Let go of the illusion that it could have happened any other way.
**I tried to find who the quote was attributed to, but it was hard to find a reputable source!**
“Let it go”. Words that I heard my entire life and still to this day mean absolutely nothing to me. I don’t get it- let what go? What is “it”? Why does “let it go” sound an awful lot like “I don’t want to hear you talk about it anymore”? It’s such easy advice to give and it means garbage. It’s passive— and sometimes when you are in the throes of a mental health breakdown, parsing for subtext isn’t the thing you want to spend your time doing. I understand that there are existential issues that come with filing trauma away correctly in your narrative, but as helpful as cliches are, sometimes you need a plan of action. Sometimes you need someone to grab you by the shoulders, look you square in the eye, and tell you exactly what you should be walking away from.
Hindsight allows us to look back and say “ohhhh i see how I was supposed to let it go” but that’s not super helpful in the moment when you are crying in the parking lot of an Albertson’s at 3 in the afternoon… For some reason, when I read this quote, a big click happened in my head. All of a sudden, I had a reason to be able to walk away from the guilt of the past that made sense— something I could hold on to actively while I was trying to put all the pieces back together. I have this control issue where I take on a lot of extra responsibility for situations because I can often see many of the possible outcomes, and I try to plan for each challenge. When things go off the rails (as they always will), then I feel a personal responsibility to manage and solve the situation as quickly and efficiently as possible. When I can’t, or when I mess it up, then I beat myself up about it for weeks, months, or even years after the fact, convinced that I could have changed the outcome. Even if I had no way to know at the time of the decision, my brain just registers failure and no other option is acceptable.
After seeing this quote, I started saying it to myself whenever I would start to spiral. I think of bad thoughts as a roller coaster, and most of the times I can get off the roller coaster before it starts going nuts, and other times I’m just stuck on the roller coaster until the ride is over. I take a deep breath, and say “If it could have happened another way, it would have. But it didn’t, so now what are we gonna do about it?” For some reason, it feels so much more active and motivating than just hearing “let it go”. Now I have a direction, a plan, and some knowledge about how NOT to make the same mistakes next time. Somehow, the same sentiment arranged with different words made it possible for me to accept the inevitability of past choices and keep in the past where they belong.
That’s why I love cliches— they may be cheesy and overused at times, but usually those are the earwigs that stick around and help you out when shit gets tough. My Algebra 2 teacher taught me that perfectly— she was teaching us about slope, and she said, “Now I’m going to sing a song… and I know it’s silly… But i promise you it works” She then proceeded to sing, “Ho Ho Ho, the slope of a horizontal line is zero”. She immediately lost control (and respect, unfortunately) of the entire class of 16-year-olds, but I will be DAMNED if I wasn’t sitting in Math 302 six years later, humming “Ho Ho Ho” to myself during a test to get the right answer! Find a song, a quote, a practice, or a word that clicks with you, and even if it’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said to yourself, it will help your mind get off the roller coaster and on to possible solutions. Literally anything would be better than hearing “Let it Go” for the rest of your life!