The 90 Day Letting Go Experiment

Each year on my birthday I make a list of what I want for the next year of my life. This year’s dream list looked rather exciting. Could I complete it? What would it look like? How would I align my time and finances to these dreams?

Land the Axel in a figure skating competition (heck land it at all)

Pass my novice moves in figure skating

Sign with a new literary agent and get the Memory Collector under contract.

Write my third novel.

Build my new brand E2T and get the clothing line into stores.

Start my new coffee line. (Super excited about this since I sometimes run on coffee.)

Partner with Ulrich throughout the year to improve in Salsa dancing.

Finally clear the situation of X that has haunted me for almost six years

Finally clear the situation Y that I’m ready to be open to.

Go to Bali, Chile, Mexico, Amsterdam, and climb Kilamanjaro with my niece for her 18th Birthday.

Compete in my first International Skating Competition.

It’s a powerful list and I was excited until I woke the morning of my birthday and it seemed the universe had other plans.

You see I’ve been battling with X and Y for many years. These two situations in my life seem to color all the moments I spend outside of my happy places. I wake in the morning and my jaw is clenched tight, my cranial ridge throbbing oftentimes causing headaches. No matter how fulfilled my life is with all the wonderful, exciting moments, when I go to handle X I’m frozen in fear. Then Y decides to add its two cents and once again I feel like cement blocks are on my feet as I try to remain above water flailing my arms.

A few days before I awoke with the universe’s plan, I’d ask for answers. In silent prayer I said, “I’ve pushed and I’ve worked. I’ve struggled and I’ve tried everything. I don’t have the answers and these two things have been filling my life with heartache and stress for too many years. This weekend can you please send me a sign of what I should do.”

I wrote down my list of dreams. I wrote out problem X and Y, and I wrote out the question. Then I went to a dance class. After laughing and dancing for an hour, I had a great conversation with my director about my future at the studio and with my partner. I was left to make a decision between two awesome opportunities.

Great, I thought, more decisions.

As I sat on my friend’s boat, I told him my predicament with dance and also with X and Y then I explained that I was seeking a sign on what to do.

“I’m not certain I’m clear about what you’re asking God/ The universe to answer,” he said.

“I want to know if I should just let go, I said. Give up even though it’s not in my nature. Every time I try to leave it seems to pull me back. Yet I resist it as I try to solve the situations.”

“So why don’t you just stop resisting it and let go?”

“Oh, like that’s so easy. No, I need a clear sign if I’m going to let go!”

About fifteen minutes later, a story popped into my head. When I was a young girl I was madly in love with a boy. We’d broken up as young relations most often do. I was still heartbroken many months later and I’d gone to bed wearing the chain he’d given me crying as I listened to our song. My mother called me into her bedroom and told me to turn off the song. She then pulled me into her arms and said, “Give me his chain.”

“No, it’s all I have left.”

“Sometimes you have to let go,” she whispered as she wiped my tears. It took almost a half hour but I gave her his chain.

Minutes later the phone rang. The boy was on the other end saying he missed me and that he got tickets to go see the band who wrote our song.

Whenever things in my life aren’t working out my mother always says, “Let go of the chain.”

As I sat with my friend contemplating what the heck it would mean to “let go” of X and Y, and having no clue what that would look like, another story popped into my head. A friend of mine tried for almost thirteen years to get pregnant. Rounds of IVF and miscarriages had left she and her husband broken financially, mentally, and emotionally. They ended up bankrupt and divorced.

Five years after their divorce they found their way back to their love, but his time they didn’t have the pressure of their dream to have a baby. Science said they were way past being able to have a child, and in their minds way too old to start a family. They were content to be them.

Until there was three. Yep, just months later they found out they were pregnant.

Why is it that when we let go, when we stop being attached to the outcome we suddenly are free to have what we desire. It’s been a very large annoyance to me. I’m a type A personality. I get stuff done. I like hard work and pushing past my limits. Yet, when I simply state what I want like a new car or what I’d like in a new tenant, then forget about it, naturally it shows up.

When I push, demand, work until my jaw is clenched shut and my dentist wants me to wear a night guard, all I get is further frustration. It’s rather infuriating. Isn’t hard work always the answer in getting our goals?

Two days after I asked God for a sign, I was rather ticked with the universe and all its signs of letting go. I kept asking, “What does that even mean when I have serious issues I need to fix? Seriously, you just want me to let go and let God. I’d prefer a different answer. Like do this and X and Y will be solved. Could you please just tell me what to do?”

By Sunday night I really didn’t like my own company. I had a dance performance and I had no desire to go. I wanted to stew in my own foul mood. I wanted to watch television and ruminate on how X and Y were not what I wanted, and figure out how I would make a plan to change these situations.

A commitment is a commitment and so I showed up to perform. By the end of the night I’d laughed so hard with the other ladies, learned more about their lives, had a great performance and danced so hard socially that I couldn’t stop smiling. I was high on endorphins and I didn’t care about X or Y.

I went to sleep with a smile on my face and told God, well even though you didn’t give me a clear sign, I’m so grateful for all the amazing experiences this weekend. Thank you.

Four hours later, I was wide awake. It was as if the sign had been waiting until my brain would finally shut up. Before me was the 90 Day E2T Experiment. In my Bucket List Life 21 Day challenge, I give 21 experiences that can up-level your life. I teach how to make your dreams come true and complete lists like the one at the beginning of the article.

The yumminess of the 21 Day experience isn’t just that you start to complete your dreams it’s the deeper aspects that change you so that you experience life on a more playful level. You manifest what you want on all three levels of Success. What I call the SMS of success: Spiritual, Sensory, and Material.

The 90 Day E2T (Explore, Experience, Thrive) Experiment would be if instead of giving my focus to completing the list I want for the year and fixing X and Y, and instead let go and trust so deeply that life is magical and playful, what would happen in my life? Would X and Y fix themselves? Would I no longer care about X and Y?

As I lay in bed between dream and consciousness, I heard the rules of the experiment:

Let go of focusing on X and Y

Focus upon E2T: Explore, Experience, Thrive — One life, one body, one playground earth, I am Adventure.

So here goes. For the next 90 Days I will. . .

1) Focus upon what brings me joy.

2) Explore the world outside my door.

3) Say, “yes” to every opportunity.

4) Share my journey each day through stories of what happens to keep me focused and on track. Accountability can be key.

5) I won’t judge — not myself, others, or anything that happens. Even if X and Y become even scarier, I’ll agree that it’s the way of the God/Universe to lead me to letting go of the situation that doesn’t suit me any longer.

6) I will get out of the way and not decide how the universe will show me all its awesome yumminess but instead let it surprise me.

7) I will not play by society’s rules of any kind.

8) I will fully trust in a higher power and know that I’m loved deeply.

9) I will follow my heart with full force.

That’s it. That’s the experiment. To see what happens, if I play this game.

So today is June 4th. I’m off to see what God/Universe brings me on my birthday.

I’m nervous and excited. I do so love control and making things happen, but what the heck. It’s only 90 Days. September 2nd I can always pick up X and Y again, but you know what? This letting go thing is already starting to feel pretty darn good.