Letting Go of Nothing

Letting Go of Nothing offers a simple, two-step practice for making peace with any situation and thus finding inner calm and happiness, explaining mindfulness in a way that is relatable, concise, and unpretentious.

Last month, a business partner told me I’d only receive half of my affiliate commissions. “Terms are changing.” At first, I felt cheated. Angry. Ready to explode. After I focused on something else for a bit, however, I calmed down. Our partnership still made money, so why ruin a good thing? I told them to send the money, and that was that.

Similarly, Russell was bothered by his partner’s seeming stubbornness for days. Only once he asked, “Is there another way of seeing this?” did a new perspective spontaneously emerge. He found empathy and moved on.

The word “relax” literally means “to be loose again,” Russell explains — and that’s not something we can do by further tightening our muscles, be it physically or mentally! “We can’t ‘do’ letting go, however hard we try. We have to cease the ‘doing’ of holding on.”

When we’re trying to let go of a grievance, an expectation, or an attachment, we can’t think it away. We need to change our inner landscape, then let it fade away on its own. “We are not letting go of things themselves as much as the way we see them,” Russell says.

Remember letting go as “stopping to hold on,” and you’ll have taken the first step to making a hard practice easier.

Maybe you’ve heard this joke: A man goes to the doctor, presses on his thigh, and says it hurts. He presses his arm, his chest, and his nose. “Doctor, everywhere I press, it hurts! What should I do?” And the doctor only says: “I suggest you stop pressing.” If your shoulder hurts every time you tilt your head, what is your inclination? To stop tilting your head! Avoiding pain is a natural reflex but often the wrong reaction. Instead, whether it’s a shameful memory or a tight back, we must first “let in” the experience, Russell suggests. With your shoulder, you might tilt your head just a little — enough to tolerate the pain and start observing it. Get curious. What’s really going on? Is it a sharp, stinging feeling? Or a dull and blunt one? This leads to the second step of letting go: letting be. Once you’re allowing yourself to feel the pain fully, don’t try to change it or wish it away. Accept it. Befriend it. Soon, you’ll notice the experience shifting, despite you not doing anything. With physical pain, your body might even automatically adjust to accommodate it — thus making it go away altogether. Likewise, we…