The Double Paradox of Letting Go

Truly letting go is not what I thought it would be. It is not what we read about in romance novels or hear in popular song lyrics. We often see and hear the words: “Just let it go.”  Someone in my life even recently wrote me, “It’s sad that your healing is taking so long.” Life’s journey to healing and Letting Go is not a race, and does not travel on a linear timeline with a finite ending for someone else to dictate. No. The healing path is profoundly personal, incredibly arduous, and excruciatingly painful. Finally arriving at that place of Letting Go is transformative, but not in a glamorous or obvious way. It happens as you close your eyes and feel the breeze flow through your hair; it happens as you experience profound emotions between your purgatory states of deep soulful dreams and timid wakefulness; it waits patiently and whispers to you softly as you drive to get groceries or walk barefoot alone in the grass. Truly Letting Go requires a surrendering to both what’s next and what was. It is a welcoming softness in the blinding brightness of grief, a gentle pull from holding hands with the past, and a transition to glow from the jarring colors of longing. It is quietly cathartic, and when you walk with it, the door to healing cracks open. A little. Only you can feel it. Only you can know it. Only you can unmask its potential in you. Yes, this Letting Go is yours and only yours. When it’s time, you will know. It is your gift to open.

For so long, I didn’t want to let go. Oh, God, I didn’t. I needed to hold on because it was the only way I knew to keep the memories alive within me. What would it mean if I let go? Could I survive without this grip, this longing? What if I let go and it all disappears?  What would I do then? For so long, I couldn’t imagine letting go. Then, one day, I just knew what I had to do. I felt it; the first Paradox. The Letting Go meant that I could finally be released. Me. With my release, Truth enthusiastically, and finally, had its opening.  By holding on, I was deaf to what Truth had been waiting to share with me all along; I could finally hear Truth’s wisdom without the gripping sounds of holding on. Letting Go does not mean saying goodbye forever; as a second Paradox, it means living more present in your days so you can experience the very love you were trying to hold on to - but with exponentially more intensity and authenticity. Truth is so damn smart. Brilliant, actually. I always try to listen to Truth’s calm language, but sometimes I just can’t hear it over the noise of my emotions. Well, at least I know Truth is there and it will take advantage of any opening I give it. Mostly, I know it will never betray me, leave me stranded, or lead me astray. With a name like that, for goodness sake, how could it?

Dedicated to my little Sis, M.

 

A watercolor painting, "Letting Go."