Pain

When inward tenderness finds the secret hurt,
pain itself will crack the rock and Ah!!!
let the SOUL emerge.

/Rumi

What Does it Mean to Let Go?

In the shift of Human Consciousness we’re often talking about ‘letting go’

But what does it mean?

How do we truly let go?

In the coaching that I do, I often find there’s a subtle inner program that makes people want to avoid challenging and difficult circumstances. It’s certainly a conditioning from society. To me, true letting go, is a continual process of confrontation of the moment and surrendering into what we really feel…

Surrender is not blind acceptance

Another term that often get’s spoken of in spiritual circles is that of ‘acceptance’ – accepting totally without reservation what appears on our landscape. I agree with this whole-heartedly, but what actually IS appearing on your consciousness landscape?

Again we have to be careful of avoidance here. Some will say “if it doesn’t feel right, then don’t do it. If it doesn’t flow, then it can’t be coming from the soul. So just let go and do something else.”

“But sometimes to be in the flow is for nothing to be flowing at all.”It could be that resistance in the field is exactly what we need to discover a new facet of beingness.

Synchronicity and the natural pull of the soul

What I mean by this is that synchronicity and the natural pull of the soul, doesn’t take us into the ‘good’ places without first confronting the ‘bad’ – that which makes us tight and close down. Because it is only through this inner confrontation that we expand, evolve and grow…

If you want to be courageous, pray for situations that require courage
If you want to be forgiving, pray for situations that cause you to forgive
If you want to be expanded and light, pray for situations that are dark and close down.
To be truly free, we must confront that which takes our freedom away,
For it is only us that truly determines how we experience life.

Profound self honesty

So it would seem that we face a paradox then. On the one hand, there’s a sense of rightness to the flow of the soul. There’s a knowing of when we’re truly aligned.
And when we’re in the flow of the ‘rightness’, then synchronicity just clicks into place, supporting our actions. But then on the other hand, the flow will take us into the places we get tight – places that don’t feel so good.

It’s all about profound self honesty. When we’re being truly honest with ourselves, we know what the soul is really inviting us to do and we know when we’re in avoidance – our actions just don’t feel right. Even (and especially) if everything feels easy.

Transcendence

It’s all about ‘transcendence’. Having the courage to confront the moment as it truly is, to accept what is appearing on our landscape, then to go deeply into the feelings that arise.

These feelings may be very dense, dark and unpleasant. Nevertheless, to truly clear the energy and evolve past it, we must go into it, feel it again and liberate that aspect of our soul which is identifying with it.

The remarkable paradox is, that when we truly do this, it is not that hard to process the energy. And with this transcendence, there usually follows amazing expansions, infusions of healing energy, and the sense of enlightenment. To me, this is what it truly means to let go.

Video: From “Good Will Hunting”. The clip shows perfectly how initially we can so easily suppress and deny what we really feel. But then if gently pushed, how we can surrender into that which limits and holds us back…

By Chris Bourne

http://wakeup-world.com/2012/05/03/what-does-it-mean-to-let-go/

Feeling

From my perspective as an existential psychologist, feeling is a form of intelligence. It’s the body’s direct, holistic, intuitive way of knowing and responding. It is highly attuned and intelligent. And it takes account of many factors all at once, unlike our conceptual mind, which can only process one thing at a time. Unlike emotionality, which is a reactivity that is directed outward, feeling often helps you contact deep inner truths. Unfortunately, traditional Buddhism doesn’t make a clear distinction between feeling and emotion, so they tend to be lumped together as something samsaric to overcome.

/John Welwood