Letting It Go: Part One
I’ll start by stating I’m not sure if there will be a Part Two or Three…what I do know is that when I think about “letting it go” or “letting go” I feel that the topic is one that really never seems to have an end.
So, here we are Part One, letting it go, letting go...
After 57 years on this earth, it really hit me this year, that “letting it go” or letting go, has vastly different meanings for each one of us. How one person’s momentous weight they might carry on their shoulders might seem trivial to the next. Likewise, when we look at what some people have worked at or have been through, we may often underplay what doors we walk through in our own lives.
In late October I travelled to Portugal and met up with one of the finest people I have ever had the opportunity to know. She is lovely, in and out, incredibly hard working, extremely accomplished in her career, but also in her personal pursuits; a master tailor, a sailor and kayaker who raced, a personal trainer, and an incredible engineer, architect and designer of homes and space. She’s retired from a great job, lives in a lovely home, with a fantastic husband and travels. Wow, right?
Most of her trip was spent doing the Camino Trail, some 800 km. On her own. Encountering new people, new life events, each day, every step of the way. In her own words she learned how to “let it go”.
I’m not going to lie; it got me wondering. The beautiful friend I was travelling with seemed to be the same wonderful friend I’ve had for some 30 years now! I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what she had “let go” of or had to let go, or how she had changed?!
Of course, I couldn’t, it was her journey, her determining what it was in her life that needed to be let go. Not mine.
So yes, it got me thinking. What is it that so many of us seem to think we need to let go of? And why? I realized, my letting go is vastly different, lol!
We do know that when we hold on to bad habits or patterns, negative self-talk, trauma and harmful behaviours we can hold ourselves back from reaching our potential, we can self-destruct or prophesize to the point of having things bad happen as we ruminate ourselves into despair. So, perhaps there’s a really important element to learning how to “let it go”. I guess defining what we need to let go of becomes the question that we all may ponder at some point in our lives. And which differs so vastly between everyone.
After 9 years of sobriety and therapy and 8 years of medications (no longer on them, thank you I “let them go!”), I don’t think I’ve yet “let it go”. I think I’ve figured out what I might need to let go of, but I certainly haven’t let it go. But I guess that’s a start. Knowing yourself, being self-aware, learning the triggers of the very things that can put yourself into a tailspin is a step towards a journey of greater happiness, I think. There have been times when I have lived in absolute despair. And others that have been so wonderful. Somehow there must be that happy medium, right?
When I arrived in Lisbon, some 22 years after the last time I’d been to Europe I had forgotten how Europe is so different from other countries, particularly North America. The hotels, they aren’t the same! The streets are narrow, the staircases are narrow, the tiny towns and roads and homes of the past are like walking through history. Elevators? What elevators! I arrived with a mammoth bag, full of stuff I didn’t need! What a metaphor for my life!
I had a huge bag of luggage full of stuff that I didn’t need! I had to carry it up what I think was about 7 flights of stairs, in a narrow hall (I think I counted almost 300 stairs!). Then I rolled it into the teeny loft we were in where it took up half the kitchen space! Bringing that overstuffed piece of luggage may have been the best thing I’ve done in the last 9 years!
It completely reflects my life as I have been living it. Full of stuff that I don’t need. Indecision around the weather, what to wear, what might look good, what might fit in, what I might fit in…. ha-ha! Yep, as I listened to my friend, talking about how she had learned to “let it go”, I realized that maybe it was time I did too…
What are you carrying around you want to let go of? Can we really let go? I’m not sure I can. But I think I can learn to understand what might be holding me back, weighing me down, holding me from continuing to follow my heart and fulfil my hope that I can be the person I was sent here to be.
As you embark upon a new year, maybe you will pull along an overstuffed piece of luggage that you will open up and you might just realize it’s time to lighten your load.