Letting Go

When I was going through the worst of my addiction to alcohol and my mental health struggles, I often felt like I was fighting a war inside my mind. We all have an inner voice, and it can be our greatest enemy or our greatest ally.

When we see someone on the side of the road yelling to themselves, we label them as crazy or mentally unwell. The fact is many of us do that inside our minds all day every day.

When it comes to this inner anguish and suffering and the root of that suffering, we can turn to the teachings of the Buddhists. We suffer because we desire that things are different from what they are (craving). We also fail to let go of that craving, which causes more anguish and suffering.

“Letting go of a craving is not rejecting it but allowing it to be itself: a contingent state of mind that once arisen will pass away. Instead of forcibly freeing ourselves from it, notice how its very nature is to free itself. To let it go is like releasing a snake that you have been clutching in your hand. By identifying with a craving (“I want this,” “I don’t want that”), you tighten the clutch and intensify its resistance. Instead of being a state of mind that you have, it becomes a compulsion that has you…. By letting go of craving it will finally cease.”

-Stephen Batchelor ~ Buddhism without Beliefs

When we fail to let go of our thoughts, we identify with them. I have anxiety. I am an anxious person. I have depression. I am an angry person. Etc. These are the machinations of suffering.

You are not your thoughts. You experience your thoughts. You experience anxiety. You experience depression. You experience anger. THOUGHTS HAPPEN TO YOU. You might feel your Ego (what you think is the “self”) reel at this idea. This means you have some letting go to do. The Ego is addicted to suffering out of self preservation. The more you suffer, the more control it has over your mental ecosystem.

Treating emotions and mental suffering as experiences and not part of who you are is an exercise in letting go, which is an exercise in alleviating suffering. You are the observer.

Let go of the snake.

?☉