The Art of Letting Go: The 3A’s
The foundation of any Spiritual practice is the ability to cultivate the Art of Letting go. The inevitable changes that occur in relationships, the changes that occur within ourselves, and in the world around us make life so uncomfortable sometimes that rather than learning to let go and flow with the natural order of things, instead we cling for dear life to what was; in doing so create all sorts of manipulative tactics, and ego driven schemes to keep ourselves from feeling those uneasy feelings. Yet if we are to live a spiritual life, one that is free of egoic preoccupations, one that embraces inevitable changes, we must have three crucial components. The three pillars that need to be in place for letting go to happen are the following 3A’s: Awareness, Acceptance, Action. Without these A’s, we stay stuck, and live in fear more and more everyday. Let’s look at each in a little more depth.
Awareness
This is the ‘first step to change’ as the old adage goes. We cannot create any change in our lives without the awareness of ‘what is’. We discover through psychoanalysis plus through some other modalities like yoga and meditation and life in general why we do what we do. We do this by looking with a magnifying glass at ourselves in the presence of a skilled therapist and/or teacher. We explore our past, reflect, and begin to ‘under’stand – we stand ‘under’ and look up with lots of new perspective. Knowledge becomes power — IF we don’t get too scared of what we see. Beware! This is not easy work, not at all. The ego searches for perfection. It is the Narcissistic personality that looks for perfection in himself and others – when flaws appear, they run looking for something else that is new and shiny. The problem with this is that we are all perfectly imperfect so this searching is fruitless never allowing for true intimacy to occur. Vulnerability needs to exist coupled with trust and acceptance in order for intimacy to occur. Awareness – who am in this situation? Why am I here? What is the dynamic at play between the other and myself? Is it toxic? Is it a power struggle or is there a real connection there? We MUST be honest with ourselves in this phase. Blaming is out the window. Take responsibility for your role in this – you are co-creating.
Acceptance
The most important and most overlooked pillar. Acceptance. Many people try to jump with glee from Awareness to Action – quickly. Aha – we figured it out, now I have to make my move. Sound familiar? Yes, gaining awareness is exciting and can be empowering, but if you have not accepted the situation and your own contribution to it, you will fall on your face. Trust me – I have been there. We can have the awareness that we have certain tendencies, (character defects as they say in 12-step), but if we do not ‘accept’ that we have them we can never move forward. For example, we many pretend that something is not there even though secretly we are aware. To this I say, own it! Accept it! Once you accept all parts of yourself, then not only are you free (the goal ultimately), but a you will also accept ALL of other people, too. And then once you accept all of you and them, you can make the decision to stay or go. But before that step you are battling yourself trying to hide whole parts of yourself. How exhausting! AND you will try to change the other! We know that never works. You are stuck when you are not accepting — accepting = surrender to what is. You cannot move forward in a healthy way without this step..
Action
If you have made it this far, congratulations! You are on the road to letting go. The perfect antidote to moving on and letting go is ACTION. Take the action that will put you in a positive headspace. Make a game plan. You have worked though what it is–your reward was the gift of awareness. Then you owned it – you accepted it for what it is without trying to change it. Now, envision where you want to go. Who do you want to be in the next phase of your life? Who will you pick as partners and friends? Will you pick the same – the ones that are like junk food for the soul? Or will you choose the healthy ones that support and nourish. This step is hard, too, because for many of us junk food is our comfort zone, it’s so familiar and cozy even if it is destroying us. Take the plunge – feel uncomfortable making these changes (briefly) so that you have only Love and Light in your life.
