Letting GO

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." ~Lao Tzu 

We are all guilty of recreating the emotional environment of our early home lives one way or another. If you grew up in a relatively regular, (not normal but regular) household, then your parents did the best they could do and you probably have your standard run of the mill to down right severe neurosis. What becomes normal or feels like “home” later in life is a direct result of how we grew up. We attract what we know. It is rare for someone who hasn’t ridden a bit of road to know what not to do when forming a life of his or her own. If your mother was domineering maybe your friends or partners are too. If your Dad was abusive maybe that is the pattern we tend to take in our own lives. The devil that you know is better than the devil that you don’t know. We feel comfortable with our own crazy; it is our “normal”.

When we get into a relationship that is toxic we don’t always see it for what it is. Husband didn’t come home one night, wife verbally abusive in a social setting? Mm mm this feels right!

By now everyone knows Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity…doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Aren’t we all guilty of this at some point in our lives? When negativity occurs in your life and you start hearing yourself say things like, “why does this always happen to me?” Or even if something happens once and you think “why me?” Its time to recognize your pattern and ask yourself what responsibility do you have in whatever is going on. Carolyn Myss wrote a great book called Sacred Contracts that explains that before we are born we sign on for the lives we get to live and everyone and everything in it.

Basically we sign on for whatever we “need” to shift us to the next level of consciousness in this lifetime.

 Now if you buy into this theory (which I do) then it makes getting through the hard times a little easier to manage. OK God, I signed on for this for some reason, let me see what I need to see. Our responsibility to ourselves is to recognize our patterns and change the paradigm to see the forest through the trees. By responsibility I mean our ability to respond to any given situation that is happening in our lives and a much needed and valuable lesson directly sent from God. (Or Higher Power, the universe or insert belief system here)

If you are willing to change the lens and look at a “problem” as an opportunity to learn something invaluable to your life then you are one step closer to living in your truth. As I have said before most of us live a life of unrequited self-love. We are just hiding who we really are but only to ourselves.

In any given situation your body will tell you when something is not right. Tight chest, lump in the throat, heart racing? Listen up people…you already know the answers if you’re ready to listen! Your own body will tell you the truth you are seeking. Not seeking truth you say? Then the universe will give you what you need to know like a gift. God’s up there looking at us saying “Hey uh Peter, Tom is going through life seemingly happy as a clam, let’s give him a car accident to live through so he starts to see what he needs to see.” Uh, Thank you?

Pondering a life question? Say it out loud and notice how you feel. When you speak your truth your body will feel at ease. When you don’t you will feel that too.

You don’t even have to have anything “out” with anyone. Closure is for the birds. Who needs closure? That means your looking to be “right” or justified. “I just have to see that lying cheat one more time so he can tell me why he did that and then I’ll have closure.” Newsflash he did it because we are all victims of victims and he doesn’t know any better because he is living with his own pain.

 If you are willing to forgive or even willing to think about forgiveness than eventually it will come, that feeling we call being ‘light hearted’ is the feeling of living in your truth. Set them and yourselves free of your judgments and expectations and live your life with ease. Dis-ease comes from a state of unforgiving or being unwilling to forgive. You don’t have to wake up one day and say OK, I choose to forgive every jerk who ever wronged me, but if you choose to at least be open to it and willing to get there someday than the universe will do the rest. And one day you may wake up to that feeling of being light hearted that you haven’t experienced in so long you can’t remember what it feels like. Recognize that that is who you really are living the life you deserve to live. The truth shall set you free.