By Corinna Murray

“If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will hold on to.” – Lao Tzu

What I wish I believed when I was young, innocent, and naïve, was that there are no mistakes, only opportunities to discover new experiences and to learn from them. As a curious baby, I came into this world knowing this truth, that there are no mistakes, exploring the world through sensation and the eyes of wonder. We all did, but most of us grew up forgetting this truth, taking on the beliefs of the world and the people we lived with. We took on their definitions and their labels of good and bad, right and wrong, worthy and unworthy, and processed these through our emotions at first, identifying with the labels by how they made us feel. How we felt about ourselves and the world we lived in then became defined by our thoughts that were shaped by this outer world. We in turn tried to control this unpredictable world around us in order to “feel good” or “better.” We often succeeded in controlling things but more often than not, we didn’t. How could we? It is simply not possible to do so consistently but we labeled it anyway, as a mistake, or even worse, failure.

For many of us it takes a lifetime of examination, or for some, a crisis, to relearn this simple truth, that there are no mistakes. Everything in nature is nature and of natural consequence. Once we let go of needing things to be different in order to feel good, we can enter the present moment, experiencing it once again through sensation and the eyes of wonder. We can take on the freshness of the experience and script a new story, open to the possibilities and with a sense of adventure. When we let go and surrender to the wisdom in uncertainty, we find freedom from our past limitations and beliefs.

Consider taking time today to explore the thoughts, feelings, and sensations connected to your experience of letting go. As you go through the day, practice the fine art of detachment and let life flow. Allow yourself to shift your approach, to perhaps take a different route on your walk or drive, or perhaps simply make the choice to be calm when you might not otherwise. Notice what it feels like when you let go.

by Linda Goodman

The way we cling to our dramas or unhealthy lifestyle choices may have become habitual through the years. Once we’re told “Just Let It Go,” our instinct seems to be to grasp tighter to control, because there are no easy answers on why we came to this place or what we will become through the process of shedding this old skin. After all, change is easy to avoid.

There is an ancient story of monkey traps in China. They were created with hollowed rice-filled coconuts and an opening only large enough for the monkey’s hand. Once the monkey grabbed his fistful of food, he was caught because of his refusal to loosen his grip on his bounty.

How tight is your grip on your situation? Are you demanding such control that you don’t allow others their own process? Does life seem to flow for others, yet you don’t trust in the uncertainty of where your path may take you?

Try these few exercises to assist in Letting Go:

1) The next time you’re in difficult traffic, release the death grip on the steering wheel or door and Breathe in Love for whatever situation may lie ahead. See a Healing Light surrounding everyone around you.

2) When anxiety occurs from a deadline or curfew missed, recognize it’s normal and breathe through it, feeling it loosening its grip within the body and breathe it out.  Continue the deep, slow breathing and recognize that regaining composure is what is required in that moment.  Allow Love and Light to go to the person or situation.

3) Whenever frustration, impatience, or anger arise, you are being given an opportunity NOT to react. If you do, the situation controls you and you become the Effect. Manage to resist that impulse and step back into a breath of knowing and respond if and when it’s for your Highest Good.

4) Consider meditating or mindful walks in nature to receive the healing that your body and soul deserve, and to regain perspective. Open your hands and mind to the possibility that some situations or people may no longer serve your Higher Purpose.

Linda Goodman, a Mediator, Reiki Master, and Consultant/Coach, is a guest blogger and coauthor of F.A.I.T.H. – Finding Answers in the Heart, Volume II. To pre-order your copy of this inspirational book, click here. 

by Azizi Blissett

Fear. It grips us in ways unimaginable. Recently, my position as a Marketing Manager at an IT marketing company was eliminated. The company’s revenue decreased by over $1M in 2014 which forced the owners to cut expenses to sustain the business. I had a fleeting moment of fear that seeped in, then my mind began to imagine the possibilities of the future. 

In 2007, I started two businesses, a for-profit LLC and a non-profit entity for which I eventually secured 501©3 federal tax-exempt status. I managed to operate both businesses with a relative level of success for a few years. However, the financial and emotional setbacks I had experienced after a challenging divorce, coupled with a record-breaking Great Recession, forced me to make some tough choices. As a result, I decided to seek full-time employment with a company that could use my skills and business acumen. When I accepted the position at the IT marketing company, I remember making a promise to myself that I would not abandon my dreams of entrepreneurship. I committed in my heart that a dream deferred would not be a dream denied. In almost 4 years, I was able to reposition not only my financial well-being but also my overall value and self-worth.

I grew accustomed to shifting my energy from full-time work during the day to coaching clients in the evening, participating in teleseminars toward my coaching certification, directing and producing a TV docu-series, to writing an inspirational chapter about my life story in a collaborative book due out April 23rd. There were also times where I would facilitate workshops through my nonprofit then shift my attention to work with web designers to rebrand both my LLC and nonprofit websites. Whew! It’s unbelievable how much I was managing.

