How to Let Go of Attachment: Fear of Regret vs. Trust with Michael Henri

0:01 Hey there and welcome back to the Going Pro Yoga Podcast. My name is Michael Henry and I am going to be finishing up a three-part series. This being the final episode of a three-part series exploring the emotional tension between pushing forward and letting go. So a couple weeks ago in Episode 1, we looked at hope versus grief and determination versus surrender and how that intertwines, excuse me, into pushing forward and letting go. Episode 2 last week, we dove

0:32 into the pride versus humility and our identity versus the disorientation of our self and how that plays in. And today we're arriving at the moment of decision, the emotional edge of letting go. And today, we're going to be unpacking attachment versus freedom or the fear of regret versus relief. It's actually not.

0:57 Or it's both. We're going to go through both. So these are the emotions that show up after we've done the work of evaluating, reflecting, and trying. They are the emotions that ask, can I really release this? Will I regret it? And who will I be if I walk away? So let's close this series with heart, honesty, and a few deep exhalations.

1:45 So before we jump into today's core content, I'd love to ask for your support by reviewing this podcast. This is a free resource that we give to anyone in the world who is willing to listen. And the best way for us to kind of put it out into the world is to increase that review star status, which is basically the way of the world these days.

2:05 So if you haven't done it already, I'd really appreciate it if you go down to either Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever podcast platform you use to go down to that star review and just give us some love. It really goes a long way. So thank you so much.

2:20 Otherwise, let's jump right in. So this emotional contrast between attachment versus freedom, we'll kind of look at the core insights of what this looks like. So attachment is something that is very natural. It's something that we're kind of wired to cling to, something that it feels almost familiar. It's a safety mechanism.

2:42 So even when we no longer have something that's actually serving us well, we might actually still cling to that particular thing because it is so familiar, because it's something that we're used to. It's something that the nervous system in our body is actually familiar with.

2:56 Freedom, while we're actually liberating ourselves, often comes with some sort of fear because it's stepping into the unknown. It's stepping into the unfamiliar. So think of a time where you were working on, or maybe you're working on something right now where you're trying to let go, particularly of a, of a role, maybe a group of people or a community, or possibly even a location, something that you felt deeply attached to or something that you still possibly feel deeply attached

3:25 to, even if you know and, or you knew that it's time to maybe move on or let go. So think of a time when you might have felt both of the pain of the release and, or the joy of the liberation, another moment in time, just kind of connect with that for a moment. So there has, I'm sure there's been a time in your life where you didn't want to let go of something and it was difficult to actually even go through that process. But when you actually did, you

3:54 noticed something, you, you noticed the change, you noticed something that felt liberating. It almost felt lighter to some degree, maybe not always. That might be a a presumption there. But the idea is to kind of get your mind into the space of thinking about this attachment versus freedom, the letting go and the liberation.

4:15 So let's kind of talk about the emotional nuances here. So attachment brings safety, like I was saying, but it also brings this stagnation almost like this unwillingness to change, this complacency within ourselves. And again, that safety element is really just coming back from the nervous system feeling familiar.

4:34 And we'll, we'll talk about that shortly. But freedom brings spaciousness, but it also brings vulnerability because freedom, while we all probably want some level of freedom, my, me, myself, freedom is probably one of my top values or one of my top core values or goals in life is to maintain freedom. Freedom can also be very challenging because of that vulnerability, because you have, there's so many options. It's almost like everything is so open. So that can be a challenge in

5:05 itself. So the conflict is, what am I without this thing I've built my life around? So think about that or say it out loud or maybe think it to yourself, what am I or who am I without this thing I've built my life around? So let's move into kind of the nervous systems aspect of this. So the neuroscience.

5:34 So as I've mentioned many times before, the brain is wired for pattern and familiarity. It's something that we like to continue to do on a regular basis that is already familiar. We call it routine, right? We are creatures of habits.

