Finding Peace on the Path: Learning to Let Go

As I meander down the path today I am thinking about all my fellow travelers who suffer from overwhelming stress and deep depression.  I began to consider how I could assist them and help them find peace on their path. 

As I pondered I realized that, the path to inner peace and happiness begins with letting go, and that the key skill to learn to achieve happiness is releasing negative thoughts and emotions!  Everyone holds on to things that should just be let go; bad memories, anger, worries and lost loves. All of the pent up negative feelings and emotions rot us from the inside out and can make us and everyone around us miserable.

Having come up with a solution I feel my steps lighten and my smile brighten, the trees on my path seem greener and I believe the birds are serenading me.  I wonder why has no one ever thought of this before, everyone could be so happy.  Then I stop suddenly, realizing what I thought was the answer is only the beginning.

To say that you need to release all of the negative thoughts and emotions is easy, but how do you accomplish this, and more difficult yet, how do you teach someone else to do it? For very few it is simply that easy, realizing what to do, and then they can do it, but for most there is much more work involved. Those with the longest road ahead of them are those who are barricaded by fear.

Fear is one of the first obstacles most people face when they try to release all the negativity that holds them back. Fear of the unknown (happiness), fear of being taken advantage of once you have let so much go, and fear of losing the security blanket of anger, sadness and inner turmoil.

It is easy to see how someone who has never known what it feels like to release the black cloud of negativity would be afraid to lose it. Many people are conditioned into living with it as if it were a part of them and they believe (and sometimes others as well) that it is just who they are, they are just inherently angry and miserable.   These are the people who have the most difficulty learning to release, because in their mind releasing all the negativity would be changing who they are at their core, and they have the longest path to travel before they reach the peaceful path but there is still hope even for these hardcore haters and sanctimoniously sad souls.

I look around again at my path and the forest that surrounds it, and although I have been standing still I feel I have made some progress. My thoughts and ideas have not yet lightened the burdens of those around me, but I suppose if it were that easy someone would have figured it all out by now, and sadness and anger would be a rare occurrence rather than the norm. I continue down my path again and release these thoughts for now to you dearest readers. I too must not hold on to negative thoughts and frustration at not finding a solution is a negative thought, so far now I let it go, but will return with more positivity later.