The Power of Letting Go

Welcome to The Missing Secret Podcast. I'm Kelly Hatfield, hey, and just like last week, I'm John Mitchell. So here's our topic today, the power of letting go. And this is from a book by a guy named David Hawkins, and the actual title is letting go the path to surrender. And I see that is very similar to this book that Mel Robbins has her new book, which is called the let them theory. And Kelly, you know, a little something about that book. Why? What do you know about that?

Yeah, I think I first of all love the book it is. I would recommend it to anybody. You've read it, yeah, I've read it, yeah, I've listened to it. I haven't read it, although I will hold this up right here. I do have the hard copy too, because I wanted to go through right highlight. So I have both. But what I love about the let them theory, is it so aligned with the think it be to think it be it, you know, methodology, you know, being like, there are things that we can control. We can control our thoughts and our actions, those things that we have control over, right? And so with the let them theory, it truly is about because I think we some in this need to control things, you know, we expend a lot of energy, and a lot of, like, there's a lot of resistance trying to control things, situations, other people's actions, other people's and we don't have any control over that, you know. So, like, the let them theory and again, just kind of off the off the cuff here really is about letting them be, act and behave the way they're going to act and behave. And there is an acceptance to one degree, but you're more so like responsible for your behavior, because it's really two thoughts. It's not just about, well, let them like, I'm going to be a patsy or whatever, just let them walk all over me. It's not that at all, right? It is releasing and letting go of the control over what somebody else is doing. And then the second part to the let them theory is, then let me, so I can choose how I respond to this person. So if I'm being treated disrespectfully, you know, then you know, for whatever the case may be, then, you know, I'm like, okay, you know, they're gonna behave that way. Let me this is what I'm gonna do in response to that. Or, you know, she gives the example of being whipped into kind of a frenzy over her son's prom, and she wanted all every little bit. They hadn't planned everything, and she was wanting it to be she just was, you know, whipping around there and so stressed and creating all of this stress and energy, you know. And in that scenario, it would be, let them figure it out, let them go. If there's not a table ready because they didn't make a reservation, they'll go with it and everything right me, you know, enjoy this moment, visit with these parents, have a glass of wine like it's just changing, you know, shifting the paradigm. Because we we can't control everything. We can control our thoughts and our actions, and so that that let them is about just let them do them. Youdo you?

Yeah, right,right, right. You know, it is a great concept. And I was looking at the description of her book, and here's what it says at the start that I would challenge a little bit. She says, If you ever felt stuck, overwhelmed or frustrated with where you are, the problem, isn't you? The problem is the power you give to other people, right there. I disagree with that. The problem is you, you know, and I don't know why, in this society, we are so afraid to say the problem is us. The problem is always us. We're also always the solution. And so if you're giving that power to other people to frustrate you and giving power to things that you don't control, that's on you.

Yeah, that is on you. That's so I would, I would agree with your statement in because it's a choice you're making to show up or behave that way, then it is you. You know you change about you, how you you know what I mean, so I agree wholeheartedly with what you're saying. And just in arguing that point about it's not you, it's like, yeah, it is you.

Why? Why do you think that there's so much in our society today that does where we don't want to tell people it's you. It's you. What? What is that?

I don't know. I'm not sure culture, you know, with the culture and everything now, it's interesting too, because Mel and her, a lot of her content has this whole thing, like, nobody's coming to sing view, like in your rank word, I mean, so there is that part of the work that that she specifically does, but like, culturally right now, I. Where you know there isn't that, you know, accountability, and it's there's so much of that victim. Well, this didn't, because these three things happened that made that not happen, you know. And right? Well, no, you know. You could have done something differently that, you know. So I don't know why it is right now, there seems to be just this really high sensitivity and not wanting to, you know, in wanting to be politically correct, whatever that means nowadays, I take that that is Yeah, right, anymore, right? I don't know what it is

Right, you know, just not to get too off on this. But one of the things I think that is a problem today is that we have an absence of the truth that now we live in this world where there is no truth, it's all people's opinions. Well, that's just not right. I mean that everything, every there, there are established truths in in our world, and when people don't admit the truth. And the best example of it that I can think of is Trump saying that he won the 2020 election. Not a scintilla of evidence to support that. Yet, you know him and and millions of other people deny that it happened. Well, that's that's just basically totally unenlightened thinking, and it promotes unenlightened thinking in our society. And I see the value of letting people have their opinions. I mean that very much this, let them, let them have their opinions, but let's figure out which opinions are good. And yes, let's be judgmental. I don't see a problem of being judgmental because some opinions are so away from the truth that they need to be discarded and shunned. And again, let people have their opinions, but also measure the quality of their opinions based on how close to truth they are. Would you agree with that?

