The Frequency of Letting Go: What Getting Older Teaches Us About Release
There is something that happens as we get older that no one really talks about.
Your relationship with holding on changes. Things that once felt important begin to feel strangely heavy. Conversations you used to rehearse in your head no longer seem worth having. Certain relationships stop making sense. The need to explain yourself begins to fade.
And sometimes, you realize you simply don't have the energy anymore to carry things that were never yours to begin with.
Maybe that's one of the gifts of getting older... not that we become less... but that we become more discerning about what deserves our energy.
Your energy is not infinite
When we're younger, we often spend an enormous amount of energy trying to become someone.
We might be trying to be liked. We try to belong. We try to prove ourselves. We try to keep relationships together. We try to meet expectations we didn't create. We absorb opinions, judgments, family patterns, cultural conditioning and other people's ideas about who we're supposed to be. And we call it life. We might even be fighting to be ourselves...
But somewhere along the way, something shifts. The body starts telling the truth before the mind is ready to hear it. Our bodies intuitively know when something isn't "right"... something is "off". Even if we can't put our finger on it... our body is alerted to a shift in frequency...
It yells, "I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to be around that. This doesn't feel good. I'm tired of pretending. I don't want to explain myself." This isn't necessarily bitterness. It can be discernment. It may be our truth.
Frequency of Letting Go
I've been thinking about the frequency of letting go...not just letting go of physical things, although that happens too. What if we begin letting go of identities, our old stories... old versions of ourselves... or relationships that have completed their purpose.
The need to be understood by everyone. The need to be right. The need to keep proving that we're worthy. The version of ourselves who survived something and then continued living as though the danger were still present.
There is a different energy in release. It isn't always dramatic.Sometimes release is incredibly quiet. It's the moment you stop responding. The moment you stop chasing. The moment you don't explain. The moment you realize that something can be true about your past without needing to define your future.
Your body knows what you're carrying.
Our bodies are constantly responding to what we experience. We tighten... We brace... We contract... We hold our breath... We clench our jaw... We lift our shoulders... We protect our heart.
Sometimes the body continues carrying something long after the mind has decided it's "over." And as we get older, I think we become less willing—or perhaps less able—to ignore those signals. The body starts negotiating differently.
It asks:
How much longer are you going to carry this?
Maybe that tension isn't asking you to try harder.
Maybe it's asking you to release.
Your Body's Healing Frequency
I was healing at a fast pace people where doctors and nurses were asking what I was doing to get my results. I had lost toe nails from sprinting... running... hiking... and they grew back. But the road rash, I was healing from was as if... my body had tapped in... accessing some hidden reservoir of innate, biological healing well hidden within. The person I was in the wreck with would asked me to stay longer... saying, "I can tell I'm healing faster when you're around."
But to heal ourselves... like loving others... is to begin with ourselves first. They tell you in an airplane plummeting from the sky, to put your oxygen mask on first... You can't save anyone if you're dead... And this is the healing... the life style... I'm still working on. It comes in waves... in rewiring my mind... in remembering... in looking back... in order to look forward. Begin with you. You are the shift the world... you... need.
Months before this...
I was waking up asking myself, "How fast do you want to heal, Polly?"(from a broken heart). And now months later, I'm was sitting there asking myself, "How fast to do you physically want to heal (from the wreck)?" My biggest fear was in NOT seeing the summit of another mountain.. to miss the exhaustion through the bush... or bike into the sunrise.
Frequency of Fear
Our fears can keep us standing still... or push into doing more. The fear of moving forward; a painful cycle repeating itself... us unable to escape our past... is common... and more likely to happen. We are putting out beacons calling in a future with the frequency of inner light; our thoughts...
Then there is the fear or NOT doing the very thing that brought us to this painful place. I use to say... I love love... and I'm willing to have more broken hearts and experience the evolution of my ability to receive and give love... than to never experience the highs... the pull of love again. My fear of not being able to run... to hike... to move freely again scared me... And my objective was to heal... so I could keep doing the very thing that brought me to this place of pain... but maybe this time... I would listen to my gut and swerve to miss that pothole ahead of me.
