What is the value of letting go? In many circumstances, your willingness to let go can reduce frustration and enhance your daily life. Let go when you are:

• Stuck

• Overwhelmed

• Frustrated

• Burdened by the past

• Weighed down by physical stuff

• Distressed by non-supportive processes, relationships, and environments

• Determined to be present or move forward

I curated a small collection of my favorite letting-go quotes from Yung Pueblo, Chuck Palahniuk, Todd Henry, and Hans Hoffman. Each idea highlights a unique aspect of releasing.

When you allow yourself to let go, you experience less stress, more flow, and better alignment with your values. The past won’t hold you back. You’ll be more grounded in the present and open to possibilities that you couldn’t see before.

FIVE FAVORITE LETTING GO QUOTES

1. Let Go of the Past

Letting go is a process. Release things that no longer serve a purpose in your life. This will create more mindful and present-centered living.

“When you put yourself through the process of letting go, you gain greater access to the here and now.”

— Yung Pueblo

 2. Let Go of the Stuff

When the volume of possessions becomes overwhelming and burdensome, they take up your valuable time and energy. This is a cue to edit. Keep what’s most important. Release what you can. You’ll feel lighter and less encumbered.

“The things you own end up owning you.”

— Chuck Palahniuk

3. Let Go of the Complex

Life is complicated. However, you don’t have to make things more involved than necessary. Consider what you can release to simplify your schedule, processes, or thought patterns.

“Is there any place where you are making things more complex than they need to be?”

— Todd Henry

4. Let Go of the Only Once Idea

Letting go is like a muscle. It needs to be exercised to develop and experience results. Releasing is not a one-and-done occurrence. It requires time, attention, and practice to experience positive results.

“Letting go is not a one-time event; it is a habit that requires consistent repetition to become strong.”

— Yung Pueblo

 5. Let Go of the Unnecessary

Thinking or thriving is impossible when you have too much stuff, crammed schedules, or unhelpful thoughts. The excess gets in the way and makes it challenging to discover what’s most important. Letting go of the unessential will create space for what you truly value.

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”

— Hans Hofmann

Is Letting Go Easy or Challenging?

You might find letting go easy for some areas of your life and more challenging in others. What has been a successful letting-go experience? What has been difficult? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

How Can I Help?

Do you want support organizing, planning, or letting go? I’d love to help! Virtual organizing is an extraordinary path forward – Local feel with a global reach.

Please schedule a Discovery Call, email me at linda@ohsorganized.com, or call 914-271-5673. Letting go is possible, especially with support.

Do you find it challenging to let go of things? If so, you’re not alone. One of the phrases I frequently hear from my clients during the decision-making process is, “I might need it someday.”  Have you heard or said that?

Recently, one of my clients shared a passage from the CliftonStrengths assessment she took, which described her top strength, Input. She said the narrative deeply resonated with her. Since I thought this would interest you, I asked her permission to share it.

Input – CliftonStrengths 34

“You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information-words, facts, books, and quotations- or tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls, or sepia photographs. Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinite variety and complexity. If you read a great deal, it is not necessarily to refine your theories but, rather, to add more information to your archives. If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers novel artifacts and facts. These can be acquired and then stored away. Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful? With all those possible uses in mind, you really don’t feel comfortable throwing anything away. So you keep acquiring and compiling and filing stuff away. It’s interesting. It keeps your mind fresh. And perhaps one day some of it will prove valuable.”

The idea, “I might need it someday,” can be answered with more questions. Tease out the value of that “thing” you are holding onto. I don’t advocate letting go for the sake of that alone. Releasing comes from a place of readiness and purpose. What might have been of value to you in the past may no longer feel as useful or essential.

“Releasing comes from a place of readiness and purpose.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVOP™

What is your goal? Is it to live with less, reduce clutter, or downsize a lifetime of belongings? Is it to release the weight of the past to make space for how you want your life to be now? Holding onto things for “someday” may feel less relevant for certain things. There are no hard and fast rules here. It’s more of an opportunity to examine and use your curiosity to ask great questions. Your decision will become clear.

Click here for 21 letting go questions. Which one speaks to you? What helps you let go? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

Having an array of emotions is part of being human. There are no good or bad ones. However, at times, our strong emotions can make clear thoughts challenging. In fact, some emotions like anxiety, sadness, or fear can cause procrastination or completely zap our motivation.

