Post #41- Letting Go!

Over the past week or so, I’ve attempted to shed some light on the popular self-help notion of “Feel…..Deal….and Heal.” While my thoughts have been exactly that, thoughts from my own perspective, my education and how I have experienced the world, the response from those posts were more than I anticipated, and certainly heartening and affirming.  So, for the next few days I’d like to discuss some of the life lessons I’ve learned regarding another popular adage, “Let Go, and Let God.”

My brain seems to work differently than most (I’ll let you judge whether that’s good or bad, ha!), meaning I have always sought the why and how, behind the what? So, when I hear that we should “Feel” before we can deal and heal, the first question I ask is… “But how do we do that?” and “Why or what good does it accomplish?” Similarly, when I hear the admonition to “Let Go” so we can Let God, letting God doesn’t seem like the most important part of that equation. Letting God is almost self-explanatory …meaning we should let God do what we can’t do for ourselves. Especially for those of us who grew up in the church, hearing and reading of God’s miracles or power isn’t foreign, and in fact you don’t have to be religious at all to have at least heard of Bible stories which include the parting of seas, water being turned into wine, the healing of sick and the raising of dead (they’ve become a part of pop culture). Therefore, my mind doesn’t focus on the “Let God” part, but rather the “Let Go” part.

What does letting go mean? Like, what does it really mean? Have we given it much thought? Again, when considering letting go, I ask, “Ok, but of what and why?”  It seems to me that in order for God to be God, or in order that we might share in the divinity that is our birthright (i.e. Let God), there are some things we must first let go of. It seems that if our hands are tightly clasped, we lose the capacity to receive anything new. Possibly, this is why my life (and the lives of so many others), lost the ability to experience anything new or fresh; it was too cluttered with the old and stale.

You know that feeling right? You wake in a bad mood because there’s nothing in the day to look forward to and going to bed at night is only gratifying because it offers a respite from the lousy day-to-day that has become your life. Everyone has had a bad day, but when this becomes the norm, it’s called a bad life, and God knows I’ve had my fair share of consecutive days that began to look like life.

In the next few days I want to share some things that might be worth letting go of, some things I have personally let go of, the process behind doing so, while also examining the beauty and radiance that can fill our lives, but only after we make space for it. I hope you’ll follow and comment along the way, but in the meantime, please remember…

This is not the end of your story. Your best days are not behind you; they are ahead of you.  Consider letting go of some things and you might be surprised what comes to fill the space. Please know, if your life is cluttered with the debris of the past, there will be no room for the future and all of the #bigthingscoming.

NOTE: If you’re new to the site it might be helpful to read my first introductory post. Also, feel free to post your questions or comments here and you can always reach out to me on Twitter @raycjordan using the hash tag #bigthingscoming.

(Copyright, 2013, Ray Jordan)