Perhaps the greatest lessons of my life have revolved around the slogan of the recovery movement: “Let Go and Let God”—a notion that involves relinquishing ego’s attachment to, or fear of, something. The single most pronounced attachment for most of us during our lives is the attachment to being right! There’s nothing ego loves more than to be right, which makes it an important and satisfying attachment to practice letting go.
I seriously doubt that there’s anyone reading this who hasn’t engaged in arguing about trivial matters that turned into disagreements, which had a net effect of following a road of self-righteous anger. And all of it probably seemed to be for no reason other than the need, the desire, to be right! Eventually, we may look back with wistful amusement, realizing now that our fear of actually being wrong was so strong then that another person’s opinion could energize this unwanted feeling. Ego’s strategy is to be right no matter what, a highly successful maneuver that effectively distracts us from genuine purpose. The good thing is, letting go of an attachment to being right can be a fairly simple exercise.
So how can you choose to let go and let God in the quest to eliminate an attachment to being right? You can handle it with these simple words spoken to another—You’re right about that. It stems from a soulful decision you make that when given the choice between being right and being kind—you’ll always choose to be kind. Saying “you’re right about that” will gradually open the entry point to a road that leads through letting go and letting God to experiencing a more significant life.
Part of the meaning we gain by letting go is a movement toward real contentment. Most stress in our lives results from hanging on to beliefs that keep us striving for more because ego stubbornly believes we need it. When we make the shift away from attachment, the influence of our ego fades. We replace attachment with contentment. Chasing and striving—and then becoming attached to what we chased after—is a source of anxiety that feeds Ambition, but it won’t satisfy the need for Meaning at our soul level.”
–Wayne Dyer’s Blog Post, www.hayhouse.com