5:48 It's something that just makes things work really well. In fact, we get so caught up in our habits and our patterns that sometimes time just kind of blows by us. But that familiarity, that pattern, makes it really easy for our nervous system and our body to conserve energy because we don't have to create these neural pathways for new information or new routines every single time.

6:09 It takes a lot of energy and a lot of focus to be able to create these new routines. So we'd like to gravitate more towards things that are familiar, things that are usual, or what we call these routines. So letting go of attachment triggers the limbic system, which is part of your reptilian brain or your old part of your brain, which interpretates a change as danger. So anytime there's a change that's happening within, let's say your life, to some degree,

6:38 your nervous system is going to react. Even if you choose it, even if you actively decide I'm going to do this thing in the background, your nervous system is kind of playing a role of what it's supposed to do, which is to protect you. And the best way it knows how to protect you is to keep things familiar and those familiar things that are safe, or what it at least perceives to be safe in that particular moment. So freedom engages the prefrontal cortex. So the prefrontal cortex is that

7:07 part of your brain, let's say the more modern part of your brain that is responsible for decision making. And it helps to ultimately encourage creativity, future visioning or planning and resilience, but only once the nervous system actually feels safe.

7:26 And that's the key element, so that prefrontal cortex doesn't actually kick in if safety isn't there. So what we're doing or what we're thinking of letting go or changing or opening ourselves up to doesn't feel safe or there's a certain element of fear that still remains.

7:45 It's very difficult for that creative process, for that future visioning or that resilience to kind of build within us. So often that feeling that I was kind of referring to before of this kind of liberation or this clarity that comes through from letting go.

8:01 Sometimes that doesn't actually, you don't actually get that until you've actually done the process of letting go. But what if there was a way we can actually try to prepare ourselves in such a way to, you know, take into consideration the nervous system. Take into consideration ways of maintaining some sort of safety or some sort of familiarity or maybe referencing points in our in our past where we've actually felt the pain of a release, but then also the joy of that

8:27 liberation or the joy of that freedom that came through. So using that reference point might be helpful in this case. But before we kind of go into the practical stuff, let's kind of continue to to apply this into, you know, the yogic lens for for example. So if it wasn't already obvious, non attachment parigraha or non grasping is basically what we're focusing on, which is one of the main or one of the main, one of the yamas. And it teaches that clinging is

8:57 the root of suffering. So attachment is the root of suffering. The reality is, is that we come into this world with basically nothing. We come into this world fresh, raw as we are with this body. We take nothing from this world when we leave, so we can't actually have anything and we never actually do have anything.

9:22 So this attachment, this grasping this, what we feel like a connection to, especially in the material sense, is something that we never actually can continue to carry with us afterwards. So This is why that Apatigraha teaches us that clinging to things or staying attached to things is the root of suffering. Because if we maintain this connection or this clinging to that thing, there is an inevitability that it will eventually need to be let go, whether it's now or later. It's an eventuality, including

9:56 our time here on this planet, assuming you're still on this planet. I don't know what's going on in the space world, but I'm just assuming. So, yeah, not to kind of go too deep into this death aspect, but it's true. I mean, if you think about our life, everything that we actually obtain at some point in time, we need to let go, whether it is physical material things or relationships, friendships, and, you know, loved ones that eventually possibly might pass. There's just this unattachment

10:27 that is going to liberate us, or not even unattachment. There's this sense of awareness of an attachment or the ability to release that is going to liberate us from actually being able to avoid or minimize the suffering or what we would call grief in this case. So in yoga, if we were to talk about the specific practice of yoga, we soften into the spaces that we fear learning to trust gravity, time and the breath.

11:00 So anytime we're practicing yoga, doing something new, working into poses that might be unfamiliar, there's a certain level of not necessarily pushing forward, but surrendering. That's actually what's going to help us to unlock and maybe feel more into that pose. So freedom is not necessarily reckless. It's not necessarily just being like, OK, there's all the options are available to me, so I'm just going to kind of be scattered all over the place.