I felt a sense of relief on my last day of work. At the start of the new week, I began to move on. Then suddenly things felt different and the fear came back, but on a deeper level. Somehow I allowed my mind to believe that I couldn’t succeed and that I would end up homeless–which I am far from. On a whim, a recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn to interview for the exact same position I’d held at my last company, but with a new company and with more pay. I accepted the interview and both sides agreed it was a good fit. I was told that I would hear something within the next couple of days. After a few days, I reached back out to the recruiter and learned that even though the company thought I was a good fit, they decided to pass on bringing me onboard. 

I had a much-needed emotional meltdown. I decided to allow myself to feel the fear and whatever other emotions that surfaced. I realized that I truly didn’t want the position. I only wanted the security of not being homeless. I saw it for what it was. Fear. Nothing more. Nothing less. Then I gave myself permission to release the fear and resistance and move on.

Now I am living in a space of allowing and trusting in the possibilities of all that is to come. I am very clear about the future I want to create for myself. And I am fully capable of doing so. I learned that what we focus on expands, as the Law of Attraction reminds us. I decided to shift my perspective from what I didn’t want to what I did want to create for my life. Now I am choosing to focus on all that I have accomplished along the way and where it might lead me.

I share my experience as an inspiration to you. Remember, you get to choose the life you want to create each moment along your journey. Will you live in fear? Or will you live in the possibilities? Your freedom is in the possibilities as you find the courage to embrace the unknown and create your future.

by Judy Keating

I came home with a bad virus from out of the country and the phrase LET IT GO took on a whole new level of make it stop.

Between groans and wishes for a tranquilizer gun, it got me to pondering about letting go. Our incredible human bodies know how to let go. We shed skin, lose hair, our weight fluctuates, we lose consciousness in slumber on a routine basis, if we are blessed. All without us having to “get a grip,” “make a plan,”  or “worry” if the next breath will hit our lungs before we pass out. We don’t have to think about our body letting go of what needs to go. Our being unaware of the entire process is part of what makes it brilliant.

Allegedly, spring is coming. Yes, on March 20, 2015, spring is officially the season. With  snowmaggeden, freezing temperatures, and black ice, it is hard to imagine anything will be warm again. So how do I know this? Because nature is another miracle that, despite man’s interference, runs on a very predictable time table. Her own. I do not believe that the bulbs in the ground are complaining about the weather. We are not so lucky. We are aware of the weather, traffic, rude customer service people, and a myriad of things that bother us. IF WE LET THEM.

There is a vast difference between recognizing that something is occurring and editorializing about it in our heads where our negative emotions get nice and stirred and we do not want to let go. I was complaining loudly to anyone who would listen that I did not feel well. I was chastising my body loudly and clearly for all the pain and suffering, when more than anything it needed kindness, compassion, and time to right itself. 

So in the spirit of spring and the ritual cleaning that most people feel the urge to do, let’s open the windows of our inner sanctum and notice the things we repeat to ourselves: “I hate_____.” “So and so ALWAYS ______.” “They NEVER______.”  These declarative statements that run on autopilot direct our emotional traffic without us driving. Being certain is a dicey proposition, because what if our holding on to the way we KNOW things to be blocks us from a new perspective that would improve our lives beyond measure?

Notice what you say to yourself. REALLY listen to what you say all the time. Does your inner dialogue create possibility, loving relationships, and growth?  If not, know that your being aware, just noticing what was previously uncensored, will make a profound shift in your perspective. If you are observing what you think, you can decide to change your mind. The ultimate in letting go.

by Rebecca Kirson 

Our nature as human beings is often in opposition to the surrendering and release associated with letting go. Logically we may understand it but our hearts long to hold onto the things that mean so much to us. The families that we have sacrificed parts of ourselves to create, the careers that we have devoted so much of our precious time to building year after year, the relationships that we’ve poured our hearts and souls into. How can we simply walk away when that chapter ends and a new one begins?  

Because the ownership of any and all things is just an illusion.

How can anything be fixed in time as “ours” when all of eternity is a dance of continual movement, a flowing of energies connecting all that is? Our desire to cement experiences into stone only sets us up for disappointment because it goes against the laws of nature.  A tree doesn’t decide to stop growing at 3 feet because it’s so enamored with that view.  A wave doesn’t set up camp at the top of the crest, cutting off its experience before it heads into the descent.  All of life is unfolding in perpetual movement . . . forward. 
 
As Kahlil Gibran says in The Prophet:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. 

And how else can it be? 

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
 
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? 

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. 
 
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. 

Our time as a spiritual being having a human experience is meant to expose us to many different ways of being.  Our soul craves knowing itself in all possibility.  When we limit what we can receive because we are afraid to let go of what use to be, we stifle ourselves and the opportunities that are all around us waiting to be let in.  

Choose today to see letting go as a viable part of the equation of life as each new beginning is. 

Rebecca Kirson, Akashic Record Practitioner and Transformational Coach with Your Sacred Truth, is a guest blogger and coauthor of F.A.I.T.H. – Finding Answers in the Heart, Volume II. To pre-order your copy of this inspirational book, click here.