At the very end of the movie “The Darjeeling Limited,” the three brothers traveling through India, who have been grieving the death of their father for a long time, are running to catch a train. The luggage they are carrying as they run—which is marked with their father’s initials and some of which contains his personal items—is slowing them down so eventually all three just toss the baggage aside. They are then able to reach the train and jump on board. In a way, it’s that simple to let go of thoughts and emotions that you realize aren’t serving you.
My student Jacqueline realized she was being tormented by an untrue thought—triggered by bad memories of her childhood—that she was turning into her father, who was a hoarder and had mental illness problems. She came to understand that she was, in fact, nothing like her father, and that occasionally buying something she didn’t “need” wasn’t harming either herself or her family. But the difficulties of her childhood in Rhode Island had left her with fears that kept triggering this thought. How could she let go of this thought and the associated fears?
Vairagya, which means renunciation as well as detachment, is one of the yamas in the Trishikhi Brahmana Upanishad. To practice this yama to let go of thoughts and emotions, there are a number of specific techniques that you can try.
If you meditate regularly, the practice of concentration teaches you to notice your thoughts and emotions and then let them go by returning your focus to your object of meditation. So, in your meditation practice, you can intentionally work with releasing unhelpful thoughts and emotions. Meditation instructor Sally Kempton says that at the beginning of your session, you can set an intention to let go of all thoughts and emotions, and then practice this repeatedly throughout your meditation. From this practice, you may learn how you can just “disengage” from thoughts and emotions in everyday life in the same way. You can many meditation techniques to do this, including any of the techniques I’m suggesting here in this section or techniques you learn from a teacher.
If you don’t have a regular meditation practice, you can still choose from any of the following techniques to practice letting go throughout your day. Like any other skill, the more you practice letting go, the better you’ll get at it. For more than 25 years, I’ve been telling myself “Don't’ panic too soon” when I notice myself getting swept away by anxious thoughts about the future. It still makes me laugh a little to myself and sets me back on track.
Techniques for Letting Go:
1. Use Your Breath. You can use your breath at any time to release an unhelpful thought or emotion with your exhalation. Simply inhale and then with your exhalation, breathe out that thought or emotion. If needed, you can repeat with more breaths.
2. Picture an Action. You can use a mental image that says “let go” to release unhelpful thoughts and emotions. Some ideas include moving your thought or emotion into a trash can like you do on your computer or putting it on a log and watching it float down a river. You can even get creative and use a scene like the one from “The Darjeeling Limited,” that says “letting go of baggage” to you.
3. Recite a Phrase. This can be a quote from a yoga text or from anywhere else, or can be something that you made up the way I came up with “Don’t panic too soon.”
4. Tune into Your Senses. One way to let go of thoughts or emotions regarding the past or future is to bring yourself into the present by immersing yourself in a sensory experience, such as exploring all aspects of a flower, a cup of tea, a peach, or a book (did you ever smell a book?).
5. Cultivate the Opposite. The sutra II.33 in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras recommends the practice pratipaksha bhavanam, which means “cultivate the opposite” or “cultivate counteracting thoughts,” as a way to let go of negative thoughts and emotions. With this practice, you intentionally think an opposite thought, one that is more helpful than the original thought or emotion. For example, maybe you find yourself thinking “I can’t deal with this!” You could intentionally follow that with a thought like “I can be okay with this.” This practice has long-term benefits because you spend more time thinking positive thoughts and feeling positive emotions, which can start a new habit for you. If you have problems with coming up with “opposite” thoughts, I will be sharing some other ideas in future posts, so stay tuned for the next post in this series.
My student Jacqueline was the one who came up with the idea of using the image from the movie "The Darjeeling Limited" as her way to let go of the untrue thought that was tormenting her. She watched the final scene of the movie again here on YouTube and now she says:
“For me, I visualize the smirk expression on the brother's face when the other brother tells him they need to toss the luggage to make the train. It is like, oh yeah, I get to dump this crap and be happy about it!”
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