The pain of letting go can be an intense process. I have begun to notice that I often “give up” in releasing things or people in my life. It can become a tricky thing for someone who has an aversion to “giving up” because sometimes letting go can feel like I am quitting. (And I put it in quotations because “giving up” is a loaded term that is only being defined by our belief systems — there is no real concrete example of giving up that is defined like a scientific law; it is subjective).
With that mumbo jumbo said, I get scared to let go. It is a painful process that wrenches the heart and soul. My body becomes tense, and my stomach quivers as thoughts run through my mind. I am in a torrent of emotions and sadness. I am grasping for some truth to what I am experiencing; I reach out, lash out, and recoil when I realize I cannot feel the earth beneath my feet — I cannot feel the grounded essence in my thoughts and actions that I experience in a peaceful state of being.
“Who am I?”
When paired with my breath, this question can bring me inward and back into my experience. “I am this person, in this room, in this bed, with discomfort running through my body,” is sort of the process that I go through when asking, “Who am I?” I ask my “self” to return to the body. Tears often release, or my body relaxes when I can detach from grasping at ungrounded thoughts in order to stabilize me in the flood of “Letting Go.” I can tell what are ungrounded thoughts because they are often full of suffering and incomprehensible torment that is self-inflicted during a state of confusion and uncertainty. Knowingly engaging in thoughts and actions that hurt us may or may not be grounded, and ultimately we must trust the process of our own healing. We are responsible and no one else is. We can receive help, but we cannot receive power.
Who am I?
Return me to this flood. Let go.
Breathe.
Here Today, Zen Tomorrow 