Featured Fundamism: Let it Go!

We've all had heartache in life. Negative experiences can plague us and even drive future behaviors that create additional pain or suffering. If you are currently or have ever battled depression, struggle to see the good in life, or find yourself consistently living in the past, this featured Fundamism may be for you. Letting it go will allow you the opportunity to focus more on where you're headed as opposed to where you've been. 

You are awesome. You have awesome traits and CAN experience more awesome in your life. So Let it Go, have FUN, and enjoy reading our Featured Fundamism.

WHAT:

Release yourself of negative thoughts, anxiety or depression created by previous experience or heartache (Let it Go)

WHY:

It is an unfortunate, but true fact that we humans are plagued by negativity throughout our daily lives. Whether office politics, community problems, a fellow driver with a bad case of road rage, or a more personal issue has got you down, negativity is an unavoidable fact of life. Fortunately for us, we have a choice. We can choose not to get mired in it and refocus our energy on happier things. We can choose to be forgiving instead of petty, cheerful instead of whiny, and we can move on instead of dwelling on adversity. This is a multi-faceted fundamism because in practice, it incorporates both internal and external adjustments to your attitude. It requires you to stop indulging the part of your brain that wants to relive or obsess about bad things and talk yourself in to letting it all go. This fundamism, in short, is about being the bigger person with other people and when necessary, yourself!

Releasing negativity can change the tone of your day, and in effect, your life. You will be able to enjoy work, social outings and basic errands a whole lot more if you can learn to ignore people’s bad attitudes and silence the discouraging noise the world is throwing at you. Self-talk is an important component of exercising this fundamism properly. Patterns of negative self-talk are generally something that can begin as early as childhood. Not only do they serve as a vehicle for depression and self-defeat, but they can actually decrease our productivity. So it stands to reason that if we change the pattern of chatter going on inside us, we can see real results in how we experience life on the outside.

HOW:

First, it is important to recognize how often you are contemplating or even anticipating bad things to happen over the course of a day. Once you have identified the frequency with which you incorporate these debilitating thoughts, you can begin the process of mitigating their control over you. I am of the opinion that if you say something enough, you can talk yourself into believing it. Therefore, the more you tell yourself bad things are going to happen, the more you experience bad things happening! Often times, great things are happening all around and you don’t even notice because you’ve trained your brain to expose only negativity.

So how do you change? We first need to replace those negative thoughts with positive ones. Take notice of how you are phrasing things and make note of them in a journal. Are you using a lot of phrases like “I can’t, I won’t or I don’t”? Turn those negative statements into motivating questions. For instance, “I can’t do this” can be changed to “How can I do this?” If negative self-talk is creating outcomes that generate misery, rephrasing statements to drive a more positive mindset is key to delivering a different life experience.

Another important aspect of this fundamism is letting go of things that persistently plague you. While past experience can be a powerful learning tool in avoiding previous mistakes, it is hard to move forward if you’re consistently looking in the rearview mirror. Life is full of challenges. Some are far worse than others. Whether you’ve experienced the terrible loss of a loved one, a traumatic event, made a terrible decision, had a fallen out with a friend or anything else that is consistently weighing heavily on your mind, you have to let it go. Take time to grieve, think about what you learned from the experience, even provide yourself time to appreciate the greatness that was offered as a result of that individual or situation and then LET IT GO!

Think about one individual you haven’t communicated with in a while. They were once a close friend, family member or someone with whom you enjoyed interacting. For some reason, you stopped. You had a disagreement, they said something you didn’t like or something came between you. Let it go. Pick up your phone right now and drop them a line. Text, call or email this individual and tell them you’re thinking of them and the joy they once brought to your life. Do so without expectation of how, if, or when they respond and feel the release of an old hurt.

In closing, there is no way to avoid negativity all together. However, if you practice the Let It Go fundamism, confine these negative experiences to short-term memory and incorporate some positive self-talk, you’ll be in awe how differently you’ll experience life. So LET IT GO ALREADY!