Letting go of material possessions is one thing, but letting go of experiences is a whole different ball game.
I can remember one time I had to move in with a good friend of mine for a period of time. We both go way back to secondary school, but because of stress from the university, we had been distant for a while.
During the period I moved in, we managed to catch up on each other's lives, and I came to find out that she had been in an abusive relationship. After finding out, I pretty much went through the five stages of grief, except I got stuck on “anger.”.
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I felt so sad and angry for her. I was sad to know that she had been going through something like that, and I had no knowledge. And I knew the guy too. The idea ruminating in my mind was to hit up a couple male friends of mine and maybe mobilize them to help me give her boyfriend a "visit.”.
That’s by the way though; I bring this up to say that even after everything she told me he did to her and all the advice I gave her, plus the ones I’m sure other people gave to her as well,.
Guess what? She still kept in touch with the dude and was hell bent on justifying his actions! Talk about trauma bonds.
My point is, people get really attached to experiences, most likely because they evoke huge feelings in them. And our brain craves familiarity. So whether the feelings or the experiences have a negative impact on our lives or not, the brain will continue to seek them out because they are familiar.
If I were to address this with a friend of mine, I would first advise them to seek professional help by going to therapy. Therapy is a great way to take care of the psyche and mental health. It is the perfect place to start because a therapist is well equipped to help you gain clarity, thereby aiding you in figuring out the root of the problem.
But let’s face it, therapy is neither easily accessible nor affordable where I come from. So if that option didn’t work, I would suggest detaching and starting small.
I believe that the practice of detaching is crucial to being able to let things go.
To detach means to cut off all emotional connection to an entity. The reason one might feel stuck with some material things is because they are still attached to them. So snipping off any emotional ties that one might have would be a great strategy.
And when doing this, we would want to start small. For example, start with the stuff you don’t exactly care about or the experience that has you feeling indifferent. Detach from the shoes that you’ve been promising yourself you would wear next Christmas holiday. Honey, you know you won’t wear those things till the second coming of Christ.
You can let go and stop thinking about the fancy restaurant your ex took you to that one time; he is your ex for a reason. It’s time to mentally detach.
Slowly but surely, if you begin to detach from the stuff that doesn’t matter much, you will begin to gradually detach from the ones that do mean a whole lot but also need to go.
The last thing one could do simultaneously would be to pick up a new hobby. The importance of this is to provide a distraction. At some point, letting go of things might become painful and sad. But if you keep yourself occupied with an uplifting activity, you might not notice the full extent to which it hurts.
I sincerely hope that these points help the people who need them the most. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to stay stuck in an unfavorable situation.
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This is my participation in this week's #Kiss blog prompt in The Minimalist Community
