Letting Go….

Letting go, maybe one of our biggest challenges.  How often do you find yourself holding on too tight to something?  Maybe it is a project you are involved in at work, a relationship, a deal you need to get to go through, an idea or thought, a belief about a person, your opinion, etc.  There are so many things that we hold on to and think this just has to go MY WAY, or else!  I just have to have this thing, or that, my career just has to go this way, I just have to have this relationship, I have to get this deal!  We get so caught up in getting that thing that we think we need to be happy that we miss the whole journey to the very thing.  And worse, we get the thing only to find we want something else to make us happy once we get there!  There is a fine balance between putting out into the world our desires and wants and then being brave enough and having enough faith to LET GO!
I know in my own life I have held on too tight so many times, waited for that thing that I just had to have to come and if it did, felt like it was on to the next thing, not even giving myself time to enjoy what I had.  I can attest to missing out on whole decades of my life paying too much attention to what was next, rather than enjoying the journey and being in the most valuable NOW moment.
Alan Watts says, “So afraid that you won’t make it, that you grab it too hard.  You just have to have that thing!  And if you do that, you destroy it completely.  For true pleasure you must let go.”
I like to say that putting out our desires into the world is like ordering a meal at a restaurant.  When you go to the restaurant and place your order with the server (with all the details/add-on’s) you don’t wonder after a while “Oh, no it’s been a while and my food hasn’t come, I guess it wasn’t meant to be,” or “Oh, no will my food come, I don’t think it is going to come, I probably did something wrong, I should not want that, I will never get it,” etc.  This is what we do when we put our desires out into the world, we worry, fixate, or think we are not deserving of it.  Instead of placing our order like we do at the restaurant and then let go of that desire, knowing it is out there and trusting that at some point what we want will come to us.
Letting go is the key to true happiness, after all, how can you be truly happy if you are spending so much energy worried about getting/being something?
Mantra for letting go: “I trust in the flow of life.”
Practice putting out into the world want you want and then let it go, trust that it is coming to you.  And if it is a negative situation, or relationship, practice letting go of the fear you have around not letting it go.  What is it giving you?  How is that fear serving you?  Thank it and let it go.