Knowing When to Let Go and How to Find Freedom

Have you ever had something happen in your life, someone happen in your life, a situation occur in your life, and you so badly wanted it to be different that you couldn't just let it go? Well, I've had that happen in my life, and it can be detrimental to you to not release things when you should. And I want to tell you a little story and tell you what happened to me today. So my Instagram was down randomly, unexpectedly. I didn't break any of the rules. It just went down. And I quickly went into action. I followed the instructions. I did what Instagram told me to do. I took a picture with my ID. I entered in my code, I sent in the email, and I got the message, "We are reviewing your account. It will be reviewed within a day." That's not true. These days, people that do get their accounts back are getting them back 7 to 10, um, 7 to 10 days afterwards. So I was content to do what I had to do and just wait because I hadn't done anything wrong. And then the days went on and nothing happened. So at the end of the first week, I reached out to a friend that I know and said, do you know of anyone who can help me? Because I think this may be— maybe I was hacked, maybe an imposter reported me, I'm not really sure. So I called a guy who does this for a living. He was helpful, very, very helpful. He did many of the same things I already did, got my IDs, talked to his relationship people. Um, the people that help people get their accounts back for a living, this is what they do. They were working on it. He was pretty sure they'd be able to work it out. Another week went by and nothing. And then this guy told me, you know what, they typically can get it back. And when they do get it back, it's pretty costly if it's been a lot of work. And yours is a lot of work. Are you sure you want them to keep working on it? And I said yes. It's memories on there. I wanna, I wanna have the memories. Another week went by and then he started telling me it doesn't look good. They like making money. They like getting accounts back. If they haven't gotten it back yet, it may be a lost cause. Panic sets in mainly because social media for many of us is a repository of our memories. It's a repository of what we were thinking or what we said. And in my case, I'm a writer. So some of my words are on there and I love my words. They're like journaling sometimes. So I started getting a little impatient and I actually went on Twitter and said, Instagram, @Instagram, can you please help me? Instagram didn't respond, but a few other people did. Now I'm a smart girl. I'm aware that people take advantage of people in all kinds of scenarios. Let me give you an example. When people are having babies, the ridiculousness of the emotional pull of, do you wanna be a good mother, take care of your child and give your child the best, is high. We spend the most money with new babies. We spend the most money when we get married. We spend the most money when somebody passes away, because during those times of emotional heightenedness, people know how to maximize the moment. They are willing right now to spend more money than they would otherwise spend. Why? Because what is happening right now in their life, they perceive as a once in a lifetime thing, and they want it to be right. They want it to be fixed. They want it to be handled, as Olivia Pope would say. And at this point, I'm feeling a little desperation, and I just want it handled. So I replied to one of those people who messaged me. I went into their DMs on Instagram and I said, hey, can you help me? You want to know what they said? Of course I can. So that started an exchange of DMs where I was sharing information and they were sharing information with me. I even got some screenshots. What was really scary Is one of those screenshots had the last two digits of my phone number. I didn't give him my phone number, but he had been able to find my account somewhere, probably on the dark web. But that made me think, oh my goodness, my account is still alive and he can see it, he can help me. And you know what came next? Well, all I need you to do is Zelle, Cash App, or PayPal me $95. And you know what I did? I PayPal him $95. Well, these things don't just end with the first ask. There are a lot of other asks, and I'll spare you the pain of the rest of that story. But here's where that story meaningfully picks up. Once I decided, I tried it. I thought maybe it's true, maybe he can help. And then I was clear that he was just stringing me along. And then I said, never mind. His tone changed. I have access to your account. Do you not want your account back? Are you sure you don't want your account back? I have it right here. If you don't want it back, if you're not willing to do what I'm telling you to do to get it back, then I'll just sell it. It'll be gone forever. So then I'm feeling fear and panic. Can he actually do that? He was able to find it. He was able to see information I hadn't given him. What if he can see my stuff? What else does he have access to? Panic. I am in a hotel room out of town for work with my phone dinging off the wazoo because he's DMing me nonstop. Are you there? Hello? And then my phone starts ringing because you do know you can call people from Instagram through Instagram. 