Do you ever feel like you want to "let go" but simply cannot? There is good reason for that. Letting go is this feel-good, want-to-jump-to-holy-kind-of expression of spiritual bypassing. Letting go in many of our spiritual circles asks us to "not worry" and to "step into lightness and bliss."
Perhaps what might be more skillful and useful is to "let be." To tend to what is haunting us, holding us down in rumination and feeling stuck. What is this in-between space of being and belonging? What helps us to unravel our tight hold on things? What helps us to respond rather than react?
How do we "tend?" How do we move with grace?
One important aspect of letting be is ritual. To create a space around what is worrying us with a trust to wait and allow clarity to arise. This goes against our quick fix culture, but serves us well. We gain strength of heart and mind by waiting. By tending with ritual.
What could your ritual contain? What simple gesture would be helpful to create space between what you want to "let go" and the actual healing that arises when we "let be?"
I find a simple awareness of sun rising and setting in the midst of my struggle is great balm to my aching heart. It reminds me "it's not all about me" and what I can't hold, but rather it's about how I notice the turning of the tide and the great sun and moon.
Check out this about Creating Ritual.
A little more about "letting be."
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