When the amygdala, the primitive, emotional region of the brain, becomes the boss, it creates a cycle that activates the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight.) The good news is many self-help strategies are available to help switch your internal gears from fight or flight to the rest and digest, parasympathetic nervous system mode.

When calmer, you can more readily access the pre-frontal cortex, a part of the brain that helps with decision-making, organization, attention, planning, emotional regulation, and impulse control. In this more relaxed state, you can reset and access the motivation to move forward.

Recently, I attended a meeting with fellow Nest Advisor, Monica Moore, a health and fertility coach. She led a workshop on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT.) The four-step process is helpful when making behavioral changes. ACT encourages working towards a value rather than avoiding something. In other words, focus your energy on something positive you want to be or do instead of on something negative you wish to avoid.

The ACT process:

1. Identify a value. Who or what do I want to be?

2. Identify feelings. What “yucky” feelings get in the way?

3. Identify relief valves. When you feel these things, what behaviors occur?

4. Create a nourishment menu. What behaviors will feel helpful, sustainable, and give perspective when experiencing the “yucky” feelings?

Your nourishment menu is where self-help strategies thrive. For example, when feeling anxious, you might engage in negative self-talk, binge-watching, or eating sugar-heavy snacks. What if you acknowledged and noticed those feelings when you felt anxious and instead, engaged in more helpful behaviors from the nourishment menu? Below are some suggestions. I’d love to know which of these or other ones work best for you.

20 Self-Help Strategies - Nourishment Menu

• Journal

• Meditate

• Take a walk

• Change your setting

• Organize or clean

• Create boundaries

• Breathe slowly

• Get a massage

• Hug a loved one for at least 20 seconds

• Run or exercise

• Watch leaves flutter

• Light a scented candle

• Use humor

• Rest

• Read

• Pet your dog or cat

• Listen to or play music

• Take a shower or bath

• Help someone else

• Talk with a friend, family member, or professional

I had a recent anxiety-inducing experience when I inadvertently deleted the most current 45 days of emails from my inbox. After long calls with tech support at Apple and Carbonite, it became clear that the emails might be retrieved, but not without many more hours spent with tech support and possibly worse complications.

A tech hiccup is never convenient. My plans to accomplish a lot that day were derailed because of the anxiety inability to focus. At a point, I decided to let it go and not retrieve the emails. However, I was still anxious and not functioning well. My emotions were in high gear, and my brain was foggy. So what did I do?

“Your ‘nourishment menu’ is where self-help strategies thrive.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVPO™

I grabbed my journal and wrote. As the inky pen glided along the smooth paper, my heart beat rapidly, and my stomach was in knots. I wrote about the ‘gone’ emails, my anxious feelings, the power they had to deactivate my motivation, the shift in my emotional state of feeling calmer as I wrote, and the choice to let this go and move on. I noticed my environment (birds chirping, trees swaying), took several deep breaths, and shifted gears to write about positive memories from the mini vacation we just had.

After journaling, I met a dear friend for a walk along the river. We talked, laughed, and I shared the email saga with her. Not knowing about the nourishment menu at the time, I realized after how I had used several of these strategies to calm my anxiety, let go, and reset.

What self-help strategies work for you when your strong emotions take over? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

Are you in the process of working towards your organizing or other goals? I admire the determination and openness my clients have as they pursue theirs. Getting organized is a process, which is complex and often lengthy. Goals, habits, and perspectives change as progress is made. Goals often seem so overwhelming in their enormity and so far away, that we can get discouraged. However, like with all things, if we put one foot in front of the other, taking that next step, eventually we’ll get there.

The other day when I was organizing with one of my long-term clients, she said something that was so brilliant. I had to acknowledge and capture her thought. She gave me permission to share it with you. She said,

“More of my life is where it belongs.”

Think about that one. In the process of getting organized, things are almost never where they belong. Our possessions, our thoughts, our habits, and our choices can be radically out of alignment with our values and dreams. It’s spectacular that my client realized this positive progress after she’s been working consistently on these issues.

If you’re feeling discouraged, overwhelmed, or like you’ll never “get there,” know there’s hope. Know there is calm after the chaos. Know that it’s possible to have your life how you’d like it to be.

Just take that next step. Take another. Keep choosing “next.” You will get there.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. What next step will bring you closer to feeling your life is “where it belongs?” Come join the conversation.