But How Do I Let Go?

I am in the process of watching my mom transition from life to death.  It is a powerful experience.

I find myself equal parts resisting letting go and then letting go.  Lots of small “letting go’s” happen along the path of any transformation.  They have to in order for the newness that follows any death to have space to grow.

Last week I spoke at the Womanologie event in Connecticut about Transformation.   I was telling the audience how important it is to let go of what no longer serves us.   One of the audience members came up to me after and said “How do I do that?”

Such a good question.  It has an answer but not one that is easy to swallow.   You accept that there may be a little pain in the process but that you are making space for something better.  You must have faith to do this.

Right now I’m challenged to hold that place of faith daily.  My greatest challenge at the moment is letting go of a phone message. 

Yes.  I’m serious.  A single phone message.

Last week I was clearing out saved messages from the phone.  Suddenly there was my mom’s voice from just a few weeks ago – so strong, so alive.

The message was from a time when we still thought the miracle we were going to get was a cure for her cancer. The sound of her voice ripped through the fiber of my heart center with a searing pain.  (Dramatic, I know, but that is how it feels.)

I’ve listened to it twice more and it caused the same pain.  And so I’m left knowing that if I’m going to make space for what comes next, I need to let this message go.  And yet it is hard.  So incredibly hard.

I need to access a courage I know lies dormant in me.  This is the same courage each one of us must access when we let go of something we are afraid of being without but that no longer serves us.

It is easy to fool myself into thinking “What is the harm in keeping a message?”  But I already know there is harm because of the way I feel when I listen to it. 

I wonder “But what if I need to hear her voice after she is gone?”  And then I remember – I have to have faith that I will be okay without hearing her voice because this message isn’t what I really want.  I want her.  Whole and physically healthy.  And that just ain’t happening.

As impossible it is to believe in this moment – I will somehow be okay when I can’t hear her voice again.

I have to find courage to delete the message because if I don’t I can’t make space for what will come.

So for those of you asking the question “How do I let go?”  The answer is simple.  You just do.  You find the 20 seconds of courage and you let go.

It’s simple but challenging as he*l!

So if today is not the day you are ready to let go, just hold the space that one day very soon it will be – because you love yourself that much.

Today is not my day to let go of that phone message.  But the day is coming.  Soon.