Billingsley’s Bullets: You have to learn to let go

During the past 18 months, I have read several spiritual books and magazines. They often talk about “letting go.”

• In his book, “The Untethered Soul,” Michael A. Singer states, “Each of these shifts in your perception should remind you to let go. The moment you start seeing that your life looks really different, the moment it all starts getting negative — let go. You should have let go before, but you didn’t. The trouble is it’s more difficult now. You should have taken one breath and let go when it started.”

• Letting go of negatives is a smart idea. If someone makes you feel like you’re in the principal’s office when you are with them, get away from them. Stay away from them.

• If you’re dating someone and he/she shows an uncontrollable temper, get rid of that person before you become the object of his/her anger.

• Letting go also refers to negative things that occupy your mind. When you’re watching an interesting movie, don’t start thinking about your need to lose 15 pounds or why your neighbor didn’t smile back when you said good morning.

• While in the middle of a loving embrace or a fire-cracker kiss, don’t worry about the roses that need to be trimmed! Let the other stuff go and concentrate on the kiss.

• If someone receives a promotion you believe you deserve, don’t let it clutter your mind for days, months or forever — let it go.

• Don’t be obsessed with everyone loving you. When people disappoint you or fail to love you back — let it go. Move on!

• If you never let go, you never go forward. Not letting go means you are controlled by the present and the past. There is no positive future.

• Your cousin didn’t pay you back for the $70 you loaned him 11 years ago and you have thought about that for 3,715 days. You still resent him and mention the debt to someone every 90 days. Forget the seventy bucks, let it go. Call him up and ask how he is doing.

• Every time your mind shifts to a negative, erase it. Steer your mind toward the positive, and do it immediately. The longer you wait to brush off the negative person or negative thought, the harder it becomes to dump the person or the negative thought.

• We can’t stop negative thoughts from entering our minds daily, but we can determine how long they stay in our minds. Free yourself from the negative voice in your mind and move forward to a more relaxed and fun-filled existence.

• So your spouse had an affair 26 years ago. So what? Let it go.

• You will never play professional baseball. So what? Let it go.

• Letting negative thoughts go creates more energy, possible energy for the right now and the future. Enjoy the movie and the kiss.

• Life is all about choices. You can wallow in self-pity, become a volunteer victim or accent the positive. You are in charge of your inner peace and happiness … your life.

• George Bernard Shaw said, “People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”

• Guess who determines your pain or your joy? You do!

• Let go of constantly thinking about daily chores, daily commitments. Let the boring stuff go, at least for a while, daily. Concentrate on love, joy, the creative child part of you. Make a spiritual connection to your inner self. There is a doctor inside you — it’s you.

Bob Billingsley is a columnist at the Mountain Democrat. His column appears bi-weekly. 

Bob Billingsley

Bob Billingsley writes Heard Over the Back Fence three times a week, keeping his pen on the pulse of the community. He also writes a biweekly column called Billingsley's Bullets, in which he uses “sideways” thinking to make your day a little easier to handle.

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