3 times in a row, 4 times in a row calling me. Of course I wanted to block him, but then I thought, if I block him, will he retaliate? And how can he retaliate? Totally afraid to do anything except just ignore the calls. And the whole time I'm sitting here thinking, how could you have been so stupid? You should have just let it go. The minute you started trying to control the narrative, the minute you tried to do whatever it took to have the outcome that you desired, that was the minute that you held on a little too long. Some of us know what this feels like, cuz you stayed in that relationship a little too long and you knew when it was time to go. You knew when it was time to go, but you stayed to try to manipulate, control, or make sure, ensure that you had a certain outcome, and all it did was hurt you, give you fear. All it did was break you down even further. Some of us know what it is to not let go when we make a mistake, and we double down on our mistakes because we don't want anyone to know, or we're hoping that this one more try will get us out of the thing we got ourselves into. And so we work ourselves into a deeper hole. Some of you know what this feels like. Let me tell you what happens when you won't release something. You holding on to it too long, too tightly hurts you. Let me give you a very specific example that's true of all of us, and this is really the thing that I want you to walk away with. When you hold on to your mistakes, when you hold on to your fears, when you hold on to your trauma, when you hold on to your shame, when you hold on to a sin, when you hold on to a thought process that you know is not good for you, Let me tell you who else joins the camp of doubling down on you. I am not a devil made me do it kind of person. However, I have seen it happen over and over again, that doubling down and holding on to the thing that you don't want anyone else to know about, to see, to have the intel on on you, on your decisions, on where you've been. It eats you alive from the inside out, because every time that thing comes a-calling in your mind or in your heart, it's fear. Am I going to get caught in this? Will people actually find out that this is my story? Will I be found out? Will they know that I'm actually an imposter, that I don't know what I'm doing? Do they know that this is what is in my past? Do they know? And the enemy is in your ear working the dark web. They would never let you if they knew. How bad are your consequences going to be when it's time for the price to be paid? How bad is it going to be? How much time and energy do we spend hiding so we won't be found out. How much fear and anxiety, how much fight or flight are you dealing with because you'd rather hold on to the mistake and fix the mistake than just get off the train and admit it happened to you, to admit you've been scammed? Scammed by the guy, scammed by the job, scammed in that marriage, scammed by yourself because of the debt, scammed by yourself because of the addiction. And because you won't admit to anybody, I fell into that, or I fell back into that, or I knew better and I did it anyway, or something told me to leave that guy along— alone, or not take that job. And because you touched it and because you touched it, you wouldn't release it. Then you're walking around in the COVID of dark, only giving the enemy a foothold in your brain with shame and fear. And that shame and fear doesn't just affect what you'll do, it affects how you feel about the journey that you're on. And that fight or flight will kill you from the inside out. I couldn't believe that a person I've never met, that I had no idea who they are, that I entered into relationship with them inside of this DM, that this person who only had access to me via DM could make me feel this much fear. Every time my phone dinged and this person was on the other end of it, I felt the adrenaline rush through my body. I feel it now. I feel it now. We are forever changed by the things we hold on to. We are forever changed by the things that happen in the dark. And the only answer, the only solution, the only fix— you ready? Ready to hear it? Here we go. The only solution is confession. The only solution is to bring it into the light. Somewhere, somehow. Recently I did a podcast with Dr. Curt Thompson. If you have yet not listened to this, then you should. It'll change your life. He said the only solution, the only remedy, the only antidote for shame is vulnerability. It's to let other people know who you are, to let them know where you are, to say, this is me, this is what happened to me, this is the mistake I made. When I went to pay the scammer the second time, and you're sending Zelle, and Zelle pops up and says, halt, do you know what you're doing? Do you know this person? Beware of fraud and scam because people who scam you do certain things. They make you wait before they give you their email address, and when it's time to pay, they want you to move fast. And I read the warning