Today is a full moon lunar eclipse. It’s considered a great moment to let go of all things that no longer serve you. Letting go is a deeply personal thing. It doesn’t have to be a big dramatic announcement. Letting go is essentially allowing outworn thought processes and perspectives and delusions and bad habits, to burn in the fire, so that there is room for healthier ways of being to stealthily grow.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
1264. Do you need to write things down to remember them?
After my rant yesterday, you’ll be happy to know that I started my Zen meditation/art class yesterday and it was wonderful. And very much needed by me, at so many different levels. I think that the fun part of this empty nest stage in life is discovering yourself again. Surprising yourself about what intrigues you. Reminding yourself about what stirs your own inner core. You become your own major focus and project again, and in the beginning, it’s sort of a strange sensation. You almost feel a little shy and apprehensive, but you also feel a delightful curiosity and pleasure to get reacquainted with yourself. It’s like entering some place that you have been to long, long ago, but this time, you are seeing this place and visiting it again with “fresh eyes.” It’s almost like having a new puppy (or seeing glimpses of that “puppy” in your old dog self). Self discovery and rediscovery are the true blessings of the different stages of our lives.
I have written about “letting go” of outcomes, so many times on this blog, I think there are several dedicated pages and pages to the “letting go” topic. It seems to be one of those lessons in my own life that is going to keep on coming and coming and coming to me, until I finally “get it” and move on and let go . . . (ha!)
“If you hold on to the past (or even something in your present) too tightly, it will lead to anxiety and limit your perception of your options. Have faith in your ability to show up and cope with situations, even if they’re hard. Just because you don’t have evidence yet, doesn’t mean you’re not moving in the right direction.” – Jessica Lanyadoo
I like this reminder that I read yesterday. When you are holding on to your own limited sights and perceptions, and you hold on to what you want an outcome to be and believe that it should be, like a pitbull on a bone (and I am a stubborn old dog who is great at hanging on to my gnarly, rigid, well chewed on bones), you spend your present moments mired in anxiety and frustration and irritation. At this middle-aged stage of our lives, we’ve proven to ourselves, and to many others, the stones which we have to live life. We have gotten through at least 45+ years of life, and all of the ups and the downs and the surprises and the joys and the sorrows and the sweet stuff and the hard stuff and stuff that we never thought we could make it through, but we did. We did! We aren’t just survivors. We’re thrivers. So, word to me – “stubborn pitbull lady”, once you’ve done everything that is in your power to protect your bones, gather more bones, and enjoy your bones, it is then time to let some of them go. Bury the bones for later, or perhaps, for maybe never again. Just savor the bones that are fun to enjoy gnawing on in the present, and keep the faith that there will be more bones to enjoy in each coming day.
“Things don’t always go the way you planned. Fortunately.” – Anonymous
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
“Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” – Harriet Beecher Stowe
I think that this is the perfect description of what it means to finally “Let go and let God.” We usually fight tooth and nail to hold on to control of outcomes that we want to happen, and then, when we finally get to that exhausted, exasperated state of throwing up our hands in surrender, usually something which we never even could have planned for or foreseen occurs, and then “turns the tide”, as Harriet Beecher Stowe proclaims.
I’ve shared this story before, but it is worth repeating again. During the Great Recession we were stuck with an underwater house in a different state, where we never planned to go back to again to live. The house, which was once a beloved, carefully conceived treasure, became an enormous, nasty albatross around our necks. When I was complaining about the situation to a friend, she said, “You need to let this go.”
“I have let it go!” I pronounced a little too hysterically. “There is nothing I want more than to be done with this house and this situation.”
“But you haven’t let it go,” she said quietly and confidently. “Look at how your stomach flinches when you talk about it.” And she was right. And from that moment on, I did what I could towards the situation, but I let go of the outcome of it all.
And a very little while later, the house situation was resolved in ways that almost seemed miraculous, and it ended up benefitting so many people, besides just ourselves.
