Learning to Let Go
I am thinking of the old story about how to catch a monkey. A monkey will reach into an object to grab a treat. But he becomes trapped because he will not let go of his treat. The opening is large enough for his hand, but too small for his fist.
I also may become trapped because I’m hanging on to something. However, I might not recognize the trap if my “fist” is formed with dysfunctional thoughts. I can feel my thoughts running in circles, like an invisible trap.
But, because I’m caught in a thinking loop, it’s hard for me discover the release. I might even consider the idea of “letting go”, but it just seems so illogical.
It’s easier to observe this behavior in others. I could observe this pattern quite easily in my mother when she was faced with a problem. No matter what solution I might suggest, none of them would be acceptable. She was stuck, just like the monkey.
It took some humility to realize that if my parent did this, that I probably had this habit, too. The next time that I noticed that stuck feeling, I could also see that I was hanging on to a pattern of thinking. It felt scary to even consider “just letting go.”
I had to start by letting go of small control issues, and work my way up to bigger ones. I learned to tell myself “Everything is going to be okay.” Then I could relax my tight mental grip. I could allow space for new ideas. I find the freedom I crave when I allow things to be as they are. “Everything is going to okay” is my key to my mental monkey trap.
