Help for your Internal Obstacles:

A Better Way to “Let Go”

(Reprints)

(Writer’s Note: I started my Blog on WordPress in February of 2026. Now, as I have started also posting on Substack, let me take this opportunity to reintroduce myself to people who really don’t know who I am, or what I am about. So, here is another of my “Reprints”, essays/articles I wrote, but you may have missed! Think of this as reruns of a beloved TV show that you never got a chance to watch the first time. Enjoy, and get inspired. Have a few more posts to get over to Substack–here is another one.)

From April 6, 2026: (Originally titled: “Help for the Obstacles”)

Go fly a kite! (Just kidding). In writing my “How I Practice” posts, I realized I wanted to delve deeper into a specific Practice I have that can really help, when you are being bombarded by your Ego, Expectations, and Myths. ( https://align-with-love.com/2026/09/14/the-unholy-trinity-part-1/ for more background.) As I have said over and over, I often mess up with this one too. But if you “give it a whirl” and play along, I think it might change your life.

The Practice is three words:

Release. Receive. Continue.

The first, Release, is to “let go” as so many other people have said. BUT, releasing is more than just “letting go”. It’s a cliche to say “let go”, and I am not knocking the ideal, but I think there is more we can do.

I think there is a better way to practice with letting go.

When my Dad was alive, he used to say “Release” to whoever had something he wanted, which usually was the TV remote. Years later, after he had passed, I re-heard that phrase in his voice, and saw it was a profound concept. I had an epiphany, and it was not Christmas-time. Release is more than just letting go–it is loosening your grip on whatever. This dovetails nicely with the Approach of Lightness. I can hold something tightly, like a pencil, and then you have to pry it out of my hand. Or, I can hold it in my palm out to you, and you can take it. I released it to you. I was still holding it. I didn’t drop it on the ground. I held it lightly. I was OK if you took the pencil.

When I feel myself tense up–I can relax. I can release all the expectations I have for the situation I find myself in. (Or I can release some of them. At least I can try to.) I have not yet gotten into the tagline for this Blog (at the time of the original writing): Intention. Response. Action. Suffice it to say for now, releasing and the components I am going to write about, are the core part of my proposed Responses.

I hope you can see that Releasing is “letting go”, but also giving space for the reality that you can’t always let go easily. But maybe you could loosen your grip. Maybe you could loosen your grip on your opinion, or needing so-and-so to do this and that, or that.

Receive: Receive what is happening to you. Welcome it. I am NOT saying to let yourself be abused, mistreated, or beat up. Extreme violence and physical attack, are not to be received. They have to be escaped from! I am talking about all the little annoyances of life. Examples are numerous: the neighbor who fires up the lawnmower right as you want to take a nap. Or the kid who just seems to push your buttons–all the time. Traffic, lines, and a myriad of other happenings, on and on–can you receive them with some patience? How about some gratitude?

There are more extreme things, like a bad medical diagnosis, of course. How can you receive it? I am not saying to jump for joy if you have cancer-but what can you receive in it? How can your response to such a diagnosis help others? With any serious illness-what work can you do on yourself? What can it teach you? Recall what I said in my Openness post:

What is the Universe bringing to me, teaching me, or giving me?

Receive that answer, even if you don’t like it. Walk with it. Live in it. It may “suck”, and if it’s a terminal illness, yours or a loved one, it will not be fun. But I believe we must find Alignment in even these terrible things. God is there to be found, seemingly hidden in these tragedies, but He/She is there. I promise–I truly believe that.

Continue: Keep going. Yes, keep going. Don’t stay fixated on whatever. Maybe you did not word that conversation as well as you could. Maybe you were just “off” in you soul in that interaction, and it just wasn’t the best version of you at that moment. Release it, receive whatever you may need to learn from it, and move on. As an OCD ruminating person, I HAVE to stop myself. I have to trust that I did my best, and if someone was truly hurt by what I said or did, they will let me know. (My wife frequently lets me know when I did not say something well.)

Don’t stay stuck! Maybe you are not sure how something was perceived by someone. Then ask. Yes, it will feel scary, but sometimes continuing looks like getting feedback. Be careful, of course. Sometimes I feel like I am sure someone is unhappy or upset, as my frequent Narrative is I am usually messing up somehow. But, that is NOT always true! I’d like to think that when you sincerely try to do the things I wrote about, like Openness and Lightness, people sense that, and will give you grace. So try an honest request for feedback. As Peter Scazzero says in his Emotionally Healthy Spirituality work: “How did you experience me?” is a great question to ask. A little kindness, politeness and humility–go a loooong way, especially in our polarized American culture.

There may have been a terrible mistake made, like a broken marriage, or some misdeed that cost a life. There may have been something you can NOT undo. Even if you apologize, you have altered someone’s life forever. You must make your amends, and leave the rest in God’s care. You have to move on, in the proper time, and in the proper way. But you must move on–the Great Flow of God’s Love and Presence compels you too. God will take care to heal the other people, too. Trust.

I conclude with a Christian analogy, that is one of Jesus’s more unusual stories:

⁴³ “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. ⁴⁴ Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. ⁴⁵ Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first.… (Matthew’s Gospel: Chapter 12:43-45)

There are many more scholarly interpretations of this, but I think there is a lesson here. When we let go of our own “unclean spirits”, and do not put anything else in it’s place, we have a hard time filling that void. Anyone in addiction recovery knows they can not just stop the drink/drug/compulsion and expect to get well. Meetings are needed, counseling, and deep soul work, or they will be back to their old behaviors!

So it is with letting go. I believe you must release, and receive, and continue. There must be more than just “letting go”. As I have already written, (See my Archives page on the Blog Menubar in WordPress), I have to frequently release my ego, expectations, and myths! I have to receive Openness, Lightness, and Alignment. While I have spoke of them as Approaches, there is a component of them that can not be “done”, but only received. (I said we would get mystical here sometimes.)

For each person reading this, you will have your own way of hearing this and incorporating it into your being. Sit with it. Let it soak in.

I find this Practice of Releasing, Receiving and Continuing to be a lifeline on many days. I can notice my agitation and unsettledness and start loosening my grip. I can hold lightly to that metaphorical pencil I mentioned. Then I can receive what is being brought to me, even if I do not like it, which is often. Following that, I can continue, a little lighter, a little more relaxed, and a little more Aligned with Love. I can be a little more like God, and be in His/Her Image.

Don’t we all want some more peace and poise? Try this Practice. If you are religious/spiritual, you already kind-of know it, but perhaps this fresh take will propel you onward in your growth. I hope so. New to anything spiritual, or mental-wellness? This can still help you! Try it. Breath, and loosen you grip. Receive the situation or person–you don’t have to be 100% OK with whatever, but you can continue with some sanity in your soul, more Aligned with the Divine.

Until next time, blessings! May God fill your heart with peace and presence.

Be Open. Be Light.

-Eric, the Wordsmith

BP62-R19

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