you process those emotions that you can move on with the right attitude. What is that attitude? You can get through this.”
You don’t have to run away from the hard stuff. Divorce will be the hardest thing you will be going through emotionally. Feel your feelings and experience the emotions to survive divorce. The women promise you that it does get better after you get through.
4. Declutter your life.
“Clutter that piles up in your mind will make it difficult to think clearly. It’s time to take inventory of your house and your mind. This will help you create your new life and new space. “
Decluttering will help you with the letting go process. First, clean out the physical stuff and then work on the mental stuff that is occupying your mind. Having less stuff will help you get more productive and feel more relaxed. You can fill your physical space and your mind with the things that bring you happiness.
5. Stay open-minded to new experiences.
“Make a list of things that you have thought about trying but never felt you had the time for. It could be a new type of food, class or social group.”
To get out of the rut of an unfulfilling marriage, try experiment and doing new things. The women suggest getting out of your comfort zone. Explore parts of yourself that were lying dormant. It’s time to live it up with adventure and change of routine.
6. Discover what you want to do with your life
“What better time than to start something new whether it’s a business idea, a new way of eating or exercising, or that craft you were always so good at making. ”
Be creative and explore what you’re passionate about in life. Reconsider if you’re career is something you enjoy doing or is it time to try something else. Consider starting that new business you had in mind. Try out different things that you feel drawn toward and start living a more passionate life. You are now free to.
7. Exercising bravery
“The fear you may feel come from anticipating the world without a partner. This is where you learn to be brave and discover that being alone is not the end of the world.”
They remind you that you’re going to have to find the courage to live a braver life. You’re going to have to do a whole bunch of things you don’t feel like doing after the marriage ends. This takes conscious effort, determination, and continually showing up for difficult and challenging situations.
8. Discover yourself
“This is the time to ‘date’ yourself. It’s time to take yourself to a movie, out to eat, or to some other event – alone.”
You need alone time post divorce to get to know yourself more. Only when you know yourself can you go forward and be in a better and healthier relationship. They recommend taking yourself out, eating and watching movies alone, to get to know yourself better.
9. Celebrate
“A ‘just divorced’ party is the celebration of the conclusion of the legal process of your divorce…Completing the divorce is a great reason to celebrate.”
You’ve reached a milestone and may have been stressed for the past few months or years while you survived divorce. No better way to celebrate, enjoy with friends and have a party!
10. Have great sex ?!
“It is time to enjoy your new life. What better way than to have some great sex? So go on, and get laid! You deserve the attention and pleasure.”
As I mentioned the women, start and end the book with this tip so there’s probably something to it. They recommend this because they say it’s time to start enjoying your new life. You deserve the attention and the pleasure.
The two authors have put a positive spin on the D-word in this book, Charmed Divorce. The women say that a charmed divorce is enjoying your new life post divorce, being strong and keeping a smile on your fact. They did it and remind you that you can too.
If you’re going through a divorce, do yourself a favor and pick up Charmed Divorce in the Amazon store today. You don’t have to simply survive divorce. You can get through it charmingly well.
I help people overcome their devastating breakups and divorces and find love again. Instead of visiting the Himalayas, sign up below and join me. I am taking a writing break but will be back soon.
This guide is free. A ticket to the Himalayas is $2000. Your move.
