Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender (Power vs. Force, #9)

by David R. Hawkins

feeling tones organize thoughts and memory (Gray-LaViolette, 1981). Thoughts are filed in the memory bank according to the various shades of feelings associated with those thoughts. Therefore, when we relinquish or let go of a feeling, we are freeing ourselves from all of the associated thoughts.

We have three major ways of handling feelings: suppression, expression, and escape. We will discuss each in turn.

The feelings that we select to be suppressed or repressed are in accord with the conscious and unconscious programs that we carry within us from social custom and family training. The pressure of suppressed feelings is later felt as irritability, mood swings, tension in the muscles of the neck and back, headaches, cramps, menstrual disorders, colitis, indigestion, insomnia, hypertension, allergies, and other somatic conditions.

The expression of a feeling, first, tends to propagate that feeling and give it greater energy. Second, the expression of the feeling merely allows the remainder to be suppressed out of awareness.

Escape is the avoidance of feelings through diversion. This avoidance is the backbone of the entertainment and liquor industries, and also the route of the workaholic. Escapism and avoidance of inner awareness is a socially condoned mechanism. We can avoid our own inner selves and keep our feelings from emerging by an endless variety of pursuits, many of which eventually become addictions as our dependency upon them grows.

It is these repressed feelings that make us vulnerable to external stress.

Muscle-testing also demonstrates the energy changes that accompany emotions, as our body’s muscles instantly respond to positive and negative stimuli.

Letting go involves being aware of a feeling, letting it come up, staying with it, and letting it run its course without wanting to make it different or do anything about it. It means simply to let the feeling be there and to focus on letting out the energy behind it.

When letting go, ignore all thoughts. Focus on the feeling itself, not on the thoughts.

As we become more familiar with letting go, it will be noticed that all negative feelings are associated with our basic fear related to survival and that all feelings are merely survival programs that the mind believes are necessary. The letting go technique undoes the programs progressively.

To be surrendered means to have no strong emotion about a thing: “It’s okay if it happens, and it’s okay if it doesn’

Letting go of negative feelings is the undoing of the ego, which will be resistant at every turn. This may result in skepticism about the technique, “forgetting” to surrender, a sudden upsurge of escapism, or venting feelings by expressing and acting out. The solution is simply to keep on letting go of the feelings you have about the whole process. Let the resistance be there but don’t resist the resistance.

Sometimes you will feel stuck with a particular feeling. Simply surrender to the feeling of being stuck. Just let it be there and don’t resist it. If it doesn’t disappear, see if you can let go of the feeling in bits and pieces.

Another block that may occur is the fear that if we let go of a desire for something, we won’t get it. It is often beneficial to look at some commonly held beliefs and let go of them right in the beginning, such as: (1) We only deserve things through hard work, struggle, sacrifice, and effort; (2) Suffering is beneficial and good for us; (3) We don’t get anything for nothing; (4) Things that are very simple aren’t worth much. Letting go of some of these psychological barriers to the technique itself will allow an enjoyment of its effortlessness and ease.

There is a simple way to become conscious of the underlying emotional goal behind any activity through use of the question, “What for?” With each answer, “What for?” is asked again and again until the basic feeling is uncovered.

Every activity or desire will reveal that the basic goal is to achieve a certain feeling. There are no other goals than to overcome fear and achieve happiness. Emotions are connected with what we believe will ensure our survival, not with what actually will. Emotions themselves are actually the cause of the basic fear that drives everyone to seek security constantly.

The fastest way to move from the bottom to the top is by telling the truth to ourselves and to others.

Each meridian is associated with a particular organ, and each organ is associated with a particular emotion. A negative emotion throws off the energy balance of its associated acupuncture meridian and related organ. For instance, depression, despair, and melancholy are associated with the liver meridian, so these emotions tend to interfere with liver function. Every negative feeling impairs a body organ and, as the years go by, that organ becomes diseased and eventually fails to function.

there is a scientific basis for the observation that self-awareness is increased much more rapidly by observing feelings rather than thoughts.

The thoughts associated with even one feeling may literally run into the thousands. The understanding of the underlying emotion and its correct handling is, therefore, more rewarding and less time-consuming than dealing with one’s thoughts.

“What is the basic feeling that I’ve been ignoring?”

When the feeling has been reduced in its sheer quantity and intensity, it is best to start letting go of small aspects of the situation rather than the overall situation and the accompanying emotion itself.

Handling a crisis from the emotional rather than the intellectual level will shorten its duration dramatically.

A good and very illuminating exercise is to sit down and look at the feeling that is directly opposite the negative one that we are experiencing and begin to let go resisting it. Let’s say, for instance, that a friend’s birthday is coming up and we are feeling resentful and stingy; therefore, we just can’t seem to get out to shop for a present, and the day is getting closer. The exact opposite feelings are those of forgiveness and generosity.

The biologic purpose of apathy is to summon aid, but part of the feeling is that no help is possible. Much of the world’s population is functioning on the level of apathy. For them, there is no hope that they will be able to meet their basic needs, nor will help be forthcoming from elsewhere.

Once we have experienced this progression up the scale of emotions in any one particular area, we now begin to realize that it can be done in other areas of limitation in our lives. Behind all of the “I can’ts” are merely “I won’ts.” The “I won’ts” mean “I am afraid to” or “I am ashamed to” or “I have too much pride to try, for fear I might fail.” Behind that is anger at ourselves and circumstances engendered by pride. Acknowledging and letting go of these feelings brings us up to courage and, with that, finally acceptance and an inner peacefulness, at least as it regards the area which has been surmounted.

