Letting It Go

Here is a list of common ways many people experience distress. They don’t necessarily mean your energy is frozen in these spots. They are just suggestions about where to start looking for the hidden energy resources that are either not flowing or stuck in the wrong place.

• Repeatedly forgetting to do something you intend to do.

• Having strong feelings about something that other people don’t consider a problem.

• Procrastinating—about anything.

• Having a headache.

• Having some belief you hold about yourself or someone else that doesn’t make much sense but you can’t seem to let it go.

• Avoiding making a phone call or having a conversation.

• Feeling your stomach churn whenever you think about something.

• Experiencing tightness or tension in some part of your body.

• Feeling stress whenever you think about a particular problem.

• Feeling anxious or scared (they are pretty much the same feeling) and either knowing or not knowing why you feel that way.

When you experience any of these things it often means that just a moment or a millisecond before you experience them you have been reminded in some way of a time when you felt unresourceful or overwhelmed sometime in the past.

You don’t need to worry about what reminded you. That can be very subtle like a passing smell, a fragment of a song, seeing a familiar shape—even someone who reminds you of someone who is no longer a part of your life. If you do recognize the trigger, great! If you don’t, it does not really matter.

The Answer Can Be Obvious

Here is one situation where someone reclaimed energy without any knowledge of the original problem situation.

I once heard a friend say how scared she felt about some planned, necessary surgery. I imagined that she was frightened about the operation itself or the anesthesia or her recovery time. I asked, “What are you the most scared about?” Her answer surprised me. She was most scared about spending so much money on herself. She did not hesitate to spend similar amounts on other members of her family.

I suggested that she experiment with saying the sentences with the target, “this belief that I don’t deserve to spend money on myself.” She did. A few days later I asked if she was still scared about spending money on the surgery and she shrugged and said, “It will be whatever it is.” She did not even seem to remember how scared she had been. She had the procedure and recovered quickly.

If there was some incident in her past that was connected to spending money on herself, she never explored what it was. She simply recovered the energy frozen into dreading the upcoming operation.

Try This Yourself

• Think of something that is draining your energy right now. (Choose from the list above.)

• Let your imagination flow and notice what you feel, think, imagine doing, and/or picture.

• How do you suppose those things are connected?

Does this help you see what might be triggering your distress?

We’ll talk more about how others have done this in Chapter 6.