Not even an iota of capacity or desire to do anything! I actually feel worse today than I did yesterday or the day before or the day before! Between coughing, vomiting & still blowing my nose, feel & look like a dried out, over used dish cloth ready to be thrown in the bin! I have had to cancel education, conference presentations and report writing, I have had to let go......and realise I am dispensable!
Thank God!
Rest I hear my friends say. Rest, what a beautiful word in the midst of crazy busyness, deadlines & longing for it, but when forced on you in sickness, the same loveliness appeal vanishes. Why is it so hard to let go?
A daily email meditation that I receive has been focusing on, 'the art of letting go' and though easy to read and agree, not so easy to practise. Having just talked with a friend on the phone about respecting others choices, letting people, guilt & 'sense of control' go, to take the path of lest resistance, feel the advice given is advice needed to be lived. How quickly ones own words can come to stalk you.
Why is it easy to say & hard to do? We hold onto so many things. Past hurts, grievances, offences, my sense of 'being right', my rights as a human being, unforgiveness, tension, pride, reputation, ego, careers, family, time, dreams, past loves, good health, being young, appearances, painful memories, unhealthy relationships, overwhelming frustration, injustices, expectations.....(this is not a comprehensive list and am sure we could all add a few other things!).
It's exhausting holding onto all that. My beautiful EQ when recently talking about all the reasons why I couldn't accept a certain situation, challenged me simply, ''let it go Mum & forgive". It seemed so simple to him and I was making it all so unnecessarily complicated! He was right and I was wrong!
Accept it.
The act of acceptance has been acclaimed for centuries by philosophers, psychologists, counsellors, theologians, pastors and myriads of others as this blissful state of letting go. It apparently helps healing, both inner and outer, whether alive or dying. I teach on acceptance. Espouse Kubler-Ross' stages of grief, of which acceptance is the final one, with much conviction. But do I live it? I have seen it in my palliative patients; those who accept they are dying, appear less anxious and sometimes even appear to experience less physical or existential pain.
Yet acceptance and letting go doesn't seem to come without struggle. There is more often than not an inner battle that rages, due process that cannot be fast tracked or faked until one arrives at this blissful place of acceptance. For some it takes days, others years, some never get there.......
Letting our children go is yet another level again. Letting them go to parties you would really rather they didn't. Letting them go to work when you worry about the influences & company they keep there. Letting them float through school when you would really rather they applied themselves more. Letting them not do their homework and suffer the short and long term consequences of that. Letting them quit music or sport when you would really rather they excelled or persevered.
I guess as I am getting older that I am learning to let go more readily, although not today! Am finding it hard to let it all go today! Feel like I am disappointing & letting people down, dislike this intensely. Perhaps that is my ego. Let it go.......
Maybe with more responsibility comes the inability to hold onto so much all at the once. Maybe letting go becomes easier with age and maturity. Although EQ doesn't seem to have a problem with letting go, it comes built in with his laisez faire personality!
It almost seems the opposite of conscientiousness to let go? What I do know is the shalom peace that comes when I have let go and accepted. I have tasted this and know it's real. So whatever you are holding onto today that maybe needs to be let go, may you find with me the courage and inner strength to do so.
Letting go doesn't mean we don't care. Letting go doesn't mean we shut down.
Letting go means we stop trying to force outcomes and make people behave.
It means we give up resistance to the way things are, for the moment.
It means we stop trying to do the impossible--controlling that which
we cannot--and instead, focus on what is possible--which usually means
taking care of ourselves. And we do this in gentleness, kindness,
and love, as much as possible.
Melody Beattie
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