Letting Go of Letting Go

Reframing How We Let Go. Learning to Breathe Freedom.

When Letting Go feels hard. For me it was the hardest, back in 2014 I was in the thick of things, transitions in my life were mounting, I was working to create my life the way I dreamed it being, and I was being asked to let go.  I was letting go of habits, fears and blocks, old beliefs, old programming, old clothes, old ideas, attachments, judgments….

This all was working really beautifully, yet here I was having a total tantrum about the words ‘letting go’.

This happened as I was transitioning out of a deep partnership and relationship with a man I loved. This spun out all my grandest fears, and deepest held pains like webs that linked together the most deep fissures and stored anguish and grief in my being.

It was not something my physical, mental, or emotional bodies were wanting. They were having a full blown lay on the floor screaming fit. I did not want to 'let go'.  I was letting go for generations of ancestors, for everything in my life I hadn't dared to let go of before, it was a huge interwoven tapestry of letting go. 

My heart and soul knew that I was on the right course, but the rest of me needed some sort of soothing reprieve from the waves of pain this feeling of letting go stirred up.

It came to me in one of those cosmic download moments. I was writing and asking for support with this letting go.     “Let go of ‘letting go’. ”    The words floated to me from the quiet spaces where our wisdom resides.

I have come to understand part of the struggle with this concept reaches back into childhood when were told to just ‘let go’ of an injustice we felt, or when we were really feeling sad, upset, angry, or fearful. As if it were that simple.  It was one of those phrases that actually meant “don’t feel, don’t acknowledge, don’t allow”.    

‘Letting go’ can leave us feeling that there is a separation which is painful for our emotional and mental selves. It calls forward a sort of finality that is truly uncomfortable, and at the same time does not honor our real feelings.

Let go, release, surrender. These are all useful, yet they have overlays of meanings. Letting go can feel like a final good bye, or a non-permission to really feel what we are feeling.

When I accessed that space of wisdom I learned we can shift this and instead of letting go, we can breathe freedom. We can allow.

The idea of breathing myself to freedom and breathing this beloved partner to his freedom was what allowed me to turn a corner. It no longer felt like some termination or separation from myself or my experience. I was able to allow. When I felt the pain of the separation I would allow that feeling to come and then breathe freedom to the feeling and to each of us.

I found this can be applied to anything we are seeking move through in our lives. Breath freedom.

There is nothing wrong with the concepts of letting go, releasing, or surrendering. They are beautiful and part of our path towards inner peace and harmony with the world. However, if the words themselves bring up feelings of loss, we can reframe by choosing to allow, to free, and to breathe. From here we have the sense of safety knowing we are all always connected, maybe just flying along a different course right now towards what is needed for each individual soul's path in the discovery of true peace, love, and joy.