Use today’s blog post as a gut check for yourself. Is there something in your life that has you utterly and completely mentally and emotionally played out? Is there something in your life that is not resolving in the way that you want it to, despite all of your best and every efforts? Is there something that still makes your stomach lurch even when you tell yourself and others, that you don’t care about it anymore? Harriet Beecher Stowe is right. Hold on. This is just about the time, when the tide is bound to turn. Let go and let God. Everything is going to resolve for you, in ways you could never have foreseen. Believe it.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
We experienced an absolutely gorgeous full moon last night, didn’t we? It’s the last full moon of 2022. It is said that full moons are an excellent time to let go of things that no longer serve your greater good. What needs to be let go for you at this time? What are you hanging on to that needs to be released for your well-being? What can you release to lighten the load as you travel into 2023?
Lately, I’ve been doing daily guided meditations by Chani Nicholas and I love the wording that she chooses to use. When doing a body scan meditation she asks, “Where on your body do you feel a “grip?” Where is the “grip”?” She says to get “curious” about yourself (not judgmental, just interested). Why might you be feeling a “grip” in a certain part of your body? What can you let go that might soften that “grip” – that “grip” that has a hold of you?
“Channel the energy. Don’t let the energy channel you.” – @bigempressenergy
“I feel like the moon is a very beautiful woman. She’s in control.”—Ravyn Lenae
“There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.”—George Carlin
“Those are the same stars, and that is the same moon, that look down upon your brothers and sisters, and which they see as they look up to them, though they are ever so far away from us, and each other.”—Sojourner Truth
“Be both soft and wild. Just like the moon. Or the storm. Or the sea.” —Victoria Erickson
“With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon who could not be happy?”—Oscar Wilde
“Don’t worry if you’re making waves just by being yourself. The moon does it all the time.”—Scott Stabile
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Last night we attended my husband’s annual company Christmas/Holidays party. Although it hasn’t been so annual lately. Due to Covid and whatnot, this was the first Christmas party the company has had in three years. We had a marvelous time. However, since this three year break, I am starting to realize that my husband and I are now fully in the “elders camp” at company parties. All of those older people at business functions that I used to look up to, defer to, feel a little nervous around, and also admittedly, sometimes crank about with my other younger associates, are now “us”. We are the elder people. It doesn’t help that our neighbor’s grandson, and a handsome young man who used to carpool to soccer with my son, in their stinky, sweaty cleats, smelling up my SUV, are now young, energetic executives at this company. The thing is, I still feel like that young woman whom I once was, trying to impress my elders at the company parties. And now that I am “an elder”, I realize how silly and unnecessary that is to do. I just delight in seeing young people making their paths in this world. I’m excited for them and their futures and I realize that I have just as much to learn from them as they do from me.
Okay, that paragraph was a digression from what Sundays on the blog are truly about. (I feel a little distractible today.) Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. When I opened up the computer today, I read this quote from Alan Cohen: “If youfeel overwhelmed by responsibility, you have assumed more than what truly belongs to you.” This prompted me to look up some poems written about “lightening the load.” We were up late last night, so I don’t have the bandwidth to write a poem of my own yet this morning. The cobwebs have not been cleared. However these two poems popped up on my search and both of them spoke to me. I hope they connect with you, as well. Have a beautiful, peaceful, meaningful day. See you tomorrow.
A friend recently confessed that lately she feels like she doesn’t want to be a parent anymore. It was over a text, but I imagine if “the confession” had been in person, she would have sat tentatively, her eyes darting around the room to see if we, her friends who are also parents, would be looking down at her with glaring supreme judgment, even worse than what she was doing to herself.
And what she got instead was a lot of support, love, understanding, and relating. Parenting is hard. Caretaking is hard. Life is hard. Making those statements doesn’t mean that you are a terrible parent, an awful caretaker and that you hate life. Parenting is hard and wonderful. Caretaking is hard and rewarding. Life is hard and overwhelmingly beautiful.