I would absolutely. And going back to your statement, what asking culturally about why we're, you know, as far as just accountability, I think what you just said is tied into it, but I also think that it is like generationally over the course of the last, you know, three, maybe two, three generations. I mean, think about like we know, because in talking with the athletic coaches, the parents are some of the biggest challenges. You know, plans with coaching an athlete, it's the, you know, parents, the parents expectations. And so we saw that shift with parenting and helicopter parenting, right, where they're like, my kid's not getting a good grade, yeah, you know, whose fault is that exactly? Then work harder. It's not because I graded it too, you know what I mean? And right? I think that that is part of what shaped this culture of, you know, people not owning their stuff. And, you know, so I definitely have noticed that shift. And I think it starts, you know, there in in terms of how people are parenting, right? And then they're bringing up these, this generation that, you know, that looks at things differently than that space of radical accountability, like if I'm unhappy, you know, and if I'm not, you know, it where I want to be in life, instead of thinking, Well, yeah, that's me. I need to make better choices, and I need to, right? It's, you know, all of these things happen to me that have led me to be unhappy and be in this, you know what I mean? It's that right kind of mentality,

well, and I see, one of the things I've noticed is, as I've gotten older, is that things that would seem to be so clearly smart, as many as 30% 40% of the population will not see it that way. That I mean things that are they're just clearly smart. And as an example, and I've probably talked about this before, this idea to set aside time to deep think couple times a week, just the idea of of setting aside time to think, well, who the hell is going to say? That's not a good idea. Well, 40% of the population is going to say, is my I mean, and that's just example something that is just blatantly true. And if you do look at the research, is true, yet easily, 40% of population go, Yeah, I don't know about that. That actually sitting back and thinking, or really, yeah, well, well, ignore that. It's your peril, my friend.

But you know, that's the world we live in, and so that's why I see it's really hard to move forward in our society, because there's so much diversity of opinion, and so much of the opinion is harebrained opinions. My Yeah, but this, this book. That I started reading is called letting go, by David Hawkins says letting go the path of surrender. And this is a tremendous book, and I see that it is taking me personally to a higher level. And by my nature, I probably have never wanted to let go, because I wanted to be in control. And then once I developed, think it be it, they gave me immense control over my life, which was very felt very good, and is very good and very comforting and and I see that now learning this technique of letting go is so in line with the think it be at methodology, because just like Mel Robbins book is you can put stuff in there, and that's who you will become. And I think that's like, that's the problem like with with the Mel Robbins doesn't quite get yet. I hope to enlighten her about this. But like when she says to people, you need to let go, all you're doing is impacting their intentions. They're going to go, oh yeah, I need let go. Sure. Okay. And then they can't let go. Well, why can't they let go well, because their only conscious mind dealing with their intentions, they're not dealing with the subconscious mind the excellent doing part of them, and that's why you if you want to let go, you got to dial it into your daily visualization and rewire your autopilot so it happens automatically without thinking, right? Yep, absolutely. And just to give you a couple of instances in letting go, I'm looking at my visualization like, here's I just read a little of it. I now just let go. Letting Go brings me what I want, what I desire. I let go of outcomes. I just do my best. I let go of being conservative. People get tippy. They get it if they're supposed to. My focus going forward is on understanding the art of living, the successful art of living. And so it sort of goes into that. And one thing that I sort of like to mention you I talk about my focus now is on letting go and just doing my best. Well. When I was 40 years old and I wasn't as successful as I thought I should be, I It came to me just do your best, because that's all you can control. And so throughout my 40s, I just tried to do my best, but I was so unenlightened that I thought that doing my best was just getting up early. And then when I got my 50s and understood that doing my best was six things of being organized, thinking two times a week and being a conduit of learning and and foundationally understanding how the human mind works and focusing on what moves the needle. I see that now, if it at 40, I had understood that, and especially understood how the human mind worked and did my best, it all would have worked out fine. But if you were unenlightened and had a misconception about doing your best, not gonna work out so good. The way you buy that all that?

