WHY LET GO? LET GO.... EXPERIENCE fREEDOM...
"Letting GO is a means whereby we allow others the
opportunity to learn how to care for themselves
better." This statement helped me make a quantum
leap in my understanding of how detaching from
others could be loving. I recently shared that I
heard this from a family program counselor.
Hearing her left me amazed and disoriented. For
the first time, I began realizing that abstaining
from my attempts to protect or manage others could
be a gift to them.
That was nine years ago. Today I have a fuller
definition of loving Letting GO. Currently, I consider
myself lovingly detached when I am willing and able to
compassionately allow others to be different from me,
to be self-directed, and to be responsible for taking
care of them. Using this definition, I have come to
realize that Letting GO loves for everyone involved.
In this article I will share my beliefs about four ways
that Letting GO loves for those I care about, and four
ways that it loves for me.
How letting GO is loving others
1. Those I care for might learn to look within, and
trust themselves for self-direction, including
when and how to ask for help.
If I refrain from trying to manage their problematic
situation, the people, I care about may learn something
about thinking for themselves, problem solving, and
when and how to ask for help. They might learn to better
listen to their feelings and intuitions, to heed those
little voices we all wish we listened-to more. They might
learn to better recognize when they want help and how
to request it in ways that leave them feeling good rather
than embarrassed or ashamed. In short, letting them
manage their own affairs gives them the opportunity to
draw on their own inner resources, instead of mine, and
from this direct experience of their abilities, no matter
how groping or uncertain, they can build competence and
may thereby increase their confidence. I believe this is
the No. I and most natural avenue leading to increased
self-esteem.
2. They might learn more about cause and effect.
My not intervening allows others to have an uninterrupted
experience of the cause and effect relationship between
their actions and the natural consequences of those
actions. In this way, they have a direct encounter with
their personal power to contribute to their own pleasure
or pain. Allowing people to have appropriate sized, real
problems, and real responsibility for working out their
solutions, seem to greatly facilitate this learning.
3. They might experience the motivation to continue on
or change.
Pleasurable and painful experiences often provide us the
motivation to repeat what brought satisfaction and change
what didn't. We all use this kind of emotional energy to
move us forward in life. These motivating energies arise
naturally from within and feel much better to respond to
than the attempts by others to motivate us through guilt,
fear and other forms of coercion.
4. Self discovery and enjoyment might occur. If I grant
others the freedom to think, feel, value, perceive,
etc. as they wish, and they relax because they feel
respected and safe, they might discover many new
things about themselves. They might discover what
they really like, feel or think. They might have
moments of creative insight that inspire, excite
and encourage them. They might invent new, more
satisfying dreams for their lives than ever would
have appeared under the pressure of my controlling
presence.
Whenever I find myself struggling with the impulse
to step in and begin trying to manage another
life, or solve his or her problems, I find it
helpful to review the four points just presented.
They strongly motivate me to remain lovingly detached.
Now, how about the ways loving Letting Go benefits me?
How letting go is loving for me
1. I am relieved of the strain of attempting the
impossible.
By carefully reviewing my experiences of trying to
control other people's physical behavior, sobriety,
health, learning, emotions and opinions, I have come
to one conclusion. The only thing I might be able to
control is a person's physical behavior that requires
that I possess enough physical strength and am willing
to use it. If I accept my powerlessness to control
the other things, the inner lives and wills of others,
then I relieve myself of the stress and strain of
attempting the impossible. This is a primary way for
me to create more serenity in my life. In fact, if I
practice this process deeply enough, I sometimes reach
the point where I form no opinion about what another
should do. This is a truly liberated and refreshing
moment for us both.
2. What other people think of me can become none of
my business.
If I am powerless to control the thoughts, perceptions,
values or emotions of another, then I can liberate
myself by accepting that their opinions of me are none
of my business. Accepting this as fact, I not only free
myself, but the other person as well, because I cease
my attempts to control their inner workings.
3. My attention and energy are freed to focus on
improving my own life.
I have plenty of problem areas in my own life.
Obsessing about another life can help me avoid the
pain within mine. But the time and energy I spend
obsessing about another life I don't spend on mine,
and if I do this enough, my life stays at its current
level of unmanageability or gets worse. Loving Letting
GO gives me the opportunity to invest my energies in
my life.
4. I can express my love or caring in ways that bring
me joy and satisfaction.
When someone I care for is struggling with a problem,
or feeling some kind of pain, I usually want to be
supportive or helpful. But, I want to offer the kind
of help that would bring me joy to offer and them joy
to receive. One of the ways that I have developed a
picture of what this help could look like is to recall
the times when caring friends or others have offered
me assistance in ways that I enjoyed. What did they do?
While showing no sign that they felt responsible for
solving my problems, they offered me four things:
Their compassionate, empathic understanding of how I
perceived and fell about my situation.
Their experiences and learning from similar situations
for my consideration.
Their genuine optimism about my abilities to work through
my struggles.
Their willingness to help, on my terms, in ways that were
congruent with their needs. To be offered understanding,
companionship, encouragement and assistance, but not
interference, is the most satisfying help I have known.
Offering this to others increases both the joys in my
life and my self-esteem.
Looking at the eight ways that I see Letting GO as being
loving, I conclude that the most basic reason for
practicing it is to provide an opportunity for people's
lives to be improved. The lives of those I love may be
improved because I respect their powers of self-care
enough to let them have a chance to reap the potential
benefits of struggling, learning and succeeding on their
own. My life is improved because I avoid unnecessary
distress, retain energy I might have wasted, and offer
caring and support in ways that bring me joy. In these
ways loving Letting GO plays a powerful and rewarding
role in helping me to both live and let live.
The poem below is dedicated in Loving memory
of Rosemary Endicott Johnson, and in Honor of
Jackye White Driscoll
HEALING OUR LIVES
Let Go & Let God
As children bring their broken toys
With tears for us to mend.
I brought my broken dreams to God
Because He was my Friend.
But instead of leaving Him
In peace to work alone.
I hung around and tried to help
With ways that were my own.
At last I snatched them back and cried.
"How can You be so slow?"
"My child," He said, "What could I do?
You never did let go."
In His Powerful Grip,
Clayton
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