The 3 Step F**k it Bucket

By: Jennifer Vrouvides

Many of us have been hearing the line, “let it go” since we were little kids. Now we’ve also heard it a million times because of that ridiculously popular song from Frozen. We believe that we’re supposed to “let it go” in regard to a lot of things: The person you like isn’t calling you back? Let it go. Someone cut you off while driving and the rage inside you builds? Let it go. You take things personally? Let it go. Let it goooooooooo. But where should the feelings you’re supposed to let go of actually go?

Regrettably, we can’t all be like Elsa and make an ice castle to live in to avoid our problems. Letting go is damn hard, but also important, especially as a writer, or creative soul. Letting go of the pain of criticism, feedback, and rejection is important because it helps us learn to turn tough responses to our work (which we often view as an extension of ourselves) into a constructive building block and get out of harmful narratives. Releasing negativity helps us move to healthier spaces. “Let it go” is pretty sound advice but it isn’t a complete piece of advice. It doesn’t give us an idea of how exactly one is supposed to do that. So, how do we do we, the average humans who do not speak to snowmen, learn to let it go? In my experience, you can visualise three steps: chuck it in the fuck it bucket and move on.

While I don’t have a self-help book on letting things go, I have some ideas that are working for me. Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of work in the realm of feedback: learning about it, giving it, and receiving it. A perk of this is that it’s helped me learn how to let things go in a constructive way! When it comes to letting things go, I follow a three step thought process.

Step one: set up your frame of mind to see that a painful situation can be a moment to learn. Your ego probably hurts for a bit because you are human.

Step two: take a deep breathe, put your hurting ego aside, find the relevant nuggets of wisdom and absorb them in your mind as simple ideas to work on in learning to improve. Put them in your pocket and get ready to work on them as tangible actions not tied to feelings.

Step three: visualise your “fuck it bucket” and chuck the hurting parts into that bucket. Then, pull an Elsa and let it go.

This isn’t rocket science; these steps are hyper simplified on paper but I have found that, with practice, this visualisation can be really helpful in learning to let things go. All due respect to feelings, these steps can help you remember that it’s important not to let them get in the way of your growth as a person. In the end, if you follow the fuck it bucket method, feelings are acknowledged and managed and what you’re left with is action to grow.

PS. Did you end up with “Let it Go” stuck in your head? I definitely did. Time to start practicing letting go.