Last week I wrote a post about ‘going through it’ – that life throws lessons at us, lessons we can’t avoid or ignore. In order to grow as a person, we do need to see the lessons that present themselves (yes, there will be many, great and small) and learn.

I ought to clarify.

‘It’ can be whatever difficult situation you find yourself. We have a choice each time to either ‘let go’ or ‘go through it’. Both are learning opportunities.

A little about ‘letting go’ by which I mean, to have non-attachment, to stop holding on to ‘things’… to what we think will make our life better or the conditioned belief we have thus far not questioned or the behaviour that no longer serves our life. In this space, letting go is making peace with it. As we come to grip with the ‘things’ within the situation, for example, our need for control, their need to imbibe, our need for approval, their need for material indulgence. When we let go of the things, more likely than not ‘it’ ceases to be.

If ‘it’, the situation, still bothers you, if it still cages you, makes you close-up, makes you bitter and resentful…then you are not letting go. No matter how much you tell yourself that it is. And if we can’t let go, then the ‘it is not affecting me’ or the ‘I am fine with it’ that we tell ourselves, is but us doing avoidance. The test whether you are letting go is this – letting go comes with a sense of peace.

So when letting go is untenable, not viable, unavailable or impossible then time to face the situation. As I said, going through a difficult situation involves some ‘doing’ and a whole lot of ‘being’. Where there is pain or sorrow or any difficult emotion, at some point we need to sit with it, maybe even endure it for a time. However you choose to ‘go through it’, you do.

Both ‘going through it’ and ‘letting go’ have a quality of hardness – where we fight for our survival, we overcome the obstacles in our way… and also of softness – where we embrace our vulnerability, sit with our sorrow, bear witness to our life. And in those moments, there is strength, there is courage.

Wishing you courage and love,
– FlorenceT

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