how good will you let it get?

loosen your grip to let abundance flow in

Guinevere by Wilhelm de Leftwich Dodge (1910)

I have long held the belief that I can do pretty much anything I want, but sometimes I forget that I believe this. What I mean by this is: I’ll do a thing I want, achieve it, and then start clinging to this new thing I have—thinking: I wanted this thing and now I have it and now I must grip onto it very tightly because nothing else I ever get will be as good as this thing I now have. It’s comical to write that out, but it truly is how I experience this act of clinging. Eventually, I notice I am doing this clinging-thing, allow myself to let go, and almost instantly expand into an even better reality, actualizing fresher desires that I let myself acknowledge by letting go of what I already have!

Pondering this pattern has left me wondering: why do we grip so tightly onto what we have, afraid to let go and lean into something better?

I was exploring this question with a client recently, who, months after first admitting he had a desire that would take him towards a very different life, has begun to take massive action towards this desire, and started to (pretty effortlessly) actualize it. Witnessing this actualization process has been so magical. As we were fleshing out how and why this very persuasive resistance appears when things start to feel so good that it seems like they can’t get better, an analogy around swinging on the monkey bars appeared in my mind.

swinging freely on the monkey bars = letting life get really good

When you first learn how to use the monkey bars, every tiny motion feels paralyzing. Even a slight wiggle of your body feels like an existential threat to your safety, putting your ability to hang on and stay safe from injury at risk. But the more you practice, the safer it feels to let go, one hand at a time, and move along the monkey bars. When you first start to move, it is very rocky—you rapidly shift one hand to meet the other on the same bar, then leading your next move with your dominant hand as you quickly grab onto the bar in front of you. Yes, you are moving, but with no flow, no grace, no ease.

The more you practice, though—and the more you trust yourself—the freer you begin to flow along the bars, letting go of one hand as you calmly, effortlessly swing to the next bar, trusting the hand making contact to hold you through this larger, softer shift. The safer you feel, the more you move with a natural grace and momentum instead of the rigid clinginess that riddles your experience at the start, when you are still learning to loosen your grip and trust yourself to move more freely.

This analogy translates to life pretty seamlessly: we cling and grip and tense up when we are somewhere that we know, somewhere that is familiar, unconsciously convincing ourselves that we can’t let go because: this is safe, this is good, this is enough. We are terrified to evoke even the slightest amount of volatility to our circumstances that could disrupt anything and put our current sense of safety (and satisfaction) at risk.

But the more comfortable we get wiggling, moving, and even letting go, one hand at a time, dangling from one arm for a while as we locate the destination for our next move, the more fluidly we can flow, and the easier it becomes to embrace the instability required to allow change to unfold in our lives.

The other nuance around this analogy is that even if you get really good at swinging on the monkey bars, and learn to do a bunch of wild tricks, you can lose this fluency if you stop moving and stay still for a while. Your body will tense up and get stiff again if you don’t move; just as your life will do the same if you don’t let change in and loosen your grip on what currently is. To keep this ability to let go and move towards change accessible, we need to reawaken its muscle memory — the ability to swing and flow without conscious thought — to get back into a rhythm of motion, surrender and trust.

I have noticed this stiffening-up-and-resisting-change-pattern happens quite fast if you’re not paying attention (kind of like how you get stiff really quickly if you’re not stretching your body frequently!). Something starts to feel good, perhaps even as good as we think we deserve, and then we’re suddenly like: OKAY THIS IS IT, THIS IS GREAT, I WANT IT TO ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS, and we immediately close ourselves off to life getting even better.

how good will you let it get?

This is, I think, the quintessential prompt to sit with, especially if you want life to feel as effortless as possible (a worthy goal in my opinion). It’s easy to assume we have maxed out goodness-potential when things get Very Good. But it is almost always possible for things to get even better. Allowing that to happen, though, requires you to loosen your grip and be willing to let go of what you have, even for a moment, so that you can reach for what is right in front of you, inviting you into even more thriving and goodness.

Note: there is another key nuance here which is that just because things can always get better, that doesn’t mean you need to always be forcing (or expecting) them to, but instead, that it is essential to be open to new ways of flourishing when they are presented to you (or when you feel the call to pursue them), and not be closed off to more abundance simply because where you are feels safe/known to you.

To keep our minds limber and fluid and let ourselves access what is trying to come our way and what we are worthy of receiving, we need to ask ourselves earnestly and often: how good will I let it get? Reflecting on this helps us notice the resistance we are exerting towards change. Because change is how things get better. And surrendering—allowing change and answering life’s calls when they invite us to release what we are clinging onto—is how we experience how good it can get

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read my related essays: want what you have (for a gentle counter-take to this), becoming yourself is a process of reduction, being in bloom

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