In the last post, we talked about Samskaras, the blockages that can get hit when facing a complex business challenge.

When life’s problems hit those blockages, they can trigger unwanted feelings like stress, overwhelm, and anxiety. As a result, we end up reacting to our stored emotional energy and mental stories, rather than to the reality of the challenge in front of us.

To be able to face obstacles with a clear head, we need to remove those blockages. We do that by bringing awareness to those built-up emotions and stories that we’ve been avoiding—and letting go of them.

To better understand what it means to “let go,” let’s look more closely at what it means to NOT let go.

Think about your typical response to a complex challenge or difficult situation. Do you tend to:

• Push your anxiety and stress back down rather than allow yourself to feel whatever it is you’re feeling?
• Try to distract yourself with diversions like food, social media, or busywork?
• Get lost in your story about the challenge you’re facing, and then vent about it to your friends, family, or co-workers?

To “let go” means to break these reactive habits, and instead to simply allow yourself to experience whatever is happening in the moment. That emotional discomfort. Those racing thoughts. All of it.

You don’t push away or deny your feelings, or get lost in your head trying to make yourself feel better. You just “be” with it. When you lean into the discomfort and stop energizing it with your complaints, stories, and denial, you allow yourself to experience the blockage so that you can finally start to let it go.

This will feel very uncomfortable at first. But over time, that discomfort will drop away. You’ll start to get a deeper sense of who you really are, minus all those blockages you carried around your whole life, as you stop trying to overcome external challenges to try to fix your internal experience.

Problem solving will become about expressing who you are without those blockages. Living a life of creativity and contribution, instead of chasing what makes you feel better—or avoiding what makes you feel bad.

What will you do today to start letting go of your own Samskaras?

Will you pay more attention to your internal states, and allow yourself to feel them fully?