Hands are for holding… hands are for letting go.

The past half-year or so I’ve been learning this one main lesson it seems. Letting go. People, things, expectations, anything I tend to set my mind to. And I have a mind that sets fast and hard to things. “You’re so balls to the wall about everything”, Joseph once put it. I’m finding that even when it seems like all the odds are against me, or I’ve had a terrible string of bad luck, that everything seems to work its self out, a little better than before. But only if I let go and let things just work themselves out.

Whenever I don’t let go after a loss, the space never actually frees up for the new thing to come in — I’m too focused on what I’ve lost to see it. Sometimes it’s a case of not wanting a new puppy after that favorite old friend dies — being incredibly stubborn about not letting the old thing go, insisting on a mourning period. A time of indulgent woe-is-me-ness. None of it really makes me feel any better.

I’m finding that the only time I am hurting or in emotional pain, is when I can’t let go. And as soon as I surrender to the flow of the way things are working themselves out, that it stops hurting. Well… The one thing that still really sticks for me for months now is losing access to my beautiful son Tristan, I am still working on letting that go. I can’t do a single thing to change it, I have tried and tried, so it makes no sense for me to keep torturing myself. But what calms me is the hope that things are working their way out somehow just like everything else has in my past, and that one day when he is older I will see him again and have a new opportunity to get to know his amazing little soul.

And letting the stolen laptop go — all my photos, music, files from every project from the past 10 years was almost like losing everything in a fire except that I still have a lovely place to sleep so its in no-where close, but it felt like I lost a huge part of my past, my security, my livelihood, my home in a way. But I remember the feeling of just complete surrender pass through my body about 15 minutes after it happened, and in that instant a path was being created, and soon I would be lent the cash from my step-dad to buy the laptop of my dreams. He could least afford to be lending out cash right now, but he didn’t even hesitate to help me, I didn’t even ask him. I will forever be grateful to him for coming to my aid at such a crucial time. Soon I will be up and running again, and 5 x more productive than I was on my slow old laptop. I will enjoy my job exponentially more.

I lost a close friend over a month ago over broken trust, and I sense that it has something to do with the clearing away of harmful debris and clutter in my life, that I have longed for for some time now, learning to be more selective of the company I keep, making space for revolutionary new, inspiring and loyal friendships. Not that everyone is perfect, especially myself, but at least friends who I can rely on and trust as much as they can always with me. When I tasted this future I was able to let go everything that happened, and the pain and confusion disappeared along with it.

The struggles I’ve had the past few months have spurned me to take some radical steps in my life over the past week, and ever since I’ve decided to do these things I’ve been waking up feeling great about my life, happy, content and safe. Even though everything around me is unstable, I know where I’m at. Safe because the reigns to my life are back in my hands again. If you plan on being less than what you were created to be, chances are you’ll be unhappy the rest of your life, and when I realised this I realised I need to stop farting around. That sense of urgency hasn’t left me. I might only be around for a day, a month or a few more years, and I have to be sure I’m always on the path that is the most fulfilling, even if it is the hardest.

We often fall into the trap of thinking that this person or this situation is making us unhappy. But the truth is, we make ourselves unhappy. I would have this tattooed on my arm to remind me if it didn’t sound so poorly put together, but really I need to remind myself of this every day, so maybe I will create a new bracelet to wear every day as a reminder.

I’ve rambled on enough. What are your thoughts on letting things go?

This entry was posted by } bird { on Sunday, May 16th, 2010 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Food for thought, Personal, the pursuit of happiness, wildishheart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.