The Art of Letting Go

This summer, I’ve been learning the value of letting go.

I thought I learned this lesson last summer, when we sold my grandparents’ house across the street from where I grew up. Painful as it was, it was also a necessary evolution of time as we let go of furniture and keepsakes and rooms that held hundreds of memories.

I let go then.

But not really. Not with ease. Not with grace.

Not without a whole hell of a lot of foot stomping and swearing at the cyclical nature of life to the universe.

This summer has been easier. No—I actually won’t say that because it’s been just as painstaking, just as much of a struggle. It just feels easier because I feel different than before...

More willing to let go of expectation when that expectation risks disappointment. More willing to let go of dreams I’ve envisioned for myself when they don’t match wants or needs. More willing to trust that all change is for my own highest good and that there is something better planned for me.

More willing to not just let go, but to let it be.

There’s a popular spiritual saying that “rejection is God’s protection.” For years I was pissed at God, so I denied this. Did God protect me when I lost loved ones? Did God protect me from heartache? Did God protect me when I suffered through six of the most hellish years of my life with Lyme disease?

Well, yes. Only I couldn’t see that then, but I can see that now—how all of these experiences softly (sometimes forcefully) guided me to something better.

And they will guide me forward still because forward motion is the nature of life.

This summer, I’ve been shifting my mindset around that, as I’ve been shifting my mindset around so much else I thought I knew—breaking down illusions, finding my own truth, dispelling fear and replacing it with unconditional love of self and others. It’s been the most painful emotional journey of my life.

It’s also been the most fulfilling. Because I can see how the changes within me are creating changes without me. I can see how much more deeply I can love people when I’ve released attachment to them. I’ve seen how I can still manifest my dreams and hold fast to my visions of the future once I release expectation for how that happens. I’ve seen how I can let go of loved ones and still carry their love with me because love is the only thing that’s real in this world.

Love is the only thing that’s real.

Only love exists.

Letting go doesn’t have to equal loss, as I once grew to believe. It just makes way for more love—maybe different love or a deeper love. Because you can’t lose anything or anyone you love—sometimes they just shift out of your life for a while, sometimes if you’re lucky they circle back around, but the love that they carried with you and for you—the love that you have for them—always remains.

That’s what we hold onto. That’s what we fight for. That’s what we continue to dream about and push for.

Only this love that is real.

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