The less I try to force things, have perceptions about how things should be, look for specific outcomes or assume I need to do everything brilliantly, the easier everything seems to just flow. Doing park run no matter how fast I am, is better than not doing it because I won’t beat my personal best or because I’m at the back of the pack. If we just did things rather than thinking through the end result, would that make things easier? Would it mean we are more likely to try a few new things? I think it’s one of the hardest things to ‘practice’, but when I stop rushing and let go a little, everything feels a little better.
I’m just back from 5 days in glorious tropical north Queensland, Australia. It was the most amazing time for me to practice the whole idea of letting go. Mostly letting go of how things ‘should’ be. Let me give you some examples.
For starters the accommodation for most of it was through my holiday club so it was free (another long story for another day about letting go of stupid decisions). It was really quite nice. But it had nothing on the usual fancy pants place I stay at which has a private spa on your balcony, 3 pools and a swim up pool bar. I admit I was a little bummed out about this. My head told me this holiday wasn’t going to be as good. But when I chose to let go of that thought because it was really going to ruin the whole holiday (what a waste) and just feel grateful that I’m on holiday some great things happened. We had the pool to ourselves 90% of the time. It felt like a huge decadent luxury to have our own big ‘private’ pool. The pools at the fancy pants place are so much busier. The ground floor didn’t thrill me either – not too much privacy. But honestly there was hardly anyone outside and it was about a 25m walk to the pool. So much better than everyone upstairs who had to wait for a lift to get to the pool. We quickly came to love that. It’s the most swimming I think I’ve ever done in my life.
Where we stayed is also a much bigger walk to the main restaurants. But how brilliant is it meandering to dinner, walking along the entire beach? It really relaxes you and makes you feel better for moving your body instead of just sitting and eating. Turned out to be a bonus.
So accommodation is one example. Another with me is expectations around food, only having the very best and my fear of missing out. I have a very very favourite restaurant in this place. Last holiday I ate there every single day (yes I do get a little over obsessed with food). Being with someone else who really enjoys food, but isn’t obsessive, meant he naturally wanted to check out lots of different places. There was that slight niggling sensation of feeling I was missing out on incredible food when we were eating somewhere else. But when I let go, we really did have some great food. And found a very glorious new chardonnay we both loved. And we constantly walked into places and got the BEST table without a booking– so so so many times. I kept feeling the pressure of the little voice in my head to choose and book to get the best experience. But when we just went for a walk, decided on the spot, some seriously beautiful things happened. Letting go lets the goodness in I’m firmly starting to believe. When I stop expectations about what I want/need/should have, I get so many unexpected surprises.
I also got sick for a day which was interesting. Unwell stomach. It could’ve been so many things – way more tap water than I usually drink, lots of rich food, hot weather, a little too much sun, being over excited – but when I sat and thought about it I think it was also about letting go. A reminder to focus on letting go. Because I think we hold on tight through our digestion system. Being sick slowed me down and meant more reading, sitting around on the grass and having naps. Not at all unpleasant activities!
I also realised if we stayed at the fancy pants place I can’t imagine we would’ve sat on the grass next to the beach reading, drinking wine, feeling the breeze, listening to the waves, actually doing nothing. Doing nothing. What a new thing for me. What a huge treat. What a luxury. What a wonderful self care activity. So something that seemed ‘not as good’ turned out to be better in more ways than one.
It was quite windy – we didn’t get to go kayaking. Letting go of the expectation of that allowed us to unexpectedly do the most incredible long long walk down the beach further than I’ve ever been before. We found a gorgeous hidden retreat where we popped in for a scone and tea. We’ll be going back to stay there. Sensational. Add in their tiny beach shack pizza oven place right on the beach which looked like something straight out of an Elvis Hawaiian movie and I’m very excited about being there on a weekend to enjoy it. It screamed 50th birthday party to me. But we wouldn’t have ever found this without the wind.
And of course there is letting go of wanting a perfect body when you are holidaying in the tropics. Which is daft because no one has a perfect body. It’s a stupid ideal. This might sound odd to say about yourself but I really do have a great body and am very grateful for it. I’m healthy, I eat well, I exercise and I’m generally fairly kind to it. But there are things I don’t like. It’s normal. I’m trying to send those parts more love. We may look at others and think they look perfect but we all know those people don’t believe it themselves. In funny news turned out there were no full length mirrors where we were staying. So I let my wonderful boyfriend tell me I looked amazing and gorgeous in my bikini and BELIEVED it. Because why not? It was easier – it felt good. Let’s love what is good about us. It feels so much better enjoying swimming and laughing, than spending the time thinking about all our perceived faults and worrying that other people are thinking bad thoughts about how we look.
So a week of really trying to be aware of when I was trying to force things to be a certain way, thinking they should be a certain way and then focussing on letting go, gave me one of the luckiest most magical in love weeks of my life. Makes me so grateful for everything I have learnt this year to help my mind to get to a place where I am able to do this. I know we all can. What if you were to let go a little? If you practiced a little? What other things might it allow into your life? What feel good magic might happen??????
Be kind to yourself.
Wxx
