Years ago, backpacking through Central America, I went bungee jumping.

Before you picture idyllic scenes of diving off bridges above emerald rivers … let me correct you. This was at night in a parking lot in Cancun. It seemed a good idea at the time: 150ft up a crane was a platform. Below, a rather ratty-looking crash mat which was in no way reassuring. Standing on that ledge with essentially a rubber-band velcroed to my legs, the idea looked less good.

The man at the top told me to hold on to the railing and lean out, arms behind. When he counted to three, I just had to fall. One, two, three … go … go now … let go! What are you doing?

I stood there, knuckles bone-white from my grip. We tried again ... nothing. As much as I intellectually knew what I was supposed to do, subconsciously I was having none of it. You’d have needed a crowbar to pry those fingers loose.

The man got shirty with me: “Either you go this time or you walk back down.”

One, two, three, nope. Then a shift occurred. What if I trusted that whatever happened would be all right?

As I fell, blackness descended, a tunnel of light appeared above my head. The falling slowed and was suspended in time and space, a pulse throbbing in my ears.

“This is death,” I thought. Then I heard laughing, cheering and even a few wolf-whistles. Not exactly what I’d expected. The realisation dawned that as I dangled there, not-dead, the skirt I was wearing — a long, black hippy thing that scrunched into a ball for easy packing — was hanging upside-down over my head.

“No te preocupes,” the woman had said, taking my $25 at the start. “The force of the fall will keep the skirt in place.” But now, the al fresco diners at the food shacks surrounding the lot were getting dinner and a show.

What is my point? I am reminded that I “hold on” a lot in life. We can hold on to physical “stuff”, stories and expectations, grievances, people, ideas, money, fear … We can try to control the outcomes of everything we do. In our bodies it shows up as tightness, clenching, even holding our breath; in our lives it manifests as overwhelm, stress, anxiety, inaction, escapism, anger, etc.

As tight as we hold, though, life happens. Try as we might, we cannot plan for every eventuality and, under the misguided illusion that we’re in control, when the unexpected does occur it can completely derail us — the crash-mat is gone.

So instead can we practice letting go a little? When we feel a tightness in our body try taking a deep breath and just releasing it. Can we put ourselves into a space and just see what happens? Can we trust that what is, is what is … and that’s okay? What’s the worst that could happen?

Yes, sometimes we may end up metaphorically showing our underwear to Mexico, but that’s just a sign that we’re doing stuff, living, trusting, opening to the moment. And isn’t that worth it?

• Julia Pitt is a trained Success Coach and certified NLP practitioner on the team at Benedict Associates. For further information contact Julia on (441) 705-7488, www.juliapittcoaching.com.