11:28 It is presence without dependency. So it's maintaining a certain level of intentional presence without actually depending on anything around you. So ask yourself, what am I clinging to or what am I staying attached to and what is it costing me?

11:50 What am I keeping around in my life that is causing a certain level of suffering or a certain level of restriction or restraint? And if you want to dive a bit deeper, I have a nice journal prompt here, which is if I had permission to, I'll say that again, if I had permission to choose freedom, what would that look like today?

12:14 So for me, I often kind of go back to this question, not even a question. It's more like a train of thought or a concept of life where I try to live my life in such a way that I don't know how much further my life will go, Meaning like, I don't know how long I'm going to live.

12:32 I don't know what's going to happen next week, next month, next year, five years from now. And I know that's a little different from the mainstream thinking of, you know, the five year plan, 10 year plan, Like what are you, you know, planning for the future? And don't get me wrong, there's definitely a lot of importance in in value into planning for the future to some degree. But the other truth is that the future doesn't exist, at least not yet.

12:58 And the future in which we imagine or we think is going to happen often times doesn't actually come into fruition. It's always usually a different future because things are constantly changing from day-to-day, week to week, month to month, year to year. So at the end of the day, you know, if that if that in itself allows us to kind of feel more energy or more drive to focus more on the present life, enjoying the things that are in front of us, the day-to-day

13:24 activities, the left foot front, the right foot next in front, then that is a great way to actually feel more free to be unattached from what might actually be possibly happening in the future, whether we think we know it or we don't.

13:40 So for me, I try to live my life in that way. I try to imagine. It's not even that I try to imagine. I just try to focus so much on what's going on around me in this moment or this particular day that I'll, I just know that I'm going to deal with the thing later for tomorrow or next week or next month.

14:00 And I had a friend over here recently, and we kind of talked about this in conversation. And it had to do with basically like, yeah, staying present in the moment is really, really valuable. It's kind of what we're all doing in this yoga world. But at the same time, you're kind of like looking ahead just a little bit.

14:14 You know, you're just kind of looking up like what's going on over there, but you're not spending too much time, too much energy. You're just kind of aware, like, OK, so if I were to put this in the practical sense, OK, I got my things that I'm doing today. I got my responsibilities.

14:27 I got my schedule or whatever and I'm not going to focus too much on like what's going on tomorrow or next week, but I, I'm going to look, you know, I'm going to look like, OK, I have that going. So I'm just going to anticipate that when I get there, you know, I'll have a little bit more mind preparation there. So the way that I kind of imagine this, if you drive a car or a scooter, let's say if you're in Bali or somewhere in Southeast Asia, one of the best

14:50 ways to drive is not only to just pay attention to what's in front of you directly, which is obviously the most the closest thing to you, which means you might have to react to more quickly. But it's also really valuable to kind of just look ahead to see like what's going on ahead of you. Is the traffic building up?

15:07 Is there a lot of chaos ahead of you? Is there a school crossing coming up? Is there a ceremony or some sort of parade happening in front of you? So there is a certain level of looking beyond to have this preparation, but at the end of the day, that still is not quite right in front of us.

15:27 What's right in front of us is what's most important that present intention. So I feel like I'm getting a little off topic, but I, I also feel like this is really valuable for me in my life. So I want to share it that I am constantly trying to just stay with what's right in front of me. So when people ask me about planning for the future or like, Hey, do you want to do this thing in a month? Or hey, you want to do this thing in a year? Like, yes, I definitely give it

15:50 time of day and I definitely consider and I think about it, but often times I'm just like, that's so far from now that I'm just going to, I'm focusing on what I got going on right now or I'm focusing on what's in front of me to some degree.

