There are few times in life where you can look back and identify a couple of life-altering books that just completely changed everything. For me, two such books are Untethered Soul by Michael Singer and Letting Go by David Hawkins. I read them both around the same time, and together, they left a massive impact on me. They sent me on a trajectory of positive growth that, even a couple of years later after having read them, I still think about them almost daily.
For traders, I cannot imagine any two books that are more relevant to a trader’s mindset than these. They helped me flip a switch after having read them in tandem. Like most newer traders, I was having problems accepting loss, fear, and just accepting the many emotions that crop up from trade wins and losses. I was like a roller coaster emotionally. I was always like this in my regular life too, sometimes stable and sometimes not. It was just when I got behind the trade desk that these instabilities and insecurities played out. I could see that I needed to learn about myself and my mind/emotions.
After reading and re-reading both of these books, I was left in awe and just shaking my head. How could this be so simple and yet so hard to implement? Why was I overcomplicating everything in my life? Why was I clinging to my pain? Why was I running from and ignoring my own pain? Operating unconsciously throughout my life was a major problem it seemed. I wasn’t looking at what I was doing (or not doing). I was content with just floating through life, more or less. Sometimes, I was kicking butt in life, and other times, I was in the gutters. But why? And how could I sustain a positive, open feeling? How could I be at peace with the inevitable darkness?
The answer to many of these questions and problems for me came in the form of either letting go or surrendering (whatever you’d like to call it). How does a person (or trader) apply the main lessons of letting go to life? In this article, I’m going to go through how to let go of the past, how to let go of the fear of the future. Both major problems that came to the surface over and again with my trading. I knew I had to figure this portion of my mentality out as a trader, or else I wasn’t going to survive. I was feeling and reacting to every loss or every win, it was giving me whiplash emotionally. It was driving my wife crazy, and there were probably points where she was worried about my sanity.
Simplifying and boiling it down, the first step would have to be acknowledging. Be mindful of what you are thinking and feeling, and be able to listen/watch your actual mind. What does this mean? The voice in your head, monitor it! Step back from yourself and say out loud what the thoughts are saying. Journal them, notice the patterns. Are they playing a victim? Passing blame, making excuses? Are they overly negative and judgmental? Are they overly fearful or angry? The first step is to understand that you have a constant dialogue in there and that it needs to be acknowledged.
When you become more aware of yourself and you see yourself experiencing pain, anger, fear, doubt, etc., the next step is to accept it. Accept that you are experiencing this, don’t run away and don’t sugarcoat it. Live with it, greet it with joy. When this stuff bubbles up, realize it’s a chance to become lighter and a chance to become better. How long will the pain or discomfort last? Who knows! An hour, a week, a month, or years, it really doesn’t matter. You don’t get to determine how long it lasts, so let it be.
Let it sit, let the noise in your head become deafening. Relax into it. Those fears of the future, that painful experience from the past…just let it sit there, as uncomfortable as it may be. This will go against your instincts; you will want to fall back into old habits of escape (whatever that is for you). But at this point, just accept it as reality and be sincerely okay with it.
The next key step is to accept responsibility. This is your life, take ownership of it. It’s not God’s fault, it’s not the President’s fault, it’s not the economy, it’s not mommy, it’s not daddy…it’s you! If what you are wrestling with is what someone from the past said or did to you, how sad are you now that you realize that they have real estate within your head, causing you this constant, continuing distress? It’s up to you to acknowledge it, accept that it is happening, let the feelings be, and then accept wholeheartedly your responsibility in the matter. Even if you perceive yourself as an innocent bystander, accept the fact that you bear the burden of letting go of the pain.
Releasing the pains of the past can be really empowering too. Someone hurt you in the past? Okay, well, if you don’t let that go, then they are still hurting you. Are you okay with that? Are you going to be angry and bitter over this, or are you going to surrender to it? If you let it go, it will dissipate and come up less and less with less and less vigor. Your life will become lighter and easier. It will help put things into perspective too. Life is truly short, life is truly precious. Don’t waste it worrying about the what-ifs of the future (anxiety), don’t waste it clinging to resentment, anger, or regrets from the past.
Over time, I will probably write several more articles on this subject (as this will probably just scratch the surface). Juxtapose the letting go practice with trading the markets, and you can see how this easily applies to a more sound trading mentality. Let go of losses. Let go of wins. Neither really matters, as neither result should really matter how the next upcoming trade is approached. Period. With every win, there is a loss waiting around the corner, and with every loss, there is a nice win waiting for you too.
Surrendering to life’s many ups and downs is like sitting back in a little rowboat that life gave you to live in while floating in the big, vast ocean. You can either fight and wrestle with every wave and storm that comes up, or you can do your best to manage things as best you can but see the waves for what they are, accept that, let it play out for as long as it needs to, then harbor no feelings positively or negatively. That is living a life of surrender. Letting go, for me personally, is going to be a lifelong venture that I very much look forward to expanding upon for the rest of my days.
