Letting go is the ugly cry

What does letting go feel like when you don’t want to do it?

Painful and ugly. At least that’s what I experienced when I had to give up and let go of my heart’s dream to be a published book author.

Letting go of that dream was excruciating. Heartbreak is. I knew I was a writer. Deep down something inside me just knew.

From about 1993, I’d been trying to sell three mystery novels I wrote. I must have sent close to one hundred queries to different publishers. Back then, before there was email, everything went through the postal mail. It was a sloooooooow process. It could take months for a publisher to answer my query letter. I had a few ask for the manuscript for consideration, but I never made a sale.

I kept going. Kept writing mysteries and screenplays and greeting cards and sending out queries. My motto—never give up! Where there’s a will, there’s a way! I’m a writer, dang it! I love writing. It’s all I want to do. Quitting is not an option. Even the thought of quitting was unbearable.

By 1997 and no sale, I changed gears. I quit marketing my fiction and sent out a nonfiction book proposal to a dozen publishers about regional travel. I also took a job as a newspaper columnist that paid $20 a week. Within a year it was voted the number one column by the readers.

I kept working my regular job and writing. My burning heart’s desire was still to be a published book author. If it’s a heart’s desire, it has to happen, right?

Finally, in 1999, with no publisher interested in any of my work, I had to admit that my dream wasn’t going to come true. I’ll never forget that day. I’d gone for a walk and cried the whole time. The ugly heartbreaking cry of a person whose dream is shattered. I sobbed, absolutely sobbed with the painful thought that I wasn’t an author after all. How could that be?

And yet, here I was without a book contract. Stark reality.

And then I let go. I didn’t know what else to do. For the first time, I just let go as I cried my pain out. I screamed at the heavens: I GIVE UP! I had done my best and there was nothing more I could do. I couldn’t make it happen.

I walked into the house, dejected, grieving, yet a bit more peaceful. I had no idea what I was going to do with all my extra time. Writing books is time consuming. I saw the answering machine light blinking and hit the button for messages. A Minnesota publisher I queried a year before was interested in my travel book.

Someone was interested in my book! A book I’d completely forgotten I’d queried on to a publisher I’d long forgotten. And now they wanted to buy it!! Offered me a 4-book deal. Told me it was a great idea and they were sure they could sell a lot of books.

And they did. My first travel book was published in 2001, the last in 2005. Two of them are still in print and still selling. The Wisconsin book often makes Amazon’s top travel seller for the state. And I don’t have to do anything except accept my quarterly royalty check. In my wildest dreams I wouldn’t have imagined that.

Letting go and trusting the outcome can be a hard thing to do if you’re used to needing to control everything. When you’re attached to needing something to show up in your life in a specific way and in a specific time, chances are good it won’t.

I learned a lot the day I gave up and stopped trying to force everything. I stopped trying to force things by using sheer will, which is a limited view. This only set me up for more ways to experience situations so I could “never give up.”

Letting go is an important component to having great faith that your problem is already solved in your highest and best way. Often in a way much better than you can imagine. Now, when things seem too hard or don’t seem to be working out how I thought they might, I give up immediately and let go.

I do my part to consciously create as best I can, but I know that whatever is happening (whether I think of it as good or bad), I know life is working for me perfectly—I just might not be able to understand the gift in the moment based on my limited viewpoint.

If you want to experience a life of real freedom, I encourage you to give letting go at try. Think of something you’ve been struggling with, and simply let it go as best you can. Turn your focus to something else for a while and trust if you don’t have what you want, then something more in alignment is heading your way.

And as always, I’m available for private sessions if you need deeper understanding, support, or guidance in the form of energy work or intuitive life coaching.