• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Self Help Daily

Inspirational and Self Help Blog with a Save the World Complex...

  • Home
    • Tour Self Help Daily
    • Self Help Daily’s Archives
    • Privacy
      • Affiliate Disclosure
  • Contact
  • Inspirational Quotes
  • Self Help
    • Positive Thought
    • Health
    • Mental Fitness
    • Relationships
    • Self Growth
    • How to Be Happy
  • Book Reviews
You are here: Home / Self Help / Positive Thought / Mantra From the Monkey Bars

Mantra From the Monkey Bars

September 22, 2010 by Joi 7 Comments

Book links are usually affiliate links. This means I earn a small percentage when you click through and buy the book. This costs you nothing extra - it simply allows me to keep my cats in the lifestyle they're accustomed to.

When our girls were little, they loved going to parks and playgrounds.  It was exhausting just watching them run from one thing to the next.  Naturally, they wanted to make it as challenging as possible on their young, overly protective parents – so they’d each head off in different directions.

Emily’s favorite playground destination was the swings.  Stephany’s was the merry-go-round.  Brittany’s was whichever one she happened to be on at the time.

Stephany, the youngest, always had to do what her big sisters did.  Never mind the fact that she was younger, smaller, and in her mother’s play book, supposed to stay a baby.  When she wasn’t much bigger than a penguin, Steph decided that she wanted to master the monkey bars as beautifully as Emily and Brittany had.

Her little arms could barely even reach, so her daddy and I would hold her up there trying to encourage her to go from rung to rung.

The thing was, she never wanted to let go of the first one.  Emily would stand nearby coaching her, “Steph! You have to let go of THIS one so you can reach out for THAT one.”  Brittany would have echoed the sentiments but she would have had to slow down from warp speed to do so.

Not happening.

Still not happening.

So, we had one little live wire bopping from one thing to the next, a daddy smiling because everything “the baby” did was too cute to believe, one tiny life coach with all the answers (if only little sister would listen) and one mother telling her youngest child, “That’s okay, baby, let’s go sit down.  Big bad playground.”

I’m reasonable like that.

Stephany and her monkey bars actually make a perfect illustration for those of us who are much bigger.  Much older.  We all have certain areas in life where someone could very well yell out to us, “You have to let go of THIS one so you can reach out for THAT one!”

Very often, the secret to success and the key to overcoming life’s setbacks lie in these simple words: Let go and move on.

Some people have trouble moving on from a broken relationship.  This particular refusal to let go and move on drives me all kinds of crazy.  What kind of happiness and joy could they be missing out on?!  If they keep looking back, they just might miss something beautiful right in front of them.  The one person in the world who could make them forget all about the other one might be just around the corner.

What a shame it’d be to miss them!

Some people are guilty of doing what I call an Emotional Return to the Scene of the Crime. Something bad happened to them (loss of a loved one, a broken relationship, loss of a dream house, loss of a job, financial catastrophe, business failure….) but instead of letting go and moving on, they sort of keep one hand on the rung in the past.

Some people hold on so tightly and for so long it’s a wonder their hand doesn’t fuse to the symbolic rung.

As long as you hold on to something behind you, you aren’t completely free to reach out to what’s in front of you.  I’m all for putting up a good fight and I’m all about perseverance but, let’s be honest, sometimes it’s time to just let go.

If you can think of anything you’ve been clinging to that you know – in your heart of hearts – is holding you back, please consider declaring your freedom from it today.  Let go. Move on.  Be free.

“You have to let go of THIS one so you can reach out for THAT one!”

Filed Under: Positive Thought Tagged With: inspiration, motivation

Previous Post: « Holy Mole’ Comic Strip: Unselfishness
Next Post: Brooding is a Sport Only For Fools »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Kevin Rodrigues says

    September 23, 2010 at 11:28 am

    Letting go and moving on can be surprisingly difficult. Such situations happen with almost everyone where you just can’t let go. The problem being that why you do want to let go, it is the other side or a part of it that seems to be clinging to you and causing you to not let go. And of course, some part of us still does not want to let go and this makes things difficult.

