Hi there, friends. It’s Fran here. I just wanted to touch base. It’s the beginning of November and I’ve been reflecting on letting go for the last while. It’s been a big deal in my life of late. I have been dealing with lots of big transitions and feeling like I’m riding a massive wave sometimes, and clinging onto a tiny little life raft that’s not really helping most of the time.
I think what’s hard in letting go of the life raft is that I don’t feel I will be safe if I do. What’s replacing that life raft? I don’t know, and most of us don’t.
This not knowing is what makes us cling to things that are probably keeping us less than safe, keeping us stuck, keeping us hiding out and confused. It’s hard, really hard, to let go. Often, the only way we do let go is when we’re forced to. I want to offer maybe a slightly more graceful way to let go.
First of all, you need to know — if you are clinging to a life raft — what is it? Ask yourself if it is actually helping, and is it actually keeping me safe? What is being offered to me that I’m not grabbing onto instead? Is there the hand of a friend, a different opportunity or a quieter experience that’s calling me forward? It’s hard to hear sometimes in the crash of those waves that are beating us up with that little life raft we’re clinging to.
There is usually a breather somewhere in those waves, in the calmness of that moment to rest for a minute — to listen through meditation, to go for a walk with a friend, make a phone call or have a private session with me or another healer, or what have you. There’s usually a place to rest, to tune in and listen, look up at the sky, rest in the water, and feel the vastness that’s supplying and supporting us all the time.
That little life raft has very little value in these places and the confidence gained in the quiet places of rest, looking up at the sky, looking up at the night sky, the day sky is huge — that’s where support can be found and you know that you are safe and secure. You can say to yourself I am safe and secure. The ocean is my home.
And, many friends are out there doing the same kind of drifting and floating and looking for hands to hold. Mine is here for you, and yours has been there for me, and I’m so grateful for that.
If you want another place to go inward and listen for what that life raft might be, and some help in letting go, I have an upcoming series called The Uncluttered Heart on November 23rd and January 18th, with some private sessions built-in so we can get some quiet moments, look up at the sky together and see what might support you a lot better than that little life raft you’re hanging onto.
Great subject and great post. I like it that you ask: Ask yourself if it is actually helping, and is it actually keeping me safe? So many times we don’t realize that something, some habit or belief is not serving us. We just take it at face value that’s how it is, not realizing we have the power to change and we have the responsibility to ourselves at least to evaluate and re-evaluate.