Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Letting Go


Letting go is one of the hardest ordeals for many of us, especially me. Forget whether letting go is for the good or bad, just the thought of not having "that" as a part of your life anymore, is a heavy feeling. Whether that "That" is smses in the inbox of an old phone you dont want to throw, or telephone numbers of people you havent called in the past 3 years that you dont want to delete, or an employee you must fire but dont find the heart to, or the abusive partner that you must dump but dont have the courage to, or the mundane job that kills your soul but you dont have the confidence to find a new one. I dont know what the attachment to the dead and useless is, but it is pretty real to cause us pain.

I do firewalks and where I encourage people to confront their fears or things that they feel will deliver them pain. The magical part is when you confront your fears and pain, it miraculously transforms into fun and pleasure.

I tried this with my phone. I have over 4000 sms in my old phone, which I absolutely will not get rid off because I may "need" to refer to those messages. I realised after one month that I had not once refered to my old phone. So in 30 days I have not "needed" something I have considered so important.
A friend of mine who is the M.D. of a company wanted to fire one of her employees, but she feared the "loss" it would create in her organisation. Then one day, the employee resigned and left. Within 3 weeks they found a replacement and there was no real "loss" as my friend had anticipated.

I am led to consider a different perspective. We give too much importance to things around us. We get attached to people, things, places, weather, technology to the point that we interconnect our dependance on them completely that we sometimes forget the power of our own spirit to re-create and move on to higher grounds.
I have begun to consider that life is a journey and people, places, things will not stay in our lives forever. Some will stay longer than others and eventually all will go. So if i can treat people and things with respect and dignity in experiening them while they touch my life and also in letting them go, I will always be connected to my self, which IS the real connection.

When you let go with grace and allow the person or thing their freedom towards their journey, you will never lose them, they will always visit you back. It is when you want to own anothers time and space that you restrict them enough to move away and never return. Letting go is a virtue of allowing.... allowing others a right to their own journey, freedom and learning.

I feel the journey of connection is inward not outward. As long as that connection is strong, letting in and letting go would be an attitude of service rather than possession.

Love always, Priya

8 comments:

Unknown said...

aaha lot to learn from ths. i completely agree that we must let go certain things in life as how much hard we try it will go anyways. There are certain things with we are very comfortable but actually speaking those are not important or i will say not needed in our life & for us ths are the things or people we cant live without. so i believe whatever happens is for good. thanks so much for sharing such a hard fact of life :o)

GS said...

Hi Priya,

I read your blogs regularly and benefitted a lot.
Nice article. Confrontation of fears and pain is so important as you have mentioned. Certainly will give fresh perspectives.

Detachment is important too.

Thanks,
Janaki

T said...

Hi Priya,

was just going through your blogs - a few moments of idleness at my end I suppose before getting drowned in work again!! maybe it's easier to let go of objects than people, especially if someone is completely depenedent on you - even if you are not dependent on them or require them in your life. Can one just let go, in this case? Only if that person wants to go, can you let go, isn't it? Between happiness of self and happiness of others, who decides what to choose? More importantly, who decides what's right and what's wrong? Sometimes, I guess, there are only questions - no answers.

Unknown said...

Hi Priya,

Have been reading you blog for sometime now, but this post was the most moving of them all and the most relevant too. I still remember the cell phone incident when i was mistaken for someone else :)

Keep up the good work
-kartik (TOI)

OctoberFaith said...

kartik = keep asset returning to investments keeper

OctoberFaith said...

wow so close.
I dont understand how that can happen...
i almost believed...
then I went to apologize for a sin in the past tense that didn't exist...
yeah, cause I wouldn't have ever given my soul for her.
so to say I was probably more in love with her than god... nah logical fallacy...

nah I'm calling rigged gaming by you people at ASU somewhere along the line. and maybe to much adderall tonight. make my mind go schitz?

if I believed I was forgiven for a sin that didn't exist..
is that the same as the sin existing?

that is back to the does love equal money question.

OctoberFaith said...

cause I wouldn't have ever made that comparison in amounts of love except for that question

TOI?
tony's other investment?

nah.. no way. I don't believe I would have ever done that. nah no way.

OctoberFaith said...

nah.
I have no other gods but the trinidad. not at any time, ever.
...
that was the weirdest thing ever.