Martha  Clark  Scala

What Is “Letting Go”?

 

This is a riddle that has many people stumped. Sometimes it can be easier to define something by clarifying what it isn’t.

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• Letting go isn’t forgetting.

• Letting go isn’t moving on as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened.

• Letting go is not ending a relationship.

• Letting go isn’t the opposite of holding on.

• Letting go is not the absence of tears.

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So, what is it? See if any of these proposed definitions and affirmations help you resolve some of your ambivalence about letting go.

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• I accept and absorb the facts of this death. At the same time, I can wish it weren’t so and protest that it’s unacceptable but I know I can’t have a reversal of what took place.

• I acknowledge the loss of this person in my tangible day-to-day world. At the same time, I sustain my relationship with this person by relishing shared experiences and anticipating future interactions of a different sort.

• I recognize the loss of this person in my daily life, but s/he is and will always be a part of me, and in this way s/he lives in and through me.

• I release this person to the next world that is greeting him/her. I hold on to my memory of him/her and our relationship and I release my desire to alter the outcome. It cannot be altered.

• I embrace the essence of my beloved by choosing to live my life as fully and consciously as possible.

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