Letting go.

People often come to ask me for advice about different things going on in their lives and often times my response is 'just let it go'. I am well aware that this is often easier said than done. We have expectations of ourselves of others or specific situations that we want to unfold in certain ways. We think things should be done a certain way or perhaps we think we are simply being challenged by life again. The reality is it's time to let go, go inward, relax, take care of ourselves and stop worrying about whatever else is going on.

Today I realized that letting go comes in different forms. When you tell someone to let go of a person, it's different than surrendering to what is, or stepping out of the chaos or drama. When situations become crazy or dramatic it's easy to jump to conclusions, create stories and then naturally try to fix it, make it calmer, ease the tension. The best thing to do is just step away. Let the situation work itself out, let the dust settle and go and take care of yourself for a while. This is the Universe's way of saying, 'back off, I've got this' (in a very loving way of course, unless you choose not to listen). And I would have to say that letting go in this kind of scenario is the easiest one to do.

Letting go of people on the other hand...now that's an entirely different story. Or not, maybe I'm wrong, but in my reality and experience, the emotions that are connected to people are far harder to deal with than emotions connected to situations. I think that is because people are like fixtures and physical beings that create connections and experiences whereas situations are fluid and dynamic and more of an idea rather than a physical being.

The reason I am writing this is because I have come to understand that I have three ways of letting go.
1) temporarily walk away, give space, relax and let things work themselves out
2) stick with something long enough and through to the end when it is crystal clear one day that the relationship between you and whatever else is there is done. The energy is neutral and distinctly disconnected.
3) let go abruptly because you have no choice other than to do that.

I detest the 3rd option because, for me, I often get angry, resentful and bitter and to counter that, instead of sitting with those emotions and actually feeling them I tend to get righteous and say, "He'll be sorry one day!" or whatever pertains to the situation. Yesterday, I had that come back to bite me in the ass, not in a bad way, but just enough to get me to understand this, this post, the way I have chosen to let go of things and how it is not serving me to stuff away my anger when it comes up.

So thank you for your email, your apology and I wish you well too.

K