I love this story and have infused my details of late, making it my own.
A woman was hiking along a cliff pondering her pending divorce and the wrath of a family member.
She falls—but after tumbling and scraping down the hill, she manages to grab on to a branch. Fearing that she doesn't have much longer, she begins to pray. The response is simple:
"Let go."
Feeling low on family support and high on frustration, she ignores the command and cries and aches until the first rays of dawn. And then, astonishing though it may seem, she looks down and sees the ground…about 12 inches below her feet.
And truth be told, I have been the same idiot as of late, holding on to pain and wearing myself out trying to decide if I should write a response letter to a family member who blasted me this weekend in an email. I sat rebuffing each of his bloody slices, accusations attacking my heart, empathy, thoughts, salvation, soul, feelings, or lack thereof, honesty, character, integrity, and my magical ability to "destroy everyone else's happiness," along with my apparent waining desire to parent my own 17,19 and 23 year old children.
A woman was hiking along a cliff pondering her pending divorce and the wrath of a family member.
She falls—but after tumbling and scraping down the hill, she manages to grab on to a branch. Fearing that she doesn't have much longer, she begins to pray. The response is simple:
"Let go."
Feeling low on family support and high on frustration, she ignores the command and cries and aches until the first rays of dawn. And then, astonishing though it may seem, she looks down and sees the ground…about 12 inches below her feet.
And truth be told, I have been the same idiot as of late, holding on to pain and wearing myself out trying to decide if I should write a response letter to a family member who blasted me this weekend in an email. I sat rebuffing each of his bloody slices, accusations attacking my heart, empathy, thoughts, salvation, soul, feelings, or lack thereof, honesty, character, integrity, and my magical ability to "destroy everyone else's happiness," along with my apparent waining desire to parent my own 17,19 and 23 year old children.
Considering one child has lived away for over a year now, and the others are NEVER home...I suppose the cookie baking must continue. Being gone 8 days a month for work, yes so I can feed them when home - is a sin as well. With all this - I suspect the Dept of Social Services will start yanking children from all flight attendants and traveling dad's anyday now.
All I could think of was ......WTF and WWJD?
And for the record - the email didn't make me want to go to church.
When relief is less than a foot away, sometimes greater tenacity and steadiness of nerve is required to release in silence than to retain in pain. And never is this more true than when the thing you're clinging to is a relationship that's dead as a door nail due to ignorance of facts, inability to deal, confusion, hurt, and that damn mixing up of peoples holidays. They don't know how to adjust - so feeling angry gives just cause for a clean break.
The inability to meet face-to-face with resolution because a person doesn't want to be reasoned away from a clean stance - is mind blowing to me. Who blows off another family member in an email? Like really - who?
He promised he would meet - but went coward on me...not a man of his word. He took the easy way out..not very Dr. Phil-Esq eh??
When a relationship ends in death, divorce, or division of any kind, we may recognize the loss intellectually, but it takes longer to get the message to our hearts. We need both hands free to embrace life and accept love, and that's impossible if one hand has a death grip on the past
We cannot expect things to heal if we are always picking at them, so I deleted the email and went to bed. We cannot look for "perfection" in others -- these are not the qualities of "loving heart" and "seeking growth through disappointing changes." Ask yourself if you really find it so joyously preferable to feel so very very right when in conflict with people -- because if you do, you will repeatedly simultaneously wind up finding yourself feeling very, very alone and sad.
Anger = hurt and this person is hurt. Simple as that. He has decided to let me go - not I him.
Only by learning how to let go do we learn how to hold on to what matters. It's as though the shadows created by loss illuminate what remains; the contrast helps us see with great clarity and appreciation the things we were meant to do, the people we are meant to be with, and most importantly -those who are still with me, and those I love deeply- who also love me back unconditionally.
For that- is my future.
All I could think of was ......WTF and WWJD?
And for the record - the email didn't make me want to go to church.
When relief is less than a foot away, sometimes greater tenacity and steadiness of nerve is required to release in silence than to retain in pain. And never is this more true than when the thing you're clinging to is a relationship that's dead as a door nail due to ignorance of facts, inability to deal, confusion, hurt, and that damn mixing up of peoples holidays. They don't know how to adjust - so feeling angry gives just cause for a clean break.
The inability to meet face-to-face with resolution because a person doesn't want to be reasoned away from a clean stance - is mind blowing to me. Who blows off another family member in an email? Like really - who?
He promised he would meet - but went coward on me...not a man of his word. He took the easy way out..not very Dr. Phil-Esq eh??
When a relationship ends in death, divorce, or division of any kind, we may recognize the loss intellectually, but it takes longer to get the message to our hearts. We need both hands free to embrace life and accept love, and that's impossible if one hand has a death grip on the past
We cannot expect things to heal if we are always picking at them, so I deleted the email and went to bed. We cannot look for "perfection" in others -- these are not the qualities of "loving heart" and "seeking growth through disappointing changes." Ask yourself if you really find it so joyously preferable to feel so very very right when in conflict with people -- because if you do, you will repeatedly simultaneously wind up finding yourself feeling very, very alone and sad.
Anger = hurt and this person is hurt. Simple as that. He has decided to let me go - not I him.
Only by learning how to let go do we learn how to hold on to what matters. It's as though the shadows created by loss illuminate what remains; the contrast helps us see with great clarity and appreciation the things we were meant to do, the people we are meant to be with, and most importantly -those who are still with me, and those I love deeply- who also love me back unconditionally.
For that- is my future.
