Letting Go

Look fear in the face and it will flee from you.
--Sr Yukteswar Giri
Life today is an art form. With all the changes coming at us, the art is deciding when and where we can make a difference. It’s a matter of balancing making things happen and letting things happen.

Societally, we’re way over on the making side. We don’t know much about surrender. But if you’re like me, a quick retrospective of your life reveals that many of the good things that happened for you happened without your efforting. It’s not that you didn’t earn them or deserve them, you just didn’t have a lot to do with their coming about. Knowing when and how to let go is a valuable thing to have in your tool kit.

Letting go may seem like the very opposite of doing something, but it can be a bear sometimes. I was in a ropes course in the California mountains and was relishing all the exercises--until we got to the Rappelling Station. I'd seen people do this before and was anxious to try it. Dangling by a rope, pushing off the rocks and dropping fifty feet, swinging in to the face, then pushing off and dropping again--what could be easier?

When it was my turn and I was all harnessed in, I went to the edge of the sheer cliff leaned out over it backwards and looked down between my legs at the treetops hundreds of feet below. The instructor said, "Let go." I nodded my head in agreement, knowing it was safe to do so. But my hands were frozen around the safety rope. They plainly had a mind of their own and were saying, ‘Are you crazy?’ The coach said, ‘Are you scared?’ I nodded vigorously. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Watch it all the way down.’ Somehow it was all right then to take that fear along with me. I jumped--and had the time of my life rappelling down. When I got to the bottom, I wanted to do it again!

Letting go is a skill I would recommend in these times. Sure, it’s counter-intuitive and scary, but when your mind’s been tied up in a knot it can be very freeing. The real skill from my experience, though, is about handling fear. Don’t look away. Acknowledge it fully. “Watch it all the way down.”

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