How to Know When It’s Time to Let Go

Lessons From a Monkey Trap

Have you heard of the monkey trap? A monkey finds the object of his desire inside a gourd or some other container. The hole is large enough to get his hand into but too small to withdraw if said monkey doesn’t release the object.

Boom. Monkey is captured by the hunter because he doesn’t want to let go.

It’s a simple tale with profound lessons on the art of letting go.

For a long time, I was that monkey. I grasped a marriage that was dying until I, too, was emotionally dying. I hung onto ideals and not a small amount of magical thinking.

What I clung to was if I just work harder. If I just read another book, that will give me the key. Get into therapy. Drink more wine.

I needed to let go. I knew this because the emotional pain grew too heavy. And it affected my physical health as well-and that was before the breast cancer diagnosis. (IBS and fibromyalgia anyone?)

Breast cancer was another opportunity to visit this topic. I spent very little energy on my decision to have a double mastectomy. Some women chose a lumpectomy which would necessitate radiation, too. It’s a save the boob-ditch the tumor approach.

Not me. But it helped that, medically speaking, a lumpectomy wasn’t even an option given the scattershot approach cancer took in my breasts. (Three baby tumors in right breast, one in the left.)

Perhaps the divorce was the warm-up act for letting go of the girls.

It was a no-brainer to bid them adieu; they would have killed me eventually.

Letting go of my identity as a mom and wife…check. To cling to this would mean a perpetual state of grief. Sort of like taking up residency in a bombed-out house and trying to fix pancakes for kids that are no longer around.

I thought that wasband and I would have a paid off house by now and plenty of room for the kids to come back and visit.

Fuck, that one really hurts. I loved being a mom and homemaker. The approach of the holidays almost puts it in the chandelier pain category.

Buh-bye roles.

Letting go of my dreams for how I thought things would turn out… check-a-roni. Hanging on to this is a recipe for bitterness and inactivity. Yep. That too. Away with ye!

Letting go of…. oh, shit. My mind turns toward the storage unit I have been renting after my doublewide sold.

Yes, I, the minimalist organizer, am having a hard time letting go of some items.

Do I part with the wall décor that adorned my house through the years? Everything has a story. The watercolor print from an elderly neighbor we adopted when the kids were little. We called it the Gramma Dorothy picture.

The plaque that reminded us all to celebrate each day.

The Kitchen Aide mixer that sat on the kitchen counter and made countless homemade pizzas and cookies for our Friday ritual with movies.

The tubs of baby mementos-not a lot, but they are there. Kids may or may not want them.

What do I do with the wedding album? The pictures of our first home together? Questions I never in a million years thought I would be forced to consider.

What about the oil painting my wasband lovingly painted for me several years ago in honor of the ore boat my dad sailed on in the late ‘70s? It has been one of my most treasured possessions, but now it just hurts too much to look at it.

I have new compassion for the sentimentality that organizing clients struggle with. These items represent milestones in my life. Memories that both fill me with joy but also now with exquisite pain.

The new park model mobile home I purchased is under 400 square feet. And it is already furnished. Just bring your toothbrush, they say.

Great. But wadda I do with all the stuff in the storage unit? And yeah, there’s no way that Kitchen Aide’s gonna fit. Not that I do much baking these days, anyway.

To continue paying rent to store these items will not happen. I am getting back on my feet after nearly a year of no work and the budget is meager at this point.

The new year will bring new medical bills as the deductible begins again.

Shit. Right now, it sorta sucks to be me. Just writing about this can stir up a right proper panic attack.

I say that and right on its heels, I am reminded of the peace that comes with surrender and letting go.

In a few weeks, I will be back in AZ. And I will have some emotional decisions to make.

Like my organizing client’s say, “The kids don’t want this stuff…” and my kids are no exception. My kids are busy building their lives and the stories I have attached to the stuff is just that…. my stories.

I can hold those stories in my heart.

I’m not storing furniture and household items so much as memories. To continue to pay storage fees to house my memories is not a tenable solution.

I don’t want to hang on to these things if they are an impediment to moving forward and creating my new life.

And here’s another thought that may sound morbid, but if I were to get hit by a bus tomorrow, I don’t want my loved ones to deal with these things. After facing cancer, I know longer consider such topics as morbid, just practical.

It’s not their job to do. It is mine. (And I can’t resist inserting a plea-please deal with YOUR stuff instead of leaving it behind for your adult kids!)

My refusal to surrender and let go can and not only affects me, it will burden my loved ones.

My surrender list continues to grow: marriage, boobs, stuff. I can add disappointment over roads not taken, grief at seeing the struggles my kids deal with, my fear and anxiety being forced to reinvent myself at 58, friendships that have been fractured. And so on.

This is fucking hard shit to release.

I am not unlike that foolish monkey hanging on to stuff-both emotional and physical-that keeps me stuck.

I must release if I am to find peace and purpose.

I know in my heart that life arises from death, that freedom follows surrender, and clarity comes when clutter is cleared.

It’s that easy. And that hard.

Thanks so much for reading. You can find me around the internet at www.theresawinn.com, on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. If you’d like to support my writing in a small way, feel free to contribute to my wishlist. (Right now it’s a one year subscription to Canva.)