Newsletter #5: Letting Go

-Is the Way Forward.

Our hyper-consumerist, hyper-scheduled, hyper-curated-on-the-web world bombards us with subtle and overt messages that we don’t have enough, that we aren’t doing enough, that we aren’t enough. While it’s difficult to ignore, it’s possible to pivot away.

During a breakout in a farmer “town hall” that I attended last week, one farmer mentioned not having enough hours in the day -and night- to do it all.  You could feel the group consensus.  

There’s always more work to do.  On top of the work in farming, it feels like there’s always one more tool, one more treatment, or one more service that we need to buy. 

But what if the opposite is true?  What if the path to better is less?

The regenerative movement talks about mimicking nature. Well, nature operates a perpetual process of letting shit die to feed new life.  Nothing acquired - nothing thrown away; dead material gets decomposed to become nutrients for the next thing. It’s a powerful model. 

In organic or regenerative farming, many of us already practice a kind of letting go. We terminate beautiful cover crops to become green manure for the next crop.  Letting go is part of the rotation. 

Letting go isn’t about giving up or doing without. It’s about learning to focus our own energy on what matters most.  The field is the easy part; it’s more challenging when we probe our internal and social soil. 

The most powerful forces holding us back are a web of culture and our own self-imposed expectations. We do what we do because that’s what we think we have to do –based on our own story, the expectations we feel around us, and the habit of doing it the way we’ve always done it.   

Often, we learn to let go when a crisis forces us to change. Several years ago, while working for DATCP, I asked an audience of graziers at the Grassworks conference what made them pivot to grazing.  Six people answered.  Only one transition out of the six had been a calculated change.  The others changed when they ran out of money to buy feed, when the barn burned down, or when a health crisis forced them to shift their operation. 

How do you get there without a crisis?  

Begin with gratitude.  This is the first step in shifting our thinking. If you missed the first newsletter that talked about practicing gratitude, you can find past newsletters here. 

Test drive the thought.  What does it feel like to not have to do something?  Where do you feel a release?  It may be in the thought, but it’s likely to show up elsewhere -the gut, the chest, a lightening of your shoulders.  We carry stress in ways we don’t always notice.  

If there’s a belief about yourself or the way things should be that you are wrestling with, do the Byron Katie exercise of asking yourself if the opposite could be true.  What does that feel like?

I realize that these are challenging practices to start on your own.  But just starting with the idea that one step closer to your own thriving may lie on the other side of NOT doing or believing something is a seed worth nurturing.  

Here’s the key: Until we unhitch our time, energy, and talents that may be locked up in our habits and institutions, then we won’t have those resources to navigate complex problems and create something new.

Find a Way,

Ryan

To hear a longer discussion on letting go and related concepts, check out this podcast interview.  Rebecca Paradiso de Sayu’s Liberating Beauty podcast may sound woo-woo to you, but we cover managing our personal energy, decision-making and creativity in stressful times, and finding flow states from battlefield to farm field.