I'm Natalie Liu, and you're listening to the baggage reclaim sessions, where we break the patterns

that break our hearts, relationships and bodies. Since 2005, I've run one of the longest

running self-help blogs in the world, baggage reclaim.com. I'm a boundaries and relationship coach

and the author of five books, including Mr. Unavailable and the

fallback girl and the joy of saying no. I help you reclaim yourself from emotional baggage

by letting go of emotional unavailability, people pleasing and unhealthy relationships so you can live

in love with more love, care, trust and respect.

Hello, hello, hello. How are you doing?

I've been in a bit of a busy bubble recently because, as I hinted at in the last couple of episodes,

I've written my sixth book, a mini memoir called Let Go about my relationship with letting go and control.

If you've ever felt like you're swimming upstream no matter how hard you try or like you're constantly bracing yourself for the next thing to go wrong, this book's going to resonate.

It's split into two parts, family and friction, and I explore,

for example, what happened with each of my parents. You may recall I actually broke up my mother

a couple of years ago or so, 11 years of tinnitus that only started to calm when I stopped

trying to control it, professional experiences

that revealed childhood wounds around abandonment and failure, and of course, the hysterectomy

and the shock cancer diagnosis. Something I think I was really reminded of a lot over this last

decade is about how much of how I learned to cope and

survive as a child was about having a sense of control and using my worthiness and effort to

create that sense of control and yeah to also try to determine outcomes. Let Go is really

about learning that actually when you're feeling really up against it, the most loving thing

you can do for yourself is to stop trying so hard and trust that you're exactly where you need

...