We all talk about the importance of letting go, but they are very few of us that can actually do it well. Perhaps being human makes it so hard.
Yet it is when we let go that things begin to move and what we’ve been hoping and wishing for comes in alignment.
It is so counterintuitive in so many ways that when we let go and let things flow, things fall into place.
Whatever we resist, persists.
This is the ultimate irony and comedy of the universe that the things that we desperately want and the ideas we cling to are the very things keeping them away.
Whatever we resist, persists. This is the ultimate irony and comedy of the universe that the things that we desperately want and the ideas we cling to are the very things keeping them away." - Dr Preyasha Tuladhar
In a culture of perfectionism where we must not make any mistakes, whether socially or in documentation or with patients, it feels like a world that is not very forgiving. However, maybe it is our mistakes that humble us, bring us to tears, brings us closer to understanding ourselves.
It is easy to be at peace when everything is going well, but it is when conflict hits and when there is no sleep or there is a difficult situation that truly allows us to grow as individuals. In a way, if we aren’t making mistakes, we aren’t growing because none of us are perfect and all of us make mistakes.
No matter how big or small, seen or unseen, no matter how embarrassing or devastating. Mistakes make us human and it brings us closer to each other as well as humanity.
There is a saying that a woman is like a teabag, you don’t know how strong she is until she is in hot water. Recently, it feels like I’ve been in a lot of hot water.
Nothing necessarily in the outside world, but the cognitive dissonance of living a groundhog day life, wanting for more and wishing for more yet trying to appreciate, with gratitude, this stage of my life.
However, these external and internal hot water circumstances have truly shown me what triggers me and what soothes me. Perhaps when we are in hot water, whether spiritually speaking or in our lives in whatever circumstance, it is so hard to have compassion for ourselves.
It is something that I struggle with the most, to sit with discomfort, is the hardest thing. However, just like the lotus needs the mud to grow, perhaps we as human beings also need this metaphorical mud in order for us to bloom into the best version of ourselves.
Just like the lotus needs the mud to grow, perhaps we as human beings also need this metaphorical mud in order for us to bloom into the best version of ourselves." - Dr Preyasha Tuladhar
I don’t know how to let go, but I am learning.
I have learned that the harder I try to control external circumstances of my life the more things seem and feel out of control. So I have left everything up to the universe, not necessarily by free will, but by surrender because none of us have any other choice.
We all have this false notion of how we have everything under control and how everything is going our way and suddenly a bad day makes everything feel like a lost game of Jenga. But the very next day we rise again, and place our blocks so carefully rebuilding our tower of hopes, dreams, and ambitions. However, maybe it’s not about the towers at all.
Maybe it’s about the resilience of staring at a pile of blocks on the floor knowing that failure and mistakes are OK. If anything, I have learned far more from the mistakes that I have made than from my successes.
So why do we resist our failures and anything negative that happens to us?
I think it is because it makes us question everything about our worldview and because it makes us realize that maybe things aren’t the way we understood them to be.
However, I think that this is a good thing because maybe a fresh new perspective is exactly what we need. Perhaps when we fall into the mud, we realize that falling is OK.
The mud is not so bad and we will get up again and there will be another fall and that will be OK too. Perhaps it’s in this art falling and getting up and falling again humanity finds itself.
So how do we make it easier for us to let go?
It’s not easy, but we just have to do it. We just have to force ourselves to let things be. We have to force ourselves to let people pass judgments on us. We have to accept that some people won’t like us.
We have to be OK with the fact that we won’t always make the right call and sometimes we will disappoint people, sometimes a whole lot of people. Perhaps this is why the people that are most resilient are the ones who have had very difficult lives because there is nothing like challenging circumstances that teaches us the importance of adaptability, flexibility, and being open. J
ust like a caterpillar who has to go through the chrysalis phase in order to become a butterfly, perhaps our mud is our chrysalis and we are all in the process of becoming butterflies.
So until I am able to fly, I will appreciate this mud. I will sit with the mud, play with it. I will make clay, mold it.
So until I am able to fly, I will appreciate this mud. I will sit with the mud, play with it. I will make clay, mold it." - Dr Preyasha Tuladhar
So what are the strategies as a physician to let go?
Instead of pushing all the emotions we don’t want to feel and bury it in places where the sun doesn’t shine , feel them, no matter how hard these feelings and emotions are.
It is only when we sit with them, the dark difficult emotions, that on the other side of that is light. It is this light that will guide us to a new tomorrow. Because there is no running away.
We could be in a beach in Hawaii, but we always have to come home to ourselves.
So maybe we just take all of our forgotten, hidden, painful memories and experiences and simply feel them and let them feel as terrible as they want to. Because it is not these feelings that are dangerous, it is when we depress, and suppress them that they become monsters bigger than ourselves.
Let us feel, let us cry, let us pray, let us sing and dance for even if we don’t have anything in common with people that don’t agree with us or like us, this human experience is universal and we are all in it together.
Nobody has rainbows, butterflies, and sunshine 24/7 despite how social media portrays reality.
Nobody has rainbows, butterflies, and sunshine 24/7 despite how social media portrays reality." - Dr Preyasha Tuladhar
So let us all sit with our mud, get dirty, get humble so that we can be reborn each day as the best version of ourselves.
The one who survived, the one who lived, the one with scars.
The one that now can become a guiding light for the future generations to come.
