I actually believe that. Letting go gives space to what is, rather then what you had expected, wanted it to be, projected, or anticipated.
Letting go can be hard and excruciatingly painful or it can be simply like ripping of a bandage, a quick pinch. Either way at the end of letting go is release, relaxation, acceptance.
That is not to say that it is always a quick process, or that it is always the right time to let go.
As timing is something that is not often in our control, when being in a time where it is apparently not yet the time to let go, it is the time to let go of desperately trying to let go. Hahah.
Yep, that sounds like a brain twist, but it works.
Some things just aren’t possible to control or manipulate, cannot be hurried along or cut short. They need time to come to their natural due date, weather we like it or not. Those things are great practice for letting go of wanting to let go, and thereby surrendering to the fact that we aren’t through with that particular subject yet.
And there are times when it is not the time to let go, even if it were easy, possible or tempting. Then it is time to hold on or to fight for something, to take a stance or action into manifesting or sustaining it.
I know this all sounds pretty vague, but if one really feels into it, I think everyone has experienced what I am talking about… Everybody knows that fine line between hanging on or letting go, that moment where it’s simply a decision, jump or not jump. Open the hand or keep it clenched. Stay tense or relax.
I often experience this situation in relationships, in those little moments of bickering, when irritation or stress emphasize those things that bother you in the other and when it´s easy to spiral into a classic “but you did this and you said this and I don’t like and you never do” episode…..in exactly such moments lay the world of choice before you. To let go or not to let go.
Let go! Those are the beautiful experiments of how a contraction can release itself by simply choosing to drop it. Sure, it takes practice and awareness and will. It takes leaving the past for being the present.
Coming back into now. Clean slate. It´s always, always, always an option.
I also know the moments well where letting go would be the easier, more attractive option and yet something tells me that it is not the time to let go. Then persevering is the choice to opt for, often just as difficult as letting go can be. Not giving up, not throwing the towel, not begrudging or collapsing or resigning, but moving forward.
OR, staying in the gap. That too can be tenacity. Breathing through being between a rock and a hard place. In a way it´s a letting go also. A letting go of wanting it to be any other way. Simply being with it. And then, eventually, without any push or nudge from your side, it moves.
Of course one can also chose the route of pressing through and elbowing oneself out, but in my experience it´s a hard and painful and rather tedious process. It is fighting with resistance. It is swimming against the stream. It is a way more energy-consuming, frustrating and exhausting endeavor.
The tricky part is that the ego can get off on it, and somehow cunningly convinces you that it´s the way to go, even though all sign posts point downstream. Relax. The river will take you there.
But nope, the head is not having it, it has a clear and strong idea of what it will be, how it will look and what is the best way to get there. Come what may.
Take for instance the example of a relationship, sometimes I can literally watch that cunning mind wanting to cling on for dear life to all the things that piss me off, making elephants out of mice, just because. It feeds of the negativity like a parasite.
“Come on throw that old story in the mix to bring that fire to a roar, come on!!”.
It takes determination and a little taking distance to say no, I am not going down that never ending rabbit hole. I am staying right here, with the man that is sitting in front of me. Not the one that I would have him be in an idealized world, or the one I make him out to be with my distorted projections.
Letting go of attachments and expectations. Then you can see what is really there, what or who you are really looking at. The presence has a whole other reality to the one that often enough is tainted and obscured by our accumulated attachments and expectations.
Of course it often is a challenging process. But practice helps. Practicing it in those little moments where you can shout at someone that bumped into you on the street, or let it go. That moment where your mind is pestering you with guilt for having forgotten your friends birthday, drop it. The resistance to the stretch in your asana, surrender. Practice, it gets easier and lighter and more playful.
Letting go is the key to happiness. At lest one of them. Try it. Now. What ever is holding you tight in it´s grip, keeping you up at night or driving you mad inside, just let it go. Open your hand, ease the grip, watch what part of you still wants to hang on to it despite the fact that it´s keeping you hostage and steeling your energy. Bring awareness to that part, acknowledge it. Breath. Surrender. And let go.
And before you know it. Puff. It’s gone. And in its place is space. Presence. Happiness.
With Love,
Kanika
Co- Founder DIMA Mallorca – Centre for conscious living
www.dimamallorca.com
