How to Let Go in the Name of Freedom
6 simple practices for everyday life
I was a clinger! A real anxious attachment control freak, if there ever was one. An ex-boyfriend said I was worse than a chihuahua.
The next ex-boyfriend introduced me to some basic conscious movement energy medicine. I was struggling to incorporate meditation, mindfulness, or any physical exercise. Then he showed me a video boasting HEALTH MAGIC in fewer minutes than the number of fingers that I have, and I thought, yup! I can do THAT.
For years I did the same little practice every morning and in those years I moved across the country to a tumultuous community. One morning an acquaintance saw me practicing and spoke to me after I had finished, “So that’s how you do it!”
“Do what?”
“Stay so calm and collected and present in the middle of all of this!”
Highly Doable Transformation
The trick with any of these practices is going to be don’t rush. How annoying is that? I see you, I feel you, you who craves instant gratification. Me too.
Surprise! Every practice listed below can be done in six minutes (or less) and actually lends a huge sense of relief in just one shot. The results are greatly amplified (beyond your imagining) when the six-minute investment is a daily practice.
When we’re talking about FREEDOM it’s becoming common knowledge that our mind and its patterning, beliefs, habits, are really all that stands in our way. The brain is part of the nervous system, so if we want to loosen and let go of blocks in the mind, stirring up and discharging the nervous system is a super simple hack.
Exercise and orgasms are great for that. Exercise and orgasms can also feel inaccessible to lots of people, and even those participating in these activities can find themselves caught up in their heads and not finding the release they deeply crave.
We need to feel safe and secure to really let go, to surrender, to release.
Safety and security exist automatically in true presence.
Most people I talk to are struggling with this. To have your nervous system reset and experience neutral presence is to have your flexible human intelligence available to you. This is the opposite of trauma — where the body is a storage unit for stagnant feeling and stimulation that once shocked your system. Most people are more comfortable with trauma because this is the state of being they are accustomed to.
Natural Intelligence
The nervous system is designed to discharge itself automatically, however, our culture has trained us in the opposite direction since our infancy. Most of us were either soothed or neglected as infants, babies, children. In neither of these circumstances, being soothed or being neglected, were we encouraged to follow the natural instinct to do what we are talking about — discharge.
Because of this, says Harvey Jackins in The Human Side of Human Being, “Part of our originally vast, genius-sized intelligence is left tied down, inoperative.” He is speaking to the mis-storing that happens in the nervous system during distress that is not discharged. Distress isn’t always something obviously bad or wrong, it can just be big feelings (even GOOD ones) that aren’t being allowed to pass fully through the body and be released.
You’re always exhaling, right? Assuming you are alive while reading this. Try right now exhaling and actually letting the air drift out longer and longer … and maybe even longer… probably longer than you imagined or realized you even could.
We must train ourselves not to rush into the soothing (or neglect) portion of being an emotion-based creature (all of us) if we want to regain contact with our original vast genius.
That’s what these practices are for. We endure the awkward resistance somewhere in the middle and go all the way until the timer is finished.
We train ourselves to relieve ourselves more deeply, to reset more completely, to live in more expansive freedom and natural intelligence.
Simplifying Surrender
The point of relief and reset will be OVER the hump of discomfort where your ego kicks in saying, “how about we stop now”. This is why I highly recommend setting a timer for the activities below, at least that is what works for me. You do not stop until the timer goes off. You can vary your intensity with the activity throughout the minutes to stay with it.
Treat your ego like a friend who needs support to expand into what is possible. The ego likes things the way they already are, because the ego is all about control, not change. The ego likes to think it is in charge, therefore we must befriend it rather than exile it or it will strike with vengeance in ways that feel totally rational and normal (aka perpetuation of patterns that don’t involve deep discharge).
Six minutes can feel like a pretty long time when you are not used to allowing your nervous system to let go and when there’s no gage for the ego to evaluate if its working or not. If your system is unaccustomed to reset (as is true for the majority of folks), then the ego will kick in and say. “okay okay that’s good enough,” pretty soon after you start (as soon as the big energy of stored emotion starts to shift).