sign, but out of desperation of not releasing my chance to get my Instagram back ignored the warning sign and moved forward. Even in that moment, I felt shame. Because when we walk into dark places and spaces, even because the thing that we want so badly is leading us there, we know when we're entering the place we shouldn't. Even there, with no one knowing where I was and what I was doing, I felt it. But the desire to hold on to an outcome kept me going in that direction. When you love something so much that you won't let it go and it pulls you into incorrect spaces And you feel the "I hope nobody knows" or "I know better" in that moment when you are, yes, ignoring the warning signs. That's when you let go. That's your body, your brain, God's system that he put in you, the Holy Spirit, saying, "Red flash! Alert, alert! Abort, abort! Release it!" So the question that I have for you today is, what are you holding on to? And all the warning signs are in place. Even as I'm talking to you right now, you feel it because your body was wired to sense danger. Have you ever wondered when you are somewhere and you see an animal in the woods or in the forest, a deer or a bird or a squirrel, and you move, they get still? Because they are hardwired to pay attention to danger. If animals are hardwired to pay attention to danger and you are from a brain function activity much higher on the scale in terms of your ability to reason and function and to sense, what makes you think you can't sense danger too? But here's the problem. We do have that frontal cortex. We do have that cerebral area in the front of our brain. And you know what happens there? When we feel the warning signs, when the spine of our neck is standing up straight, when the hairs on our shoulders are flashing in the wind, when you feel it, that feeling I have right now that I know somebody that's watching me feels right now, when you feel that, You want to know what that is? It is your body doing what it's supposed to do. It is your soul saying, pay attention here. And then what you have to work not to do is to let your brain talk you out of what your body already knows. Now, this can be flipped. This can be flipped, where because of past trauma, our bodies do this, and, and we are triggered by something that is not harmful. You know, you date a guy and it was a bad relationship, you date a great guy, he does one thing that reminds you of the old guy and you're triggered. That's why you have to know what triggers you, because you have to know the difference between a reaction to an old scenario, an actual moment where your body, your brain, the bold Holy Spirit that's in you, when you're being warned. You have to know the difference. This is why good friends and community are helpful. This is why growth and education is helpful. You need to know the difference. But we usually have warning signs because we're wired to notice it. We just also were given the gift of a thinking brain. This is why we have freedom as human beings, because we can choose God or not choose God. And this thinking is what gets us in trouble, because we reason ourselves into things that we have decided we want to hold on to. You know what happened to Eve in the garden? The, the devil reasoned with her. She knew she wasn't supposed to touch it. She wanted it. She was curious, and she wasn't willing to let go of the idea that it might taste good. So the moment she was invited into a conversation to reason about it That's the moment when she let all of her warning signs not do their job. That's the moment when she decided to quiet the warning signs and touch it anyway, because she couldn't let go of the idea that it might be good. This is what people play on when you spend a million dollars on a funeral. This is what they play on when you spell— spend a million dollars on that first baby or that marriage. This is what scammers play on when they want your money. Maybe this will be good. Maybe this will make me feel better. Maybe this will solve the problem. Maybe this will be an even exchange for the pain that I've experienced, because maybe you can fix it or in some way help me to feel like I can control something in a situation that has been Uncontrollable. And if scammers will play on you based on your emotion, what makes you think that the enemy won't do the same thing? You got to let it go. So at a certain point, I just stopped answering my phone. And every day around the same time, for about 3 or 4 hours, I would get DMs and calls. And then they started becoming less and less and less and less, and I haven't gotten one in a while. When you first let go, it still feels very uncomfortable because you still want it, you still are worried about it. You still are afraid of it, but if you just let it go, the noise goes down, the fear goes down, the stress goes down. And it doesn't feel like that when you're in the middle of it. It feels like if I hold on to it, I can control the outcome and make it better. But every time you are holding on to something that you think you can control, it's probably controlling you. If you ever find yourself saying, oh, I can quit this anytime. Well, I