The Struggle of Letting Go

A new friend sat in the stuffed chair in the beaverwood studio and expounded on her personal philosophy of handling the unforeseen vicissitudes of life. It was a philosophy borne not from books, degrees, academies, trainings, pews or consultants. Rather, it had been shaped through experiences, searing experiences.

She expounded not a novel philosophy, but the way in which she articulated it, crystallized its meaning. Total lucidity.

I listened to someone like I’ve never listened before. Her words sounded almost verse-like.

It was all about “letting go,” she said, and the extraordinary struggle that authentic“letting go” entails. She clearly had mastered the act. It was like an aura around her.

In the last two years, I have struggled mightily with “letting go.” At various points, I thought I had, only to wake up at dawn or midnight or walking down the beach at high noon, and realizing I had not.

Is the ultimate in “letting go” like setting fire to a burn pile and watching it go up in flames? Or is it more subtle than that? A burn pile metaphor almost seems too theatrical. Maybe it’s just like the leave carried away by the wind with no one around to witness it, let alone care.

In the Bonnie and Clyde book, I ask myself the question: “What is the final thing I must let go?”

When I asked that, I didn’t know. I still don’t. But my conversation with my new friend awakened me to the fact that I still have not completed the final act.

It will emerge. Or appear instantly

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