Sometimes, you just have to let go.

Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about a lot.

All of these thoughts are on purpose, as I am sort of on a mission to find out things about myself.

1. I want to know what’s bothering me. Why can’t I shake these things?
2. I want to know why my emotions are so up and down all of the time. What helps me become emotionally stable?
3. I want to know what’s helping me. Why do certain actions or thoughts put a smile on my face or make me feel fulfilled?
4. Most importantly, at this moment, I want to know what I can do now in order to grow towards the future. What’s it going to take for me to get where I want to be? What does that even mean to me? Where do I want to be and by when?

As I flood my head with all of these thoughts and trying to figure them out, I realize what I need to do.

In order for me to figure out these things, I need to start separating my good thoughts from my bad thoughts.

My good thoughts are what I want to write down and analyze going forward.

It’s hard to do, but I need to realize when a bad thought is rising, and cast it away.

Focus on what you need to focus on.

I know that is what I need to do.

But it’s really hard to just put those bad thoughts on the backburner. It’s hard to say “it’s not really a big deal.”

As I had a conversation with a friend about this, she took a source of a bad thought and tossed it to the side (literally, it was just a post-it note and she threw it to the side).

My immediate response was, “Why would you do that? I need that.”

She replied, “Why? It’s something that reflects your past self. Let it go and move on.”

I then sat there and thought for a moment about how many thoughts in my life are those of negativity, of self-abuse, of pain.

Those thoughts affect me heavily and they are ones that I dwell on.

At that moment, I thought about what it means to throw away that post-it note.

If I throw away that post-it note, it will allow me to slowly forget about that mistake.

Then, it moves to the question of “what other thoughts should I get rid of?”

As I will say and continue to preach, these moments of self-reflection are the most important for your health.

You have to know what is surrounding you and how it affects you. That goes for every part of your self and your life.

At this moment, I am listing thoughts that I have about myself or moments that I dwell on.

Do these thoughts/moments hold me back from growing? How do they make me feel? Are all of them actually important?

I come to find that any negative thoughts are not important.

Although most of them affect me in major ways, I need to learn to let go.

No matter what it means to you, there are some things you just have to set free.

Take Spongebob Squarepants for example!

Spongebob finds a new best friend in his horse, Mystery (I watched this episode an hour ago btw).

Spongebob loves Mystery to death and wants Mystery to be everywhere, even at work with him!

However, Mystery starts getting in the way of him, his coworker, his customers, and many others.

Although Mystery is good for him in one way, Mystery ultimately needs to just do its own thing.

Reverting back to my bad thoughts, my dwelling on my past self:

When I am trying to reflect on how I’ve gotten to my current point in life, these thoughts about the past are useful.

I use these thoughts and reflections to figure out how they affect me and how I can grow for them and leave them behind.

When I do this, I am giving too much value to these thoughts.

At the end of the day, it comes out to self-awareness again.

I need to be aware that these thoughts are not for me to dwell on or believe for my present or future self, but they are supposed to be aids for me to quickly look at, cast them away, and move forward.

Most of these things mean a lot to me or extremely shaped who I am today, but they mean nothing to me going forward.

That’s why it’s in the past.

As Merlyn Wood from BROCKHAMPTON, one of my favorite musical groups, says in their song “SWIM”:

“It happened how it happened, so the past is perfect.”

There is a reason that something happened, and whether that thing was amazing or terrible, it happened.

I need to start taking what happened and turn it into “what’s next?” instead of “why did this have to happen?”

If it wasn’t for every single day that I’ve lived here on Earth, I wouldn’t be nearly the same person as I am.

Looking forward, I think we should all realize how much is yet to come.

And better yet, we should all look at our past and just let it go.

After all, the Beatles can “Let it be”, so why can’t we?