Let IT Go

Easier said than done.

There are so many layers and pockets inside pockets and secret trap doors and underground passages and crucial messages written in hieroglyphics.

People say ‘IT’ as if IT is a clearly, pinpointably specific thing.

Like the grudge you have against your uncle for making jokes at your mother’s funeral. Or your obsession with garden gnomes. Or your addiction to dark chocolate covered almond bark.

The problem is, the initial IT, is often merely a decoy.

The first thing you think to let go of is usually the easiest, even though it may not seem that way at all.

For instance a lot easier to say goodbye to your beloved garden gnomes than to face the fear of family connection they let you hide behind. Or to let go of almond bark than try to understand exactly what you are trying to numb.

IT a shape-shifter.

What is IT?

Often for me, IT is some giant absolute I have unwittingly put between myself and freedom. Some non-negotiable pre-requisite to my ability to be happy.

These range from the ridiculous to the profound.

On one end, there’s the contract I make with myself that I must correct the thickness around my middle before I’ll be able to really enjoy going out for date-night dinners.

On the other is my deep-seeded fear I am not doing enough to teach our boys about resilience and perseverance, that my encouragement and support of but lack of personal passion for team sports is somehow detrimental.

And I cannot enjoy being with them until I know I am doing right by them.

This is obviously absurd. But I usually don’t know I have set up these conditions for myself until my stress level becomes unreasonable.

How this happens, why this is and what to do about IT is a mystery. Even when I figure IT out one day, the next IT seems to be totally different.

Plus, my inability to really pin IT down once and for all can make me feel extremely flaky so I try to remind myself that tracking IT is like spotting a jaguar at night.

IT is elusive.

So, why is it so important to figure out what IT is?

This little piece of wisdom, was given to me by my mom, from her perch out there in the angel ether. I had asked her what I needed to do to figure out a particular situation.

She said, let it go.

I repeated back to clarify, let go? Figuring maybe she wanted me to just relax.

No she said, let IT go. That’s the only way you will ever be able to let go.

I love Rumi’s quote: ‘Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.’

IT is all the barriers.