Loss & Letting Go
Loss is perceived as passive, as negative emotion, and conjures feelings of sadness, sorrow, loneliness, diminished control, an untethering, or the absence of something/ someone. It is situated in the past, a clinging to what was. Loss requires mourning for what is no longer. It feels like an end, a closed door, a missed opportunity. It feels like death.
Letting go is active, experienced with a positive mindset, invoking a sense of spaciousness, lightness, forward motion providing respite, freedom, and openness, the shedding of what no longer serves. It looks ahead to tomorrow, to what may be. It feels like an opening, the fracture that lets in light, hope for what may be possible. It feels like birth.
Letting go is also about relinquishing control, or at least the façade of control. Control is maya, illusory. It tricks us into believing that with willpower or force, we can manipulate outcomes. The truth is, all things come to an end. Who/ what is waiting to be born will only emerge when we have released any pretense of control and ways of doing, creating the conditions for emergence. When we allow in the pain, fear, frustration, hurt, and anger, we also make space for joy, gratitude, wonder and possibility.
To date, the Letting Go Conversations with Changemakers have involved both loss and letting go. Specifically, a desire to let go of what was lost. Whether a sense of oneself, identity, job or career, family members or family structures, all experienced some degree of exhaustion, anxiety, sorrow, frustration, regret, and even anger. Letting go has been an effort to release these ‘negative’ emotions to make way for ‘positive’ emotions like vitality, happiness, joy, clarity, wonder, ease, and comfort.
Loss and letting go are two sides of the same coin. Seldom do we remember that to see the light, we must be in darkness. We must experience grief. In fact, we must not move away from or even try to move through grief. We need to turn towards it, moving closer and closer, creating an intimate bond of understanding and respect. Anchored in love, grief is the glue that allows us to let go, and transforms loss into healing energy.
It is in that liminal space, the threshold moment full of uncertainty and possibility, that we can choose to BE more than DO. We can both stand on the shore and mourn what was and allow the waves of possibility to wash over us. We can choose to accept and mourn what is no longer and join the flow and cycle of life. We can let loss and letting go create space for metabolizing grief, transforming it into that which may ultimately be our joy.
Although it’s natural to forget your power after you lose a loved one, the truth is that after a breakup, divorce, or death, there remains an ability within you to create a new reality.
-Louise Hay and David Kessler