16:05 And you know, this might not resonate because maybe you're a big planner and you like to kind of do it that way and that's totally fine. That's totally fine. But I find that for myself, it's really liberated and it's really cleared up a lot of my, I would almost call it suffering of worry of the future. So call that anxiety, if you will. And one of the key components for me to, let's say, get there is for me to trust my future self. And that's something that I kind

16:35 of have a little mantra or a strong identity about trusting my future self. Because if I have a difficult time living in the current moment, in the present moment, it's usually because I'm worried about something that I need to figure out later. But then I think about myself and I think, OK, like, you know, if I were to build myself up and have the confidence to say like, yeah, I'm a pretty cool person.

17:05 I'm pretty smart. You know, I, I tend to problem solve and figure things out. And if I can figure things out in this particular moment right now, whatever might get thrown at me, I'm hopefully nothing too crazy, but I'll, you know, I'll be able to figure it out in this exact moment, Then I trust that my future self, me just a little bit older, will be able to do the same thing. So instead of trying to do the job of my future self, why don't I do the job of my current self?

17:32 My current self is to deal with whatever's in front of me. And while I can, you know, help and assist my future self to be like, OK, I'm going to help to prepare my future self to, you know, deal with that thing. And I'm going to kind of like move a few blocks here and there.

17:44 But at the end of the day, the power is in the future self to figure it out. And the time between now and let's say that future self's time, which could be a week, a month, a year, there's so many things that can happen in between that even if we do the planning, the preparation, sometimes that planning and preparation, I would say often times actually that preparation and planning kind of just needs to change anyway because of the changes that happened between

18:15 now and let's say that future time. Not always. Sometimes things actually do work out in that exact way, but not often. And if we're attached to the way that we think things are going to work out and it doesn't, guess what that leads to?

18:30 Disappointment, which is just another level of suffering. OK, so I think I'm done on my little rant there. Let's kind of continue back to this emotional contrast. So this was what we just kind of digest, attachment versus freedom. But let's kind of look at some other emotional nuances of fear and regret.

18:48 Sorry, fear of regret versus the actual relief, letting go. So one of the biggest blocks of letting go or to let go is the fear that we'll look back and wish that we hadn't done that thing. But often what we find on the other side is relief, even if it comes with sadness or with grief. So this is this lightness that I was talking about before. And if you haven't felt it or you don't remember if you felt it, it's difficult to imagine when you're in the moment. But after the fact, when you

19:22 look back, you can recognize that relief, that recognize that lightness after we've moved past, possibly the sadness of the grief or the grief of letting that thing go. If it's something as small as I know I lost, I know I lost my earbuds or I lost my wallet or I lost my phone, right?

19:41 There's definitely going to be a grieving period, a sadness period, but it's going to probably be short lived until, you know, eventually move on and you need to let go of it entirely. You get a new one or maybe you're like, I don't actually need a new one.

19:51 It's fine versus something like losing someone that you love. You know that grieving and that sadness period might actually be a little bit longer in order to kind of. Fully, let's say, release or relieve ourselves of that tension or that attachment in order to feel liberated again.

20:09 So it just depends on how strongly attached we are to that particular thing or let's say person or probably more specific, the energy of that thing. So the emotional nuances here, regret can hold us hostage. Making a second guess basically everything.

20:28 What if I regret this? What if I make this decision and then I regret it later? So it does actually kind of hold you into a position of feeling like a almost like a fear response. So relief often doesn't show up until after that dust is settled, like I mentioned.

20:43 But when it does, it actually does bring peace. Because if we always come back to this, remembering that what we have in this world is always temporary, that no matter what we lose is an eventuality. So if it happens to be lost or if it has happens to be something that we need to let go of now, then that's just the way that it's going to be.

21:04 And we just have to accept that. The sooner that we accept that, the sooner we get to move through the sadness, the grief or whatever emotional practices that need to come through for us to move to the other side so that we can have that dust settle and then we can find peace in that moment.

21:21 So the challenge is, do I trust myself to make the right call even without a guarantee? And that's a tough one because especially if you're, you know, focusing on not necessarily trying to be perfect, but making mistakes or making the wrong decision is something that kind of torments you.