  2. arina nikitina says

    September 28, 2010 at 11:14 am

    There’s a truth overload here. This is one piece that everyone with hang-ups should read, it would sure enlighten them. Fact is, it’s difficult to completely let go. As one comic said, you did move away but left a forwarding address and so it always reaches you!
    Yes, we all need to let go to be able to truly live forward. But our memory is sometimes too powerful, and gives a reminder every now and then of the very thing we want to let go. I have come up with a workable process for this, however. For each time the pang of pain or regret comes for a visit, I play in my mind all the positive events that came after the tragic one. Like after that one breakup that tore me to pieces, I always remind myself that I moved to a new place that made me happy. Apart from that, I made a productive career move, learned more about myself, had the chance to meet people, travel more and I don’t burden myself with unnecessary guilt over life decisions like before. Weighing the visiting pain with these wonderful strings of events that came after always leaves me smiling. For a long time now, I don’t dread being visited by those unpleasant memories because of this self-made exercise to let go.
    True, it’s fully letting go can be difficult. Putting positives in the bleak pictures of the past, however, helped me cope. As I cannot forget, I made sure there are bright pictures in the next pages. It works all the time.

  3. Sherri Frost says

    October 7, 2010 at 7:18 am

    At times it is harder to let go than others, but let go and move on we must. We hang on to everything from relationships to the old vase in the attic. Recently I had to let go and watch my son go away to college which turned out to be much harder than I thought.

  4. joi says

    October 7, 2010 at 1:47 pm

    Sherri,
    Ironically, my oldest daughter (and truly one of my very best friends) is getting married in two days. I keep going into her room… it’s really, really hard. Thank goodness she and my soon to be son-in-law (who I love like as a son I never had) will just live 4 minutes away. But, it’s still tough, trying to let go of the way things were and move on to the way they’ll be from now on. Tough. Tough. Tough!

    Sometimes when we let go of one thing, though, we find that what comes next is even sweeter. I can’t imagine that now – and I’m sure you feel the same. Hopefully one day it’ll stare us in the face, though!

  5. Sherri Frost says

    October 7, 2010 at 2:15 pm

    Blessings to you and your family. Thank you for sharing.

  6. Alison @ Femita says

    February 14, 2011 at 4:09 am

    It is not always easy but i ALWAYS try to focus on the positive aspects rather than negative feelings. We can learn a lot from the past if we analyze it and then move on applying those lessons. Instead most people relive the emotions over and over again and frankly that’s just a waste of time.

Trackbacks

  1. Tweets that mention Learning to Let Go and Move On -- Topsy.com says:
    September 24, 2010 at 8:25 am

    […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Joi Sigers, Stan Carter Jr. and Sara Grey , Ezra Gardener. Ezra Gardener said: Mantra From the Monkey Bars – Letting Go and Moving On: When our girls were little, they loved going to parks and… http://bit.ly/bhv4DZ […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Self Help Blog

Cat on Pine Mountain , Kentucky

Welcome to Self Help Daily, a blog devoted to helping you get the most from life by getting the most from yourself!

Read the story behind the picture above in How to Live in the Moment.

Positive Affirmation Cards


Positive Affirmation Cards (Amazon)

Contact Joi

My name is Joi (“Joy”)! I am the animal lover behind Self Help Daily.

To contact me, please do so through e-mail (joitsigers @ gmail.com). Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you! ~ Joi

Self Help Blog Updates

  • Finding More Time for Reading in a Ridiculously Busy Day!
  • The – Almost – Lost Art of Greeting Cards: A History of Sentimentality 
  • Top Tips to Avoid Catching Winter Bugs
  • Remember How Free it Felt to Be a Kid? Yeah… Let’s Tap Back into That!
  • Always Have an Attitude of Gratitude ~ Sterling K. Brown
  • Managing Bladder Inconsistency in the Elderly
  • John Wooden Quote About Optimism
  • WhatIf Foods and Their Planet-Positive Mindset: In Our Spotlight for Vegan Month!

Featured Quote Graphics

Don't Quit Quote Graphic

Dr. Seuss Quote About Being Who You Are

Booker T. Washington Quote About Hate

Wayne Dyer Quote About Karma

Quote About Habits

Footer

Inspirational Quotes

  • Abraham Lincoln Quotes
  • Billy Graham Quotes
  • Booker T. Washington Quotes
  • Dale Carnegie Quotes
  • Maya Angelou Quotes
  • Mark Twain Quotes
  • Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
  • Norman Vincent Peale Quotes

More Inspirational Quotes

❖ Self Help Daily Updates



Overcoming Empty Nest Syndrome

One of the questions I hear the most from my readers is, "How can I cope with empty nest syndrome?" I'll try to deal with this sensitive subject as often as possible. If you have any suggestions, I hope you'll contribute to the conversations!

  • Coping With Empty Nest Syndrome
  • Don't Just Cope in an Empty Nest, Thrive!
  • How to Be Happy in an Empty Nest
  • Overcoming Empty Nest Syndrome
Copyright Self Help Daily 2023