Yeah, no, definitely. I think, yeah, it again. It's just those different seasons and the way you receive things, I think, in the different seasons of life, and where you're at,

ight, right? So, you know one thing that this is a little off the topic, but you know, one things we teach in our methodology is doing a Sunday talk, or a week talk, weekly talk with your significant other. And so ginger and I've been doing this for, like, even when we were dating. And like, you know, we've been dating, we're still dating. We've been married 14 years and been together another four years. So so we've been basically dating for 18 years. We're still dating. She's still my girlfriend. I love that. And anyway, yesterday, so we we do a Sunday talk at eight o'clock every Sunday, and we decided that we are going to change up our talk the way that we teach it or write, that we've proposed followers or to be do it is make the talk two parts. First part is any problems that happened in the prior week, and the second part is how much you love each other and why it really doesn't have to be that way. That's the that's the structure, but that's what we've been doing a long time, and so now we decided we're just going to make it. You know, our Sunday talk is about just our relationship. Maybe we're going to watch a YouTube video on relationships. Maybe we're just going to talk about something in our relationship. Maybe we're going to talk. About an aspect of each other that we love or something, but a little more free form that it's been. And I'm really sort of excited to see this, and this was Ginger's suggestion, but I'm curious, do you do a Friday night day, right? Yeah, with Jared. So how has that time changed over the years.

Oh, good question. I haven't thought about that.

You still do it, though, right?

Oh, yeah, yep, yep, without feel every Friday. Well, I say that when he is in town or when he's not, you know, working, right? But if he's here, then we're doing it. And, yeah, we're going out, you know, it could be, you know, sometimes too, we might go on a hike, we might go out to dinner with one another, but it's just time that we're spending together. You know, we've got this great house with this water, you know, right on the water, and so we spend some time down on the beach with the dog, but like, it's dedicated time where it's the two of us, and then our conversations really are more in terms of just making sure that we're in alignment. And we've always used the on a scale of one to 10, you know, did you rate, you know, the quality of our you know, relationship, or how we interacted this week, you know? And so then, if it's an eight, it's like, okay, well, what would have made it a nine or a 10, you know? What are the then you can give specific examples of like, hey, when this came up, and then it just gives you an opportunity to, I don't know, we really appreciated that framework.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I really like that too. Ginger doesn't like to quantify things like that, but I get that. I mean, I gotta let her, let it go. That's okay, you guys, she doesn't like it, but I see that this idea of letting go risk so what applies to every aspect of your your life, but it's basically your your marriage and your career, but when your spouse irritates you, just let it go. I mean, just, it's not worth giving energy to it. Yeah, they it's show off. Okay, what else? And I see that when they don't want to do something that that you want to do, let it go, I mean, and I see how this philosophy of letting it go is really good, because it's foundationally based on the vast majority of things don't matter, so there's no sense getting stressed over them. So let them go.