21:43 Like, what if I make the wrong choice? What if I if I choose this and I find out later I should have chose that? And that can be really challenging and it can cause that crippling effect or that hostage feeling where you're kind of like in an indecision mode. But at the end of the day, in a lot of circumstances, we don't actually know what is the best choice. All we can actually do is just make the best choice with the information that's presented to

22:07 us in that present moment. And when we make that choice, maybe new information comes through. I'd almost say almost always new information comes through that allows us to either reflect on that decision, make a new decision, change the decision, or maybe stick with the original choice that we made. So looking at it from a neuroscience perspective, anticipating regret activates the brain's pain and worry circuits, or let's just say your fear response to some degree even more than actual regret

22:43 itself. So the actual regret is less burdening on your body and your circuitry than the actual anticipation of regret. So once we choose something, once we make a decision, the brain often rebalances by looking for validation. Yes, I made the right choice.

23:03 Or shit, I don't know if that was the right choice. But often times there's some sort of like, OK, I made the right, I made a choice and I'm recognizing that, you know, maybe I could have done it slightly differently. But that regret is not so much something that's going to be value to be to you. It's more so about reflection on the choice that you made or the decision that you made and recognizing that this is the way life is.

23:29 This is what Svad Yaya is. So Svad Yaya is self study, one of the niyamas in yoga. So self reflection. So when we make decisions and maybe those decisions are in the moment what we thought we wanted, but then, you know, time goes by and we realize maybe that's not what I wanted, it's OK. We reflect back on that decision and we say, OK, now moving forward from here, I know a little bit better. Now I know that next time I'm presented with an opportunity or a situation that's similar or at

24:04 least feels similar, that I can respond differently. So knowing that regret doesn't necessarily need to stay with us, it's more so that we're learning from these choices to either let go or release, and that we don't necessarily need to hold on to this pain or this worry because it's not actually going to serve us to make any decision.

24:25 In fact, it might actually cripple us to make that decision. So relief is part of the parasympathetic response, the nervous system settling when there's no more internal resistance. So that's where this piece comes from.

24:39 This, this softness, this letting go, this lightness. Now one of the main, let's say, conversations of letting go beyond just a pari graha, which is like not attachment, is Ishvarapranidhana, which I've mentioned a few times.

25:00 Ishvarapranidhana is one of the niyamas, and it's all about surrender or trust in your higher self, which reminds us that we are not in control of the outcomes, only the intention. So regret often comes from attachment to specific outcomes, not from the actual act of releasing it itself. So when we actually release something and letting go of that thing, the letting go of that thing is not actually what's going to cause us the pain and the suffering. It's the attachment to it.

25:40 And then the regret is what comes from that attachment to it. So if we actually truly let go of that thing, regret doesn't have a place. So letting go is an act of faith, not a failure. So making the wrong decision, quote UN quote, is not really a thing. It's only a thing in our mind as a way of creating this fear response for us to not make that decision or to cripple us or to not change, to stay with what is familiar. So our ego or our nervous system

26:13 is quite clever in that way, isn't it? So here's a practice prompt for you. So what's what's keeping me stuck? Fear of regret or fear of change? So what's keeping me stuck? Fear of regret or fear of change. So what we can do?

26:34 Let's do a little exercise here. So place one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly and then start to inhale and then exhale, inhale and repeat after me. I trust myself. And exhale, I release what no longer serves me. Inhale I trust myself.

27:04 Exhale, I release what no longer serves me. Inhale I trust myself in, exhale I release what no longer serves me. So a simple little practice that helps to probably not only regulate your nervous system, but helps to reorganize some of the circuitry in your brain to be OK with the letting go process.

27:34 And you can even replace that inhale. I trust myself to inhale. I trust my future self to figure it out. And as the exhale, I released the burden of needing to make the right or wrong choice now and trust my future self to do it for me.