Give yourself a break when you feel overwhelmed by your life and your responsibilities in your life. These are the times to lean into self-care and trust the Universe/God/Life with the rest. Give yourself the love and the care and the support and the advice that you would give to your partner, or to your child, or to your best friend. (in other words the person or people whom you love the most, because honestly, you, yourself, should be on that list)
I’ve shared this on the blog, before, but it seems appropriate to bring it back. Before I even became a mother, and I was spending some time in my head thinking about what kind of parent I wanted to be, I came across this wonderful poem by Kahlil Gibran. It has become my parenting mantra/philosophy/reminder throughout my entire twenty-six years of being a mother. It helps me to remember that I am co-parenting with a vast and loving and mysterious force of Life, and that I can lean into that wisdom and comfort whenever I need to just let go. This poem puts me – a fiery, sometimes control freakish mama, into her rightful place. And when I am in that place, I am freer to live in my own faith and to trust that bigger arms are wrapped around us all. I am freer to be loved, and to be Love. Gibran’s poem:
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children. And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
“Don’t be sad – Autumn is nature’s way of showing us how beautiful letting go can be.” – James Norbury
I love autumn. I live in Florida. “Summer” is like the rest of the states’ “winter” here in Florida. Summer is the season which most of us Floridians count down the days for it to soon be over. In summer in Florida, you won’t see most of us natives outside, except for the wee hours of the morning, or until it is dark, unless of course, we are floating in a body of water. There’s lots of water here. Yes, I love autumn.
This autumn will punctuate letting go for me, more than perhaps any other autumn in my life. Last Thursday, my once chaotic, full of noise and action, sometimes “bursting apart at the seams” fluffy, homey nest became officially empty, as we watched my youngest two children drive off to their shared university. Sigh. This “letting go” lesson will never go away during our lifetimes, will it? The thing that we most have to let go of in life, is probably the kneejerk reaction to stubbornly revolt against letting go.
“Oh, honey, once you get into your fifties, your “Check Engine” light comes on more and more. Get used to it.” – Theresa, the pulls-no-punches receptionist at my dentist’s office, who pulled strings to get me into the endodontist yesterday. Bless her wise and practical heart.
I had my first root canal yesterday. I was fine with letting go of the nerves of that molar. I feel surprisingly good today. These endodontists seem to have this treatment down to a science these days. The root canal honestly didn’t hurt, and the pain relief is such a blessing. Whenever I experience the intense pain of a toothache, or an earache, etc. I gain new pounds of compassion (see, my extra pounds are just compassion pounds) for people who live with unending pain every single day. I can’t imagine trying to go about your business when your intense pain is constantly screaming at you.
While I was in the waiting room of the endodontist, I got to talking to an older woman who was sitting near to me. She told me not to worry. She’s done fine with all of her root canals. However, what was really tough for this woman is that she had just survived, in her own words, a “heartbreak heart attack.” She suffered a heart attack right after her beloved dog of thirteen years died in her arms. She assured me that “heartbreak heart attacks” are a real thing. She didn’t have to convince me. Those of us who love hard and deep, have vulnerable hearts.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I was a little soul sick yesterday when I heard the news that Olivia Newton-John had passed. What little girl in the 70s/80s couldn’t sing every song by heart in the Grease soundtrack? My fun, stylish, youngest aunt took my sister and I to see ONJ’s “Physical” concert. It was the first musical concert I had ever been to, and it was amazing. What a lovely, talented lady! Olivia Newton-John will be missed.
It struck me lately that a lot of my “regulars” whom I count on to be there: my dentist, my hair stylist, my son’s neurologist, and my favorite pedicurist, are all older than me. And I am no longer a spring chicken. I now worry that at any given appointment that I have with them, they will be announcing their well-earned retirements. And I will be devastated. I am not ready to let go.
“Let go.” We get told that a lot in life. And the older that we get, the more often we are reminded to just “let go.” It make sense. Wanting things to be different than they are, is a sure way to go crazy in the moment. Still letting go is not easy. It never gets easier. We all know the steps to letting go: Accept the things we can’t change, change the things we can, and move on or away from toxic people and situations. Lose our rigid expectations, i.e. “the shoulds.” Allow ourselves to feel our feelings, in order to free them. Get lost in a creative outlet. Pray and stay with our faith. Stay focused on the tasks at hand (mindfulness). Look for the silver linings and the possibilities of the situation. etc. etc. Honestly, in my own experience and in observing others, it is mostly just time and patience that helps the letting go process finally happen. Letting go can’t be forced.
At our ages, we have been doing this “letting go” thing a long time now. And it never seems to get much easier. I suppose it all comes down to letting go of the idea that life should always be utopian. Or letting go of the idea that we actually know what utopian should look like. Letting go means forgiving ourselves for struggling against what is, and giving ourselves permission to move forward into what may be . . . .
