Stepmoms, do you struggle with resentment over issues that keep popping up? Or maybe you’re feeling bitter about how your stepchildren treated you in the past? As painful as these experiences might have been, it doesn’t serve you to carry around bitterness, resentment, and anger. Those feelings will weigh you down and affect your emotional well-being over time.
In talking with my coaching clients, I realized that this is a common issue among stepmoms (although not exclusive to stepmoms) that requires concrete strategies to overcome.
I discovered a really useful strategy in Adventures for Your Soul by Shannon Kaiser. In the book, Kaiser introduces the idea of a “Let Go” list, which is basically a list that you create with all of the things, people, and habits that you need to let go of in order to be happy.
To create your “Let Go” list, you should ask yourself two questions:
1.What do I need to let go of?
2.What no longer serves me?
Use the answers to these questions to populate your list. This list serves as a reminder of all of those things, people, and habits that are weighing you down and need to be released. Refer to it often as you cross items off your list or add news ones. Kasier provides an example list of 20 things to let go of in order to reach happiness here. You can use this as a starting point to generate ideas for your own list.
This is the first one on my list:
1. Let go of feeling that I’m not doing enough. Just being myself and enjoying life is more than enough.
Why not get a healthy start on getting rid of lingering feelings of anger, bitterness and resentment? Try a “Let Go” list and see how much lighter you feel! Share your experiences with the “Let Go” list in the comments.