Getting older isn't only about adding
We live in a culture obsessed with adding... more knowledge... more experiences... more accomplishments... more products... more goals... more things to fix.
Even aging is often presented as something we need to fight. But what if getting older isn't simply about accumulating more?
What if it's also about subtraction?
What can I stop carrying?
What can I stop performing?
What no longer needs my attention?
What belief have I outgrown?
What relationship only exists because of who I used to be?
What version of myself am I still trying to prove?
There is freedom in these questions. Because sometimes healing isn't about finding something new, sometimes it's about finally putting something down.
Wisdom of Aging
Maybe this is part of what happens as we age. We begin to understand the difference between what is urgent and what is important. We become more protective of our time. We become more aware of our energy... more honest about what feels good and what doesn't. We stop confusing chaos with connection. We stop confusing exhaustion with productivity. We stop believing that every relationship has to be saved. We begin to understand that peace isn't boring... Peace is information... so is discomfort, so is resentment and so is exhaustion.
Our bodies are constantly giving us information about the environments, relationships, beliefs and experiences we're carrying. The question becomes whether we're willing to listen. What I was hearing in that photo... was... When will I ever be able to do this again? When will this opportunity present itself? Is this fear mine or planted into my life?
I use to wing it...
and the stress... the anxiety that would come with me winging it in a foreign country... took away from me being fully present. My mind moves into chaos... several times a day... and it's been yaers of working to rewire the trauma beginning around the young age of three... Forms of trauma that left lingering effects altering the landscape of mind... and the thoughts living in the crevices, grooves and valleys... of the brain.
I understand now...
I don't work best under pressure... under immense duress... it's just familiar to me... It feels like home... and that's because it was born from the events of my home.... But does it have to be this way? Can we alter the environments that produce the best versions of ourselves... by stepping back... seeing and understanding... that being in the flow state with the universe... amplifies... the magnificence of who we are... We do not have to push to a place of breaking to be the artwork we are born to be.
Maybe this is the reset
Release doesn't mean forgetting. It doesn't mean pretending something didn't happen. It doesn't mean abandoning people. It doesn't mean becoming detached from the world.
It means recognizing when the energy required to hold something has become greater than the energy required to release it.
And sometimes the release is not of the person, place or circumstance. Sometimes we're releasing the version of ourselves that existed inside of it. That can be the hardest part. Because even our old identities can become familiar places. But familiar doesn't always mean safe. And familiar doesn't always mean true anymore.
There comes a point when continuing to carry the past becomes more exhausting than allowing yourself to move forward.
Maybe getting older gives us permission to notice that. To become quieter. More discerning. Less interested in performing. More interested in feeling. Less interested in holding everything together. More interested in asking what actually needs to stay.
Frequency of Getting Older
My grandson with eczema coaxed out of hiding and the painful scratching with my analog watch. It ticked and glowed. As he sat in my lap, I laid my hands on his tiny body... and for the first time I was told by my daughter they have ever seen him sleep so deeply. We have the ability to not just heal ourselves, but others too.
Perhaps the frequency of getting older isn't about slowing down. Perhaps it's about becoming more selective about where we place our energy. And perhaps letting go isn't losing something. Perhaps it's finally creating enough space to hear what your body has been trying to tell you all along.
You don't have to carry everything you once carried.
Some things have already served their purpose. Some things are ready to leave. And some things are simply waiting for you to stop holding on.
The knowledge between where we once were... where we are... and where we want to be... is invaluable. There was time I dismissed my abilities... my knowledge... my run of bad luck.. So, I thought was bad luck. It was life giving me experiences I would grow from...
Energy is you... You are the frequency of change... it is never too late... or too early to share where you are...cultivate and transmute the energy needed to thrive.
A little reminder:
Your body is always communicating. You don't have to have all the answers. Sometimes the first step is simply noticing.
Until next time,
Polly
Release Reset
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