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Later today, I will board an airplane and I will head back to my own well-established, mature, and sometimes even a tad staid, “adult life.” I will be leaving our middle son at the starting gate of his own adult life. He will be living right in the heart of a major city, on the 27th floor of a skyscraper. This is something that I have never done in my life. My children are usually pretty adventurous and independent. They know themselves really well. This makes me swell with happiness and pride and even with some relief.
My husband didn’t sleep well in our hotel room last night. I slept like a log. I tend to process a lot of my feelings during an event, and even before a major rite of passage. I am good at anticipating how I will feel, and then marinating in my feelings, soaking in all of the feelings, – the good, the bad and the ugly. I think about my feelings. I talk about my feelings. I write about my feelings. I watch movies that relate to my feelings. I know, and I name each of my emotions, intimately and easily. I release my feelings openly and freely. It is how I better understand myself and my life.
On the other hand, my husband has more of a delayed reaction to even noticing that change is happening, but then I think that it “hits” him suddenly, and with force. I sense that all of his mixed feelings (pride, nostalgia, excitement, melancholy, his own sense of age and mortality, curiosity, loss, hope) are all hitting him now with a direct blunt force. He doesn’t admit that to me. My husband blames his restlessness and lower energy and inability to sleep deeply, on the gelato which we had for dessert last night.
I wish that I could chalk up all of my emotions that I am experiencing right now, to gelato. “Oh, this unleashing of yet another one of my most precious children, fully and freely into the pastures of the wild, wild world, without me trotting alongside, is almost complete. Why is it that my stomach is churning, my mind is buzzing, my eyes are all blurry, and my heart is aching? Oh, silly me! It must be the Dulce de Leche gelato that I ate last night. “Gelato” can be really, really hard and difficult to digest. It takes time.”
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
This is my little Worry, Trouble doll. Don’t worry, she’s not in this terrible, tragic state of being because of trying to deal with all of my worries. I don’t have any more worries than anybody else. Plus, I have been working really hard at practicing what I preach – in short, “Don’t worry, be happy.” She used to have this adorable, colorful outfit with a headdress to match. That disappeared somewhere, never to be seen again, when I found her in the jaws of death, i.e. the mouth of our adolescent Boykin spaniel, named Trip. Imagine having the job of taking on other people’s worries, while fighting for every inch of your own life in the stinking, steamy mouth of an energetic, stubborn, enthusiastic chewer of a dog. Thankfully, Trip has a soft mouth, which most sporting breeds do, thus my darling little trouble doll, still wears that easy-going, calm, placid and serene expression on her darling little face. I didn’t have the heart to pitch her. If anything, her new crumbling state-of-being helps me to keep perspective, now, even more than ever. Any time that I take a new worry or concern to the worry doll, she doesn’t have to say the words. I look at her, and inevitably, my worry pales in comparison to the ordeal that she has been through. “Oh trouble doll, I’m worried about picking out some paint colors. There are just sooooo many greys to choose from! The horror of it all!!” She just gives me that look on her face. And it says it all:
What I think the Trouble/Worry doll’s expression is saying, “You know, dear, no worry is too small to give to me, and I’ll be sure your worries get to the Highest Authority who can do something about them, but really? REALLY? REALLY?!?!?! Can you please get a grip, girl?!? Can you step outside of your own 800 pairs of shoes, just for once, and imagine what it feels like to be Worry/Trouble doll?! Everybody dumps their daily dismal dialog on to you, and then afterwards, is otherwise careless with your own life, to the point that a Godzilla type creature lurks around, not caring to use your for the purpose for which you are intended, because let’s face it, Boykin spaniels don’t worry about jack sh$t. And honestly, being chewed up by Trip wasn’t nearly as bad as watching you let your stomach be all tied up in knots for endless hours, over many situations that almost always magically and easily worked themselves out when you really, finally and completely, let them go.”
Moral of the story: Don’t be a Trouble/ Worry Doll. It’s an awful gig. You’ll end up chewed up and spit out. Don’t let dramatic people dump all of their “problems” on to you. Trust that the Highest Authorities “got this” for all of us, and get on with your day. That’s what Boykin spaniels do, and their tails are always wagging.