Yep, let them go. And what I love about that whole, you know, because sometimes it's easier said than done, but what I like is that will let me like so you know, either that you know a brother, you know that unfortunately, has, his whole life has been, you know, involved in addiction, you know. So there's all of those different elements going on, and he's one way, and I will have a conversation with him. I listen, you know, and then I'm like, There's nothing I can do to to help him, or like he's been this way for, you know what I mean? And so it's let me, what am I going to do? Then I'm going to protect myself, and I know that after I have that conversation with him, I'm going to do something that recharges me, because it pulls all of this energy off of me. So I'm not going to fix him. I'm not going to try to, you know. But then I know also what I need, you know, in response to having had that type of an interaction, you know? And so I think these are all just choices. Basically, I'm going to choose this, and then I personally, my response is going to be, you know, whatever my response is going to be, right? But that's what I love about it is because, you know, it gives you the control, that control that control that we so desire, and that can, you know, where you can twist yourself around things that, again, have no control over somebody else's behavior or their actions, you know. But what I do have control over is my own, you know. And so I love the control that that gives me. I took my control of that, you know, because of I'm not giving it away to somebody else, and being frustrated that they're not doing it the way I want it done, or that they're doing something differently than I how I want it done. And so it really is. It frees you up. And I think in terms of success, again, I just think about all of the energy that people expend being worried about, being trying to control other stuff that they have zero control over. I used to be one of those people, you know. And what a difference it makes when it's just like, you know, I'm gonna and I want to be clear though too, this is not you being a doormat. This is not you, you know, if you're being talked to in a way that you don't, you know, appreciate or whatever, this isn't you just taking it and being like, I'll let it go. No, you know, it's like, okay, let them voice what they need to be said. My response now is going to be that is not something that I'll accept. Here's the boundary, you know, and but I'm not. Really explaining it very well, but I want to be careful, because when I first heard the let them theory from Mel Robbins, before she got to the second part, I was like, you just sell like, you know, you're gonna get walked all over here. And like, you don't care anything, you know. And right? That isn't what this is at all. It's about let them do their thing. I'm going to do my thing

Right, right? You know, it's interesting I see because I do a lot of podcast where I'm a guest on podcast, and that that flows people into our podcast. I can see the numbers rising, and it's interesting as I look at this sea of people on the internet that are listening to us, some of them have been doing our methodology, and they are right there. They're like, they're right there with us. They understand it all. They're doing it. It's cool. And then you got newbies that are like, huh, this looks pretty interesting. What are these two talking about? And what I see, if I was going to recap what we've talked about today, is that, from the wisdom of other people, you can raise the quality of your life, if you'll listen to the brilliance of other people. I had to get what I created from Think and Grow Rich the brilliance of the Napoleon Hill, all I did was figure out how to apply it, but he was a real brilliance in the equation. But I think the sooner you can realize, oh, the better life for me. Playing the game of life at the higher level for me is learning from somebody that's already where I want to go and and that's why I say that oftentimes, I hope that our methodology takes people to that next level, and like I'm going now to this next level from reading this book, letting go, and so maybe as we We we end this as the point I want to convey to people is look for those pieces of brilliance when they come and apply them to your life, and if you're doing our our methodology, our 12 minute day way of doing life, this is so compatible, because as You learn stuff. You just put it into your visualization. You feed it to yourself every day, and boom, that's who you are after 21 days. It's so simple and easy it did and it just works like that. So, okay, any final words?

Nope, I think you covered it. This is good stuff. Like, I love this too. And again, for the for the people who are listening, you know, this methodology and incorporating this into the methodology, so you train your brain to automatically, like, when I start to physiologically feel frustration, like I recognize something in my body, that is because I'm not controlling, you know what? I mean, I don't have control over what somebody else is saying or doing. Then I'm immediately triggering in my mind to, like, you can you control your thoughts, your actions? And then it's like, oh, okay, wait just minute. How am I going to respond to this situation? I'm going to respond, you know, by, you know, whatever the situation is and whatever I decide to do, but it's an automatic trigger that happens because I've trained myself that when I feel it, my body, because I'm super tuned into that, when I feel the shoulders raise the blood, me hold my breath. Me just tense up, you know. Or when I get that thing that's like, you know, like Betty or then that's a trigger for me, and I've done that through the work that I have in my visualization, where it's an automatic thing that happens now and boy, life challenges when you are not holding on to everything and trying to control everything outside of your control.

Right? What I see with this, this idea of letting go and this idea of giving love, I see that because I feed that to myself every day. It just naturally happens, whereas if someone read Mel Robbins book as an example and she says, Well, just let go. Well, they're generally not going to be able to let go, because all you're doing is is conscious mind getting them to giving them an intention, but actually letting go is, is an action, and that's controlled by the subconscious mind. That's the point I'm trying to make, is if you want to change you, you got to change your autopilot and your subconscious mind. Amen, okay, Becky, we got it. We got it. Okay, until next time, we'll see you.