The Analogy of a Clutched Hand

About letting go...

We can decide to let go and never look back. We just need to be sure it's what we truly desire.

— Benjamin Busari

The only reason you're hurting so much is because you have decided to hold on to the reason why you were hurt in the first place.

You want so much to pretend that everything is fine when it isn't. You want so much to just move on, but you realize that you can't because you still look back every time the opportunity to look back rears its ugly head, and you do so because you haven't let go of whatever it is.

The heavy breathing, the tight pain in your chest, the anxiety you do know not where it came from, the fresh panic attacks, the random laughs when you think about the situation and how you let yourself get into it in the first place, the ‘always wanting to talk about it’ to everyone who pretends to give a hell about it, all of these things are markers that you are yet to let go.

Do you know the gravest danger and potential loss about not letting go? It is not even the anger and sickness you'd perpetually inside you. It is that you won't have space to let anything else in.

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Let's use the analogy of a clutched hand. Picture yourself picking up a stone, just the right size of stone to fit perfectly into your right hand. Hold on to it and don't let go. Now picture a friend, let's call his name, Today.

Today comes to you with two glasses of wine. He stretches one to your right hand to have a drink with him, but you can't take the glass of wine because you have to first let go of the stone you've been holding. You have to first unclutch your hand in order to receive the gift of today.

This is the point where it gets serious. Many of us don't want to unclutch our hands of stones we have held on to, stones that have been formed from the betrayals, the rejection, the failure, the loss, the discomfort, the anguish, the very pain of existence that we have felt.

It is worse for some of us because we are holding on to the stone in the hopes of throwing it at the one who hurt us sometime in the future, a future that may never come, all the while, we are losing the gift that Today has to offer.

Now is the time to let go. You cannot receive something new if you do not let go of the old. Many of us cry about closed doors, about lack of opportunities, about anxiety from past rejection, about our inability to feel love again, about trauma from past betrayal and loss, when in fact, we are still clutching our hands onto the doorknob of the past.

The door into new realities is wide open. You only have to be willing to step out of the room you are in at the moment. You need to unclutch your hands, for the only way to receive anything new is to do so with an empty hand.

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I know it hurts. I know it's easier said than done. But you first need to decide to let go. Make up your mind that you truly want to let go and never look back. A friend of mine, Benjamin and I were having a conversation about how we both quit taking soda, and he said something profound, "We humans are capable of anything. We can decide to do anything. We just have to want to do it, no matter what. We can decide to let go and never look back. We just need to be sure it's what we truly desire."

If you truly desire growth which I suspect you do, seeing that you're reading this right now, then it is time for you to make the decision to unclutch your hand and receive Today's gift. Let go of the stone that isn't serving you and receive of the bountiful opportunities that Today offers.

Lot's wife held on to a lot, and that's why she looked back and turned into a pillar of salt. It's time to stop holding on to a reminder of the past.

Unclutch your hand. Let go and advance to new and better realities.

To your growth,

Your Coach,

Abiola Okuns