Let Go
Of Frustration with Yourself/Your Life
1. Learn a
new skill instead of dwelling on the skills you never mastered.
2. Change
your perception—see the root cause as a blessing in disguise.
3. Cry it
out. According to Dr. William Frey II, PH.D., biochemist at the Ramset
Medical Center in Minneapolis crying away your negative feelings releases
harmful chemicals that build up in your body due to stress.
4. Channel
your discontent into an immediate positive action—make some calls about
new job opportunities, or walk to the community center to volunteer.
5. Use
meditation or yoga to bring you into the present moment (instead of
dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.)
6. Make a
list of your accomplishments—even the small ones— and add to it daily.
You’ll have to let go of a little discontentment to make space for this self
satisfaction.
7. Visualize
a box in your head labeled “Expectations.” Whenever you start dwelling
on how things should be or should have been, mentally shelve
the thoughts in this box.
8. Engage in
a physical activity. Exercise decreases stress hormones and increases
endorphins, chemicals that improve your state of mind.
9. Focus
all your energy on something you can actually control, instead of
dwelling on things you can’t.
10.
Express your feelings through a creative outlet, like blogging or
painting. Add this to your to-do list and cross it off when you’re
done. This will be a visual reminder that you have actively chosen to release
these feelings.
Let go
of Anger and Bitterness
11. Feel
it fully. If you stifle your feelings, they may leak out and affect
everyone around you—not just the person who inspired your anger. Before you can
let go of any emotion you have to feel it fully.
12. Give
yourself a rant window. Let yourself vent for a day before confronting
the person who troubled you. This may diffuse the hostility and give you time to
plan a rational confrontation.
13. Remind
yourself that anger hurts you more than the person who upset
you, and visualize it melting away as an act of kindness to
yourself.
14. If
possible, express your anger to the person who offended you.
Communicating how you feel may help you move on. Keep in mind that you
can’t control how to offender responds; you can only control how clearly and
kindly you express yourself.
15. Take
responsibility. Many times when you’re angry, you focus on what someone
else did that was wrong—which essentially gives away your power. When you focus
on what you could have done better, you often feel empowered and less
bitter.
16. Put
yourself in the offender’s shoes. We all make mistakes; and odds are
you could have easily slipped up just like your husband, father, or friend did.
Compassion dissolves anger.
17.
Metaphorically throw it away; i.e., jog with a backpack full of tennis
balls. After you’ve built up a bit of rush, toss the balls one by one, labeling
each as a part of your anger. (You’ll need to retrieve these—litter angers the
earth!)
18. Use a
stress ball, and express your anger physically and vocally when you use
it. Make a scrunched up face or grunt. You may feel silly, but this
allows you to actually express what you’re feeling inside.
19. Wear a
rubber band on your wrist, and gently flick it when you start obsessing on angry
thoughts. This trains your mind to associate that type of persistent
negativity with something unpleasant.
20. Remind
yourself these are your only three options: remove yourself from the
situation, change it, or accept it. These acts create happiness; holding onto
bitterness never does.
Let Go
Of Past Relationships
21.
Identify what the experience taught you to help develop a sense of
closure.
22. Write
everything you want to express in a letter. Even if you choose not to
send it, clarifying your feelings will help you come to terms with reality as it
is now.
23.
Remember both the good and the bad. Even if appears this way now, the
past was not perfect. Acknowledging this may minimize your sense of loss. As
Laura Oliver says, “It’s easier to let go of a human than a hero.”
24.
Un-romanticize the way you view love. Of course you’ll feel devastated
if you believe you lost your soul mate. If you think you can find a love that
amazing or better again it will be easier to move on.
25.
Visualize an empowered single you—the person you were before meeting
your last love. That person was pretty awesome, and now you have the chance to
be him or her again.
26. Create
a space that reflects your present reality. Take down his pictures;
delete her emails from your saved folder.
27. Reward
yourself for small acts of acceptance. Get a facial after you delete
his number from your phone, or head out with friends after putting all her
things in a box.
28. Hang
this statement somewhere you can see it. “Loving myself means letting
go.”
29.
Replace your emotional thoughts with facts. When you think, “I’ll never
feel loved again!” don’t resist that feeling. Instead, move on to another
thought, like “I learned a new song for karaoke tonight.”
30. Use
the silly voice technique. According to Russ Harris, author of The
Happiness Trap, swapping the voice in your head with a cartoon voice will
help take back power from the troubling thought.
Let Go
Of Stress
31. Use a
deep breathing technique, like
ujayii, to soothe yourself and seep into the present
moment.
32.
Immerse yourself in a group activity. Enjoying the people in your life
may help put your problems in perspective.
33.
Consider this quotation by Eckhart Tolle: “Worry pretends to be
necessary but serves no useful purpose.” Questioning how your stress serves you
may help you let it go.
34.
Metaphorically release it. Write down all your stresses and toss the
paper into your fireplace.
35.
Replace your thoughts. Notice when you begin thinking about something
that stresses you so you can shift your thought process to something more
pleasant—like your passion for your hobby.
36. Take a
sauna break. Studies reveal that people who go to sauna at least twice
a week for 10-30 minutes are less stressed after work than others with similar
jobs who don’t.
37. Imagine your life
10 years from now. Then look 20 years into the future, and
then 30. Realize that many of the things you’re worrying about don’t really
matter in the grand scheme of things.
38.
Organize your desk. According to Georgia Witkin, assistant director of
psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, completing a small task increases
your sense of control and decreases your stress level.
39. Use it
up. Make two lists: one with the root causes of your stress, and one
with actions to address them. As you complete these tasks, visualize yourself
utilizing and depleting your “stress supply.”
40. Laugh
it out. Research shows that
laughter soothes tension, improves your immune system, and
even eases pain. If you can’t relax for long, start with just ten minutes
watching a funny video on YouTube.
It’s a long list,
but there’s much left to be said! Can you think of anything to add to this
list—other areas of life where we need to practice letting go, and other
techniques to start doing it right now?
The Biblical Blue thread was an essential component of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. In addition, the Bible commands that this uniquely colored thread be worn on four-cornered garments such as the tzitzit under-garment and the tallit prayer shawl. However, for close to 1500 years, the identity of Biblical Blue has been lost to the world. 