know I need to let him go, you know, and I could do that, but I decided to. Or I know when I decide to, I can get my finances in order, but right now, you know. Anytime you convince yourself that you can control an outcome of something that is actually eating you alive and you know it's not good for you, but you're telling yourself you can control it, you at that moment need to realize you are out of control. Totally out of control. And you will do and go and be a slave to whatever that thing, that person, that situation is asking you to do in the places it's asking you to go. This is why people get addicted and ruin their whole lives, because at one point they thought they were in control and they wouldn't let go. They wouldn't run the other way. So my question for you this morning is, where do you think you're in control And you're not. If you're honest with yourself, you're not. Proverbs 10:22— if you've been around, you've heard me say it— the blessing of God adds no sorrow. There are some things you can't fix. There is somebody in your life right now that you're trying to control their outcome of their decisions. You can't fix it. So stop enabling the relationship or them, because the stress that comes with trying to fix that is not fixing the situation, and it's actually causing another problem in you. You can't fix that adult child. They have to make their own choices. You can't fix all of the catfights at work. You can pray for them, but get out of the middle of that. Let it go. It's not your job to bring the whole world together and bring world peace. Do your job, be kind, pray, and stop trying to control it. If you don't let go, If you hold on too tightly, the help that you're trying to bring to a situation could very well be hurting you. It didn't feel good to let it go because I let it go before the other solution came. There was a solution. The Instagram did come back with no stress, no sorrow, and no money spent. But it didn't come until I released control, or my desire to control. What are you trying to control? What will you not release? Where do you feel fear and shame? What do you hope nobody ever finds out? Well, the solution: honesty, confession, and vulnerability. And there are some people who are going to look at this and say How could you have been so stupid? And they'll be right. But you know what I get to hold on to? That I decided to let it go, which doesn't leave me with that identity. Smart enough, wise enough, brave enough to tell the story so that it frees someone else to let it go, to resist the lies and the taunts of an enemy, and to open myself up to the possibility of another solution. If you hold on to your desired outcome, you then do not get the benefit of seeing that there's another solution. And sometimes the answers that we seek are waiting in the wings. Of the solutions that we are trying to control. And as soon as we release our control, what's waiting in the wings has room to make itself known. Stop trying to control the thing, friend. Let it go. Stop hiding and trying to hope that people never see the mistakes that you made, because what if vulnerability confession, and community is the key to living abundantly. An abundantly grace-filled, I never imagined this, oh, is this the solution kind of life. Ease in your soul, peace in your soul, calm in your mind. It's possible, but there's no room for it when you're holding on to the outcome that you think you have control over. Leave it alone. Leave it alone. Let it breathe. Make room for you to breathe. And then be willing to tell, as God leads you, any story that needs telling so that you're free of it. If you want to be free, and I hope you do— there is nothing that feels as good as freedom. There is no shame, no fear, no hesitation that gives you as much confidence and freedom and grace as confession and vulnerability. And this feels scary, but this is what allows you to live. So I'd love to know in the comments, what are you holding on to? What have you not been able to release? What every time do you think about it, do you feel the fear of, is this ever going to happen? Will this ever happen for me? Is this ever going to get fixed? Are they ever going to get fixed? And you have been trying to control the outcome and the narrative with all of your best energies, your best research, your best conversations, the best investment. What have you been holding on to? I'd love to know, because when you put it in the comments. That will be your first step towards bringing who you are and where you've been into the light. Hope that's been helpful for you. And if and when we ever put this out in the public eye, if this has been helpful for you, I would love for you to share it with a friend, answer the question in the comments, and make sure you're subscribed here following me and have notifications turned on. Because I'm all about bringing stuff to the light. Often if that means I have to tell you a story or two that's embarrassing about myself. And I'd love for the light that I'm sharing for my own vulnerability, for my own realness, to break the chains for you too. All right, y'all. See you next time.