Gabor Mate, in his best-seller Scattered Minds, recommends setting a timer for anyone with attention deficit disorder to support themselves in surrendering to a singular task. Attention deficit is a term that makes sense to apply to everyone and anyone who rushes out of or away from deep nervous system discharge eager to evade distress of not feeling supported in the process. Setting a timer is one way of supporting yourself. It’s the act of setting a safe container for this release.
Both Mate and Jackins write about how a baby looks for eye contact when it is discharging distress and in our day and age, not many find it. Hence, not feeling safe, secure, supported to do what is natural. Hence, your ego development to scurry away from deep discharge.
Hey! These are the ways of people … so no blame. No shame. We are emerging from an era that was not accustomed to emotional responsibility, and now we are coming into an era of YES — allowing discharge is the epitome of emotional responsibility.
A Balanced Equation
We allow charge to build up through every day living (and feeling) in stimulating environments and then we clear the system again — to live in a balanced cycle of activity and rest, of charge and discharge.
Rest is so super important, says every health article ever. Rest is part of the reset, yet, lots of us struggle to choose or incorporate enough rest into our routine, therefore, conscious discharge activities are extra important.
Discharge seems to have been deemed wrong, bad, malevolent, scary, and even evil at some point. It’s true discharge can visually look violent (practice #3) or crazy (practice #1), so it’s understandable that humans started believing that we need to stop the discharge process, fixing the problem (when actually causing a big one).
If charge feels like energy filling you up, energy rising upwards through the body, ready to burst forth and DO something, then discharge will feel like energy flowing downwards, draining you, in the best way possible, leaving you feeling more alive and your energy accessible to you when you need it (rather than tied up in outdated emotional patterns). Freedom!
Six Short Practices
Viscerally feel the results of a reset nervous system.
Reminder, vary the intensity of your activity if six minutes feels ridiculous or excruciating (mentally not physically — all of these activities should be rather physically accessible to all).
Also, remember you can start with even one minute a day and build up. Six minutes a day is SUPERSTAR status in my household (where there are fewer fights, way more availability for the communication strategies we’ve learned, and all-around more laughter and light-heartedness).
Laughter yoga
Not a lot of people love this suggestion but my two year old sure thinks it’s a hoot (and definitely prefers weird six-minute laughing mommy to pent up short-tempered mommy). Fake it ‘til you make it type deal here. Seriously, just belly laugh.
Vocal Toning
Just make noise. Making any pure sound (aka not words) with your voice. Again, kids love this one and I find it an excellent opportunity to channel my inner monsters and my inner angels, all of them equally wanting to be heard.
Shake like an animal
Animals automatically shake when they’ve experienced a startle, spook, or a shock. Similarly, babies cry or laugh (and would continue until full discharge if adults didn't interrupt and were available for reassuring eye contact, says Jackins).
Have your arms up for as much of the time as possible. You can be sitting or standing. Start by focusing on shaking your insides, your core, the center of your body being. Shake your arms, your legs, add in some jumps, or peddling of your feet. Get your hips into it, shimy-shake your shoulders, roll your neck, bobble your head. Have fun with it. Add noise here too if it pleases you, often this activity sounds very orgasmic at our house.
Free dance
Similar idea to shaking, free form movement. Don’t think, just dance.
Forward fold
Stretching the life nerve in your legs (sciatic) for physical energetic flexibility akin to freedom as well. Letting your arms dangle or maybe holding onto opposite elbows to stretch into your shoulders blades a bit extra.
Lay on the Earth
Last but definitely not least, sit or lay on the ground. Simple as that. There is tons of literature on the profound effects of just putting your body in contact with the Earth. Maybe barefoot in the grass standing still eyes closed for a few minutes is all you can manage, okay, great! That is a really great thing to do.
Final Thoughts
You can do this! Freedom — an active relationship with your “original vast genius-sized intelligence” — is within your reach. Let go with these simple everyday practices.
Befriend your ego to incorporate quick daily practices that make all the difference. Discharge your nervous system, because you don’t need to hold onto that stuff. Enjoy!
Kelsey is a transformation coach who works one on one with others to reclaim their original genius using embodiment practices and Existential Kink.