Letting Go

LETTING GO

Two words that I eschew as I am a chewer. I go over and over and over it in my head, process things with family and friends, contact experts in the specialized fields, always hoping to find an alternative solution. I have no operating manual for LETTING GO. I’m not good at it, I loathe it, I fight it tooth and nail and I am always holding my breath when a client calls and LETTING GO is what they need me to coach them around. I often feel like God is smiling some sinister, yet parental smile, while thinking, “You are going to figure out how to do this one way or the other.”

I haven’t written in awhile because I’m working on LETTING GO as well as trying to help people I love LET GO too. A beloved friend and client of mine, too young to be facing what she is facing, has made the decision to move to hospice while holding on to this side of life with all she has. She’s a fighter and she was determined to live with cancer for a very, very long time—so much so that she lived protecting so many of us who love her from how much she was physically suffering. I think it helped her to hold this in as she did NOT want to be labeled “sick” and wanted to LIVE as much normalcy as she could. Because of our coaching work I knew what was happening but I don’t know if I was prepared to be where we are now and the news simply took me to my knees a week ago. Her will to live is actually stronger than anyone I know and I’m hoping to have much more time with her than what is medically predicted but we are all, no one more than she is, preparing to let go.

She lets go of a body that she has taken on an extraordinary ride. She let’s go of a disease that has been at times debilitating and she lets go of so much intrusion of medical protocols and pain. Unfortunately, we need to find the strength and courage to let go of our beloved friend, and as of this writing that is still a work in progress because we all love her so much. She has taught me through this process and I have had the honor to tell her so she knows there’s a legacy here with her name all over it. She knows that in giving me a deeper understanding of her path and her pain I can now help other people who will walk it after her. I’m eternally grateful to her.

But LETTING GO shows up this month in so many places–repeatedly my clients and friends are coming to me this month with stories of abrupt shifts, news that is shocking and devastatingly sad, changes in their lives that take their breath away and each time I feel like a fraud. Each time I try to speak some words of BS wisdom about “attachment” or “believing you are where you are supposed to be” or even” faith “and I hear the voice in my head saying, “Hypocrite! You can’t give someone what you do not have! You don’t know how to LET GO either.” I openly admit my heart is holding on with every beat to too many places where I need to LET GO and I’m simply unsure how to do it so I’m under construction too. I will share the tricks of the trade as we go along because as the one sign in my office reads, “This shit is hard!” Letting go in my opinion is exponentially related to commitment and love. I can let a lot things go that don’t matter to me but relationships, idealism, love, fantasy…those situations I feel myself gripping with a very tight fist.

How do we LET GO when we want something so badly and simply can’t have it? How do we find ACCEPTANCE— FAITH— COMPASSION for our disappointed hearts? How do we tell someone we love that it is okay to leave us and mean it when we are so consumed with grief and loss? How do we simply untether our hearts from this page of the book and start another chapter?

So for my darling and funny friend who is holding on to her life, I say “Go to God. Go to peace, go to light, go to your family who awaits you. We here will love the people you leave behind with everything we have and everything we are and will keep you with us always. We are here, you will always be too—you can LET GO when you are ready and I will love you and honor you always. The world is richer for having you walk upon its soil.”

I am learning, I am not the coach with all the magic answers, I’m the coach that will hold your hand, wipe your tears or kick you in the back side and help YOU find them.