Apathy and depression are the prices we pay for having settled for and bought into our smallness. It’s what we get for having played the victim and allowed ourselves to be programmed. It’s the price we pay for having bought into negativity. It’s what results from resisting the part of ourselves that is loving, courageous, and great. It results from allowing ourselves to be invalidated by ourselves or others; it is the consequence of holding ourselves in a negative context. In reality, it is only a definition of ourselves that we have unwittingly allowed to happen. The way out is to become more conscious.

The feeling state of apathy is associated with the belief, “I can’t.” The mind doesn’t like to hear it, but in reality most “I can’ts” are “I won’ts.” The reason the mind doesn’t want to hear this is because “I can’t” is a cover-up for other feelings. These feelings can be brought to awareness by posing the hypothetical question to oneself, “Is it true that I won’t rather than that I can’t? If I accept that ‘I won’t,’ what situations will be brought up and how do I feel about them?”

Also, the role of victim brings with it a self-perception of weakness, vulnerability, and helplessness, which are the major components of apathy and depression.

The psychological basis of all grief and mourning is attachment. Attachment and dependence occur because we feel incomplete within ourselves; therefore, we seek objects, people, relationships, places, and concepts to fulfill inner needs. Because they are unconsciously utilized to fulfill an inner need, they come to be identified as “mine.” As more energy is poured into them, there is a transition from identifying with the external objects as “mine” to being an actual extension of “me.” Loss of the object or person is experienced as a loss of our own self and an important part of our emotional economy. Loss is experienced as a diminution of the quality of ourselves, which the object or person represented. The more emotional energy invested in the object or person, the greater will be the feeling of loss and the greater the pain associated with the undoing of the bonds of dependence. Attachment creates a dependency, and dependency, because of its nature, intrinsically carries with it a fear of loss.

We can ask ourselves why we feel so incomplete. “Why am I so empty within myself that I have to search for solutions in the form of attachment and dependency on others?”

To what degree do they subserve our selfish inner needs? To what degree are we really using the other person to exploit them for our own gain? To what degree are they merely subserving our happiness? To find out, all we need to do is ask ourselves: “If their happiness were best served by leaving me, how would I feel about it?” This reveals the degree to which we are trying to restrict and control the other person—which is attachment and not love.

There is, moreover, a cause of fear of which many people are unaware: the fear of retaliation. This fear arises from the desire to strike out, to hit back, and to attack. As we let go of fear, we find that behind it, there is often anger at the object of fear itself. The willingness to let go of the fear and overcome it already moves us up to the next level, which is anger. The fact that we can face this combination of fear/anger feelings and surrender it moves us instantly up to pride and courage.

People who have acknowledged the content of their own shadow have no interest in crime, violence, and fearful disasters.

It takes a lot of energy to keep the shadow buried and to suppress our multitude of fears. The result is energy depletion. On the emotional level, it is expressed as an inhibition of the capacity to love.

With kinesiologic testing, we can instantly demonstrate that a fearful thought causes a major reduction in muscle power and deranges the energy flow down the body’s energy meridians to the body’s vital organs.

In between the fear of living and the fear of dying is the guilt of the moment.

Guilt represents death just as love represents life. Guilt is part of the smaller self and underlies our willingness to believe negative things about ourselves.

If it weren’t for the negative programming that made us believe otherwise, why should we go through any cost of pain and suffering to achieve anything in our life? Isn’t that a rather sadistic view of the world and the universe?

The corollary is obviously true. If our mind, by its decision, has the power to make negative things happen in our life, then it has equal power in the opposite, positive direction. We can choose all over again. This time we can choose the positive. We can cancel the old programs, and we can do that by beginning to relinquish the gratification we were getting out of the negative payoffs.

Chronic, unrecognized anger and resentment reemerge in our life as depression, which is anger directed against oneself.

Thus, in apathy, the whole relationship with God is hopeless, if it can be considered at all. On the level of grief, one feels hopelessly separated from any help from God. When overcome with guilt, the person feels undeserving of any relationship with God, and punishment is expected rather than love. On the level of fear, the fear may be so great that the problem of God cannot even be faced, so that the subject is blotted out of consciousness, and God is viewed as fearful, punishing, avenging, jealous, and angry. On the level of anger, God is viewed as depriving, arbitrary, capricious, and failing. On the level of pride, there is egotism about one’s religious or spiritual position, characterized by rigidity, inflexibility, intolerance, proneness to exclusivity, bigotry, clannishness, religious argumentation, and warring.

“Love is a many splendored thing,” as the popular song goes. Experientially, this statement is true. When we have surrendered all of the resistances to love and let go of the negative feelings that block love, then the world is radiant with the splendor of love. On the level of love, this radiance is no longer hidden from us.

The report in Science (223: 188–190) states, “Our findings support the view that the central nervous system by modulating immune function exercises some measure of control over the inception and development of disease.” The report goes on to say that a feeling of helplessness has been related to reduced anti-cancer killer cell activity and increased tumor growth.

Sir John Eccles, Nobel Laureate, stated that after a lifetime of study it became apparent that the brain is not the origin of the mind, as science and medicine had believed, but the other way around. The mind controls the brain, which acts as a receiving station (like a radio) with thoughts being similar to radio waves and the brain being similar to the receiver.

Too often intellectual insight is all that’s really achieved, and the emotional working through is slow, often painful, and ultimately avoided. The mechanism of letting go, on the other hand, is concerned with the emotional “what” from moment to moment, without involving the intellect.

The goals of letting go are far beyond those of psychotherapy. The ultimate aim of letting go and surrendering is total freedom. The goal of therapy is readjustment of the ego to a more healthy balance. The two systems are based on different paradigms of reality.