27:54 So when it comes to actually integrating this process of letting go, this process of either surrendering, releasing, it's not about choosing recklessly or choosing incorrectly. It's about choosing consciously. So taking time to actually make the choice, whatever that choice is, and, and knowing that whatever choice you make, it is the right choice, whether it be decisions to let go or decisions to move forward. And kind of removing ourselves from this fear of regret. Because if we actually give

28:28 ourselves time to consciously make a choice, whatever that choice is, is going to be the right one. If we do ourselves a service by making sure that our nervous system is regulated as much as possible, whether it be doing something as simple as these breathing techniques, checking in with ourselves, doing a meditation, finding some stillness going into nature, you know, collecting enough information energetically from ourselves, maybe communicating

28:53 to the people around us to make a choice or to help us inform the choice, then that's great. That's conscious decision making. But again, at the end of the day, no matter what choice you make, it's going to be the right one. And then after the choice that you make, again, there might be new information that presents itself for you to make another choice.

29:13 So choices are just coming and going left, right and center. So don't fear choosing something or letting go of something. It's OK to feel both sadness and relief. They can coexist together. So letting go is not failure, it's a transition. So you don't need to be 100% sure of your choices or your decisions.

29:37 You just need to be 1% braver or courageous than your fear. And from that one step, clarity will come. So this wraps up our three-part series on pushing forward, letting go. So whether you're in the middle of a hard choice or you're just kind of planning for the next time it comes your way or still recovering from one possibly or preparing for the next chapter of your life, just know this that there is wisdom in your efforts.

30:08 There is wisdom in the release, and the work is in just listening, so if this series helped you, share it with someone else who might be sitting on their own emotional crossroads. And as always, thank you for being here, thank you for showing up, thank you for doing the work, and thank you for letting yourself evolve with this process. Now, I'm curious to know how this episode landed for you in conjunction with the pushing forward, letting go. So always can reach out to

30:37 mepodcast@goingproyoga.com as an e-mail or you can just reach out to me on Instagram. Give me some feedback. This is how we learn. This is how we grow. So I'm always welcoming feedback, positive, negative, or neutral. Otherwise, I hope you have a beautiful day and we'll speak to you next week.

30:56 Take care for now. Actually, you know what before before I let you guys go, I just want to let you know about not just the going Pro Yoga platform, but the evolvement and the evolution of what this is. And even though I kind of talk about it and I have a little plug to kind of remind people about this platform that helps with queuing and sequencing and a lot of the the things that have been added recently, I haven't actually been advertising it, talking about it

31:21 or telling people about it. And that is things like adding philosophical conversations with the Jeff, who's one of our basically main philosophy teachers here. And he's graciously offered and given us about 10 hours of content that is accessible on the Going Pro platform.

31:40 We've also incorporated more elements of traditional Chinese medicine. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you know that we've been incorporating and having guests come in to talk about traditional Chinese medicine. So that has now been added to the platform as a part of supporting the yin structure.

31:56 The yin poses so that we can target meridians, focus a little bit more on the organs and emotions, as well as the other elements that were already there before. The cuing system, which really helps to cue the body into position. Whether you're teaching yoga or whether you're practicing yoga, it really helps with alignment and safety in the body. And then obviously we have the sequencing, which is a combination of the queuing and preparing the body for more challenging poses, more

32:24 physically challenging poses. So there's a lot of elements to kind of explore on this platform. I'm really proud of it. I'm really excited about giving it out to the world. So if you're interested, you can go and check it. Outgoing Pro yoga.com.

32:37 Right now we're giving away a free week, 7 days to try it out. And if you like it, fantastic, you can keep it. If you don't, then you can kind of just cancel your subscription no problem. And we're also providing a kind of free bonus discount code for the podcast listener.

32:55 So if you're listening to this, you can benefit and jump on it. And that is, if you do decide to try it and sign up, you can use the code Podcast Special 20, All Capitals Podcast Special 20 to sign up. You get your free week.

33:10 If you really like it, boom, you can continue to use it with that 20% off discount. So that's it for me again, one last time. Thank you so much and we'll speak to you next week. Take care for now.