Cracked Pot Meditations: Letting Go Like a Serial Killer

Life can be cruel. Heartbreak, disease, our own mental illnesses and disease, loss, bad work situations, and all kinds of obstacles in our life’s journey. We want a solution to that pain. We want something to alleviate the seemingly never ending terror and for some of us, we want a healthy solution. Cue minimalist piano music and person looking out a rainy window. Now cue a laughing Buddhist with the words “let go” in a sparkly cursive script.

“Let go” is one of the darling phrases of psychologists, spiritualists, life coaches, and 30 something Instagram influencers everywhere. The idea that when you feel pain, the solution is to just stop holding onto it, is unrealistic and confusing.

I wonder if there has ever been anyone who has had to grieve a loss or has had to deal with excruciating pain from mental or physical anguish who wouldn’t just “let go” if they could in the first place. When this is someone’s advice to another, it translates to “stop it”. There is a Mad TV sketch with Bob Newhart where he’s playing a psychologist telling someone who is cared of heights to just “stop it”. He says it loud and forcefully since obviously the person had never thought of just not being scared of heights before.

The only way to really learn how to let go is to look at the people who are experts in letting go: Serial Killers. Yes the darlings of Netflix documentaries are the very poster children of “letting go”. If Ted Bundy was on Facebook, his post would be “LOL. No more fucks to give.” Little did his followers know he was about to go pick up ladies and do his work. Nothing could effect these killers. They were completely free of worry. They lived, laughed, and loved.

Basically you will need a large ego, and I mean you are replacing God size ego, and some blunted emotions, and you will find yourself able to just let things roll off you. You will be able to “let go” with no problems. You might have an insatiable hunger to chop bodies up and turn the organs into jewelry, but what a small price to pay for inner peace.

It is hard to see how easy it is for people who are very in touch with their feelings to struggle with life and need to self care and process every situation they have with other human beings. But dull those emotions and you will be able to just ignore what anyone is saying to you because you are picturing them on fire and you are wondering what their eyes look like the very nano second they die and somehow it’s making you giggle.

Letting go is easy for people that think of themselves as better than everyone else, misunderstood because of their genius, and love the feel of liquified intestines running through their fingers.

So if you have trouble letting go, great news! You’re not a serial killer! You are a normal human being that feels things. You need to walk through pain for as long as it takes to feel the pain and you will get to the other side a stronger person. In fact, you probably want nothing but joy and happiness for your fellow human.

Remember that it takes time to get through painful situations and it is how you spend those painful moments that make it worth it. Learning, forgiving, and acceptance are all stages to strive for. Someday the pain will subside. Someday you get to help someone get through what you went through.

I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t say that some pain just stays there. It’s how we keep that pain from taking the driver’s seat. Its not turning into a serial killer when someone tells you to just “let go”.