Letting Go and Living Well* By Sue Potter
As a child growing up I loved every aspect of the circus except the elephants. They were huge, ugly, smelly animals and I was afraid of them. When I was eleven years old I entered an interschool table tennis competition. My father, who was a champ at this game, spent many hours coaching and training me with his special skills and "moves" as he liked to call them. I aced each of my games and won the championship. That thrill and excitement over my victory turned to utter dismay when my Dad exclaimed: "My child, you have the brain of an elephant, you remembered everything I taught you and you used it to win!" In my mind, my Dad was comparing me to an elephant - a huge, ugly, smelly elephant. I was angry and I was hurt at his remark but never said a word until the next time he made that very analogy. I was seventeen and I emerged as one of the top three students in the national exams of my country. My father again remarked on my amazing memory and then I confronted him.
After I voiced my anger and hurt over his remark, my father explained that what he meant was elephants have an amazing brain and the capacity to retain things and I was like that - I remembered facts I had learnt, skills that were taught to me and I used them to excel at whatever I did. When I thought about it, I realized that my father was absolutely right but I also realized something else. While I retained educational knowledge exceptionally well, I also never readily forgot things that were said or done to me therefore I held on to unnecessary, painful memories.
All those years I had held on to that anger and hurt not realizing that my father was actually praising me. Over the years I've come to realize that while we feel we need to hold on to things and certain memories, good or bad, letting go - the ability to let something (or someone) be, the willingness to die, if we must, on behalf of life - is a healing skill. If we hold on to things and people, if we require guarantees, if we cling to life or aspects of life, then we do not live.
People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar. People stay in dead end jobs, abusive or loveless marriages and relationships never leaving the boundaries of their familiar surroundings. Why is it so hard to let go of things that no longer work? The devil you know is better than the one you don't know. People are willing to live a mediocre life for the safety it provides, but, what if we were guaranteed a positive outcome how would we choose to live our lives differently?
When we cling to life, we live half-heartedly, we become overly cautious, uncommitted, we waver at each fork in the road. By comparison, when we fully embrace life, we live all out - as if life mattered, as if we were prepared to die at any moment. We can become responsible choosers and know that we must pay the consequences of our choices.
If we are unwilling to accept the consequences of our actions and choices, we never really live. The one who stays in a dead-end job, an abusive or a loveless relationship because he or she fears change, lives only half a life. People who are vigorously engaged in life are less likely to experience the nameless fears or free-floating anxieties of those who live marginally, on the threshold but never completely in life. Only independent self-sufficient persons, realizing that there are risks to everything, choose freely to let go of fears, anxieties and insecurities, and then stand by their choices.
A few years ago my younger sister was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She and her husband have one child from their marriage and he wanted more. For the sake of her health and perhaps her life, my sister made the choice to have a complete hysterectomy and to undergo chemotherapy. A few months after her operation and treatment she returned to her job as a bank manager. Everyone was concerned for her health that she would be taxing herself unnecessarily, they feared for her life. Then she chose to visit me and again everyone feared that the long journey would certainly finish her off. Only her husband was supportive. He knew that her work comprised a great deal of her life, that it meant independence, involvement and dignity for her. He knew also how close my sister and I were before I moved away and that we had not seen each other for over ten years. He supported her choice. They both knew she was taking a risk but as my sister said to me, "I love my life enough to live it meaningfully and I had to let go of my fears to be able to live and enjoy the simple things that mattered to me."
This is a true irony - to truly be, we must let go. The person who trusts, the one who has faith, lets go. People who meditate and pray understand this irony from experience. Before meditating, we must first calm our body and mind enough so that letting go is possible. Only then do we release all tension and strain but we cannot achieve this level of consciousness if we "try" to, or if we refuse to let go. To let go in this fashion, whether in meditation or in life, we must surrender to something beyond ourselves. Surrender, therefore, is our point of power.
Letting go is making certain choices. Choosing means letting go of the other possibility and what it could bring. We wish to lose weight, so we let go of all the comfort foods we indulge in and we choose to eat healthy so that we may live longer, healthier lives.
When we commit ourselves to something beyond ourselves - life itself, a particular work, idea or truth, a sacred value - we act out of the highest level of personal responsibility. Here we are somehow set free. The box we had become encased in, limiting us as persons, opens up and we experience our true humanity, our true life. Although no one has ever been able to say why this is so, miracles happen when we relinquish control and let go. That point of relinquishment is where we release our faith. Fear disappears and a higher quality of love takes over in our bodies and minds.
I believe that the concentration of a committed heart releases energy with curing, healing powers. Healing choices are committed, not forced choices, choosing to accept ourselves, choosing to live according to the highest standards of virtue or self-treatment, choosing to do battle with those who would undermine our life, choosing to abandon people and circumstances toxic to our well-being, choosing to live life on a higher level, means being in control of our lives and making healing choices with commitment. Commitment grounds us in love and is therefore capable of making us well.
By letting go we make choices that allow us to commit ourselves to all that is good in life.
*http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/399886/letting_go_and_living_well.html?cat=9
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