Damon Zahariades - The Art of Letting GO: How to Let Go of the Past, Look Forward to the Future, and Finally Enjoy the Emotional Freedom You Deserve! (The Art Of Living Well)

Life moves on and so should we.

SPENCER JOHNSON

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M ost of us are saddled with negative thoughts and emotions. Some of these stem from painful memories due to deeply-felt personal losses. Others arise from agonizing disappointments resulting from false expectations and shattered dreams. Still others flow from anger, resentment, and frustration caused by stresses and crises that batter us each day.

We carry these negative thoughts and emotions with us. As long as we do so, they impact our attitude, health, and relationships. They hamper us from doing our best work. They prevent us from making the best use of our time and attentional resources.

They serve as mental obstacles, perverting our perspective, impeding our productivity, and ultimately diminishing our quality of life.

Once we decouple ourself from the frustrations, regrets, and painful memories that burden us, we experience emotional freedom. It manifests in our behaviors, decisions, and level of self-awareness. It shows in our relationships with loved ones, friends, neighbors, and coworkers. It reveals itself in the quality of our work and the satisfaction we feel from having completed the work.

Once we let go of our bleak, defeatist headspace, it can no longer hold us back. Letting it go releases us to focus on the important things that truly matter to us.

But how exactly do we let things go?

Too often, letting go is presented as an overly-simplistic, worthless catchphrase that advocates living happily in the absence of stress. Thats unhelpful. Its akin to telling a stressed-out person to stop worrying.

In this book, well journey together through a step-by-step process designed to train you to let things go. Youll learn to adopt a mindset of non-attachment. The idea of non-attachment is often understood to mean abandoning material possessions. Thats not our focus. Instead, well pursue non-attachment as it relates to the grievances, bitterness, and other psychological burdens that live rent-free in our minds. Ill share numerous strategies and techniques that have worked for me over the years. Each one will be accompanied by a simple exercise you can use to reinforce it.

Another important question: how do we identify negative thoughts and emotions?

We sometimes harbor and entertain them for so long that they become a part of our identity. At that point, they become extremely difficult for us to recognize. We believe weve moved past our anger, regrets, and emotional pain, but instead theyve burrowed so deeply into our state of mind that theyre a repressed part of our mental landscape.

In the sections that follow, well resolve this issue, as well. Youll learn how to know when youre holding on to negative thoughts and emotions. Youll discover how to quickly identify them no matter how deeply theyve burrowed into your mindset, attitude, and worldview. Once youve identified them, you can use the techniques well cover to get rid of them.