LETTING GO

     If our whole life experience were boiled down to one grand spiritual lesson, I believe the lesson would be to let go. And then, to let go some more. The concept encompasses everything our lives are all about. Letting go of our suffering frees us to experience joy. We can let go of fear and prejudice and anxiety and the desire to control everything. We can let go of negativity and resentment and attachment and suspicion. We can let go of excess weight, busy minds, and toxic relationships. We can let go of expectations. We can let go of doubt. We can let go of always and never and should and shame.
     But how? That's always the rub. How do we let go? First, I guess we have to realize that we're holding on. We have to recognize the heaviness of our load and the effort with which we are clutching to it. We have to understand that it's our choice to carry it onwards or to set it down.
     It helps me to write, to scribble my burdens in print, and fold them up and put them in a box, or anywhere away from me, to give them over to the universe or God or whatever it is that has the ability to straighten things out. Talking about my worries to others does the same thing. It gets them out and gives them air. They are far better free floating than trapped in my interior growing legs.
     I can let go today. I can let go of all that is weighing me down.
  

I will recognize that I am holding on to something that is making me suffer, some fear or judgment or self-despair, and I will courageously and willingly set it down.