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Welcome to Reiki Retreat! A place for both the novice and seasoned Reiki practitioner to drop by for inspiration, information, and ideas. My hope it to have an engaging community where lightworkers gather and share what we are doing as we move ahead in these exciting days of spiritual evolution..

Thursday, March 27, 2008

How in the World Do I Let Go?

LETTING GO IS A CHOICE
Whether we are working on resolving issues within ourselves, or find ourselves assisting others, such as friends, family members or clients, often we discover at the root of the problem is the core issue of not being able to let go…This could be any number of things that occurred in the past…a traumatic event, a perceived defeat or failure, a personal injury of some sort, and on and on the list can go. Upon closer examination, we frequently find ourselves clinging to this past wreckage, as if floating around at sea, waiting to be rescued from the pain. So why do we do this?

Well I would like to discuss a few things that were presented awhile ago when facilitating at a Sunday Celebration. The topic presented was Bridge Over Troubled Waters. The subheading was The Anatomy and Physiology of Life’s Struggles. Although this is not meant to be an all inclusive listing, it does provide some thoughts to ponder.

We started out by discussing vocabulary…what is the form, the function, and the process of life’s struggles?

LIFE'S STRUGGLES:

Form:

1. Will without a doubt show up daily, invited or not…or so we think!
2. These can be tiny, but annoying, struggles, like a fly buzzing continually around our head or
3. They can be huge and enormous…like we have been buried under an avalanche

Function:

1. To help us discover who we really are
2. To create opportunities for us
3. To engage us in life lessons we wish to experience on some level
4. To teach us how to create inner peace

Process:

1. We Sink…deny the experience…throw in the towel…blame others, etc
2. We Swim through Murky Waters: taking on the Superman/Superwoman role…assume the “No Pain,No Gain” attitude, etc…
3. We Find a Bridge to Cross…we go inside…turn for help…use resources…make connections

As we work on resolving some of our life’s struggles it is of top priority to do the inner work…the internal housecleaning so to speak, if we really want a healing to occur. By now we all know that a cure does not necessarily equate to a healing, and a healing does not necessarily insure a cure. But if given the option of which direction to go…going for the healing is the best route to travel, in my opinion.

A BIG part of this process is the ability to let go. When we go in this direction we often have an new awakening …the realization that our inner nature knows what is best for us because it sees life without the painful confusion and contractions that usually accompany our compulsive self-interests.

Our higher self knows that we don’t need to ache even when we are so sure that we must. Our higher self has the strength and wisdom to gently open our hand that grips so tightly onto our life struggles, allowing us to drop all that is making us unhappy. The secret to letting go not only holds the keys for ending what is unwanted, but locked within this same secret is the beginning of a new life…the birth of a new nature that never has to hold onto anything because it is already everything.

Here are some Points to Ponder if you decide to head down this path. This is a powerful listing of insights I came across from the book, The Secret of Letting Go, by Guy Finley.

  • Letting go of yourself is letting go your problem, for they are one and the same.
  • Go along with your longing to be limitless.
  • Uncovering what is wrong must always precede the discovery of what is right.
  • You can only be as free as you are willing to be truthful about yourself.
  • Letting go is strictly an inside job.
  • There is nothing hidden in the world from the man who will reveal himself to himself.
  • You can live life from true intelligence or with self-insistence.
  • Letting go takes no strength—only a willingness to see the need for it.
  • We can never act any higher toward a situation than our understanding of that situation.
  • Once you see the problem, you know the solution.
  • A weakness detected is a weakness rejected.
  • Letting go of is the natural release which always follows the realization that holding on hurts.
  • Unhappiness does not come at you, it comes from you.
  • Suffering is only something you picked up by mistake.
  • What you really want is to stop thinking about yourself.
  • Defeat comes from clinging to solutions that don’t work.
  • Letting go happens effortlessly when there is no other choice.
  • Real freedom is the absence of the self that feels trapped, not the trappings
    that self acquires to make it feel free.
  • Wanting to learn about yourself while limiting your discoveries to what you want
    to find is like saying “I want to see the whole world from my bed.”
  • The only thing you lose when you let go of something you are afraid to live without is the fear itself.

    And finally without a doubt, I feel the bottom line solution to ending our life’s struggles is finding and staying in the space of inner peace. By letting go, we can achieve this, because when we have inner peace, the outcome never matters…I am not suggesting that we don’t make life changes, what I am saying is that in the presence of true inner peace, nothing can pull us from our center. Often easier to say than to implement, but it does give a goal to strive toward!

    .

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Its good to read some exploration of this issue. "Letting Go" is one of those things things that people get told they need to do in a way that makes it seem a simple matter. In the end it is, but people need to make a journey through themselves to get to the point where they can "let go". People define themselves with their problems and pain - letting go of them means giving up that definition. They don't know who they will be without it, and that is scary. I know because I've been through it. I could feel myself on the brink of changing but I didn't know who I was changing into. I was simply becoming myself, but it took me several years of work on myself to be able to "let go" and allow myself to be just me.

Susan & Scott Anderson said...

Joanne- Thanks for visiting and for your insightful comments:) It is so true...the self we know, even when we are wanting to make changes, is in our comfort zone...that which we are moving toward, becoming, progressing to, can seen chaotic, and scary as you mention...it is when we are faced with the unknown, that we are reaching out for something to steady our balance, and often...after we have completed this journey of process, we are much stronger, happier...thank you for sharing.