Letting go and forgiving our parents

I met a wonderful woman the other day. She is passionate, loyal and kind-hearted but she also carries a heavy burden. She is attached to the notion that it's her responsibility to fight against evil and for over ten years she's devoted her life to fighting the system, moving from one protest site to another, living from skips, sleeping in make-shift shelters, living under a false name. Always putting the needs of the cause before her own.

When she was young there was a lot of violence in her family. She and her younger sister developed different ways of coping with the fact that as children there was no way for them to prevent this violence, and no way to protect themselves or their loved ones. The younger sister seeks to defend others from such harm, and is training to become a police officer. My friend has taken a different path, but the burden is the same. Both feels it is their responsibility to prevent evil from taking place. Although one perceives this evil in men who commit domestic violence and the other sees it in the domination of multi-national corporations over nature, both are projecting their feelings of failure and inadequacy onto the outside world instead of facing it within themselves.

We all know the saying, 'the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children,' and we've all seen this principle at work in our own lives. Our parents, bless them, never had a chance to rehearse their roles as mums and dads. They were simply thrown into the task and we are the result of their failings, as well as their many successes. Sometimes, in situations where parents are under a lot of stress, or not mature enough to deal skillfully with the challenges of parenthood, the failings are very great and children grow up carrying around all sorts of misconceived ideas about themselves and the world around them. In fact if we look closely at ourselves we find that almost everyone is carrying around some kind of burden bequeathed on them by their parents. 

My friend grew up watching violence she could do nothing about and at some point her little mind was made up: there was no way she was going to let that sort of thing happen again. This makes logical sense to a child, but what it translates to in her adult life makes no logical sense at all. Instead of recognising that evil has been a part of human history since we made our first faltering steps on this planet, and likely will be until we breathe our last, she devotes all her energy to struggling fruitlessly against it, exhausting herself with one failed fight after another.

As with all projection, my friend has an inner conflict that she is externalising. Instead of looking directly at the anger and pain she carries inside her, she directs it into the outside world. Until she can reconcile this conflict her struggle against evil will never cease. Nor will it bring about the justice for which she strives. This is because she will not allow herself justice. For what does a frightened child need but nurturing, freedom to play, to be creative and to be loved. Instead she berates herself for even the smallest acts of selfishness. Taking a break from the cause after so many years is a cause to feel guilty. She feels herself to be a sell-out for wanting a home, the small comforts of warmth, good food and stability.

By recognising where we are carrying burdens unwittingly left to us by our parents, and withdrawing the projections we've created to shift responsibility away from ourselves, we are empowered to enjoy fully the abundant, joyful life and creative life that is waiting for us. When we can see our parents flaws as human instead of looking at them through the idealistic lens that expects perfection, we see they were doing the best they could with what they had. We can forgive them and free ourselves from this unwanted inheritance.

Letting go of vanity

I've been struggling recently with a demon I'd suppressed for a long time and now he's out and he's vengeful!

The demon is called seborrheic dermatitis, an inflammatory skin condition I've been managing with mild cortisone creams. Finally, after many years, I'm acknowledging this is not a solution. In order to truly heal I have to find and understand the underlying cause and address it.

So I stopped the cream. Up came the rash and with it my vanity, my attachment to beauty!

It's very easy to say glibly that beauty comes from within when you feel pretty, but when you're looking in the mirror at a scaling, swollen red face it becomes much harder. All the insecurities I thought I'd gotten over came crushing back on top of me. The shyness and social anxiety, the fear of failure, that crushing sense of defeat and apathy we call depression. And all because my face is no longer beautiful!

I see clearly now just how much of my self-worth I've attached to my appearance. In truth I'm completely and utterly vain!

Letting go of physical beauty has been very hard for me and I still hold great hopes that I'll discover the root cause of the problem and regain my clear healthy skin. Of course this would be beneficial on many levels, as the rash is clearly only a symptom of a deeper malaise, however I've come to realise that even if I do not permanently lose my beauty now, I'll certainly lose it soon enough!

Letting go of vanity forces us to look deeper within ourselves to find our worth, to bring to the fore all the gifts and talents that truly give us value as human beings. These are the things most of our friends and family love us for. They may admire our beauty, but they love us for our kindness, our humour, our generosity.

Why is it then that we place such a high value on something so shallow? Could it be (shock, horror) that we've been brainwashed by our consumer culture? No... surely not!

Letting go and loving our dark side

Isn't it weird that as soon as I'm without my community around me I begin to question my own way of being? I start thinking, 'Am I crazy? Shouldn't I be getting on with my career, having children, buying a house?' The sense of certainty I felt about the 'rightness' of my life path just a week ago has all but evaporated. I'm adrift in a sea of doubt. And my doubt makes me feel frustrated and ashamed.

Even this blog, which has been giving me so much creative satisfaction, has come under fire from my critical mind. Suddenly I feel it's too preachy, too idealistic. How can I write about something so lofty as spiritual non-attachment when I clearly just haven't 'got it' yet! And what about all those other darker aspects of self that don't seem to fit?

I've come across this before and those who know me best will attest to it. I find it difficult to accept that inside this basically good person are all kinds of dark inclinations and desires: self-loathing, masochism, fear, judgement and anger. Sheesh! Anger especially! 

Spiritual teachers tell us that we should integrate our dark side but I've always felt a bit at a loss as to how this can be done without turning a wonderfully diverse character into a bland grey persona. Because honestly I love my dark side, even though at times I feel uncomfortable with it. I like that I'm a wild cat when pissed off, and that I'm introspective enough to question my own opinions and occasionally notice that I'm being a complete dick and feel like crap about it.

However I want to be able to move between these emotions, these aspects of self, and not get lost in them. So that they become like films projected across my being and I can enjoy every single moment, even wallowing in self-pity or ranting at someone I love, because I can stand aside from it and not identify with any of it.

Because none of it is really who I am! In A New Earth - Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, Eckhart Tolle clarifies this when he writes, “You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself.”

Observing our reactions and allowing ourselves to experience every aspect of life, both 'light' and 'dark,' is part of our awakening process. I think the trick is not to get caught up in it, but to allow it to move through us freely while we remain firmly rooted in the present moment. Or as someone I no longer remember once put it: 'Don't jump in the river!' Just enjoy watching it flow on by :)

Letting go of creative control

When I was in Thailand recently I was responsible for cooking lunch for a group of twenty people each day. It was really fun but I was feeling challenged working with others, as I've just spent the last two years working closely with people and now have a strong urge to do something on my own. Because I'm attached to that idea, having to cooperate with others was pushing a few of my buttons!

So anyway, one night I lay awake and carefully imagined a beautiful meal based around hummus. What eventuated was something different; the girl making the hummus decided it was better kept til dinner and there was no hummus in the meal at all! Although it seems insignificant now, it rankled at the time because I was attached to my idea of how the meal should be. It made me feel grumpy towards her which made us both feel bad.

So the next day I thought I'd try to do things a bit differently. I decided to have no vision for the meal at all and to just provide the ingredients, fire and a clean environment for it to be created in. I chopped and washed vegetables and when someone asked my opinion about something I tried to counter with something like, "whatever you feel" or "just go with your intuition."

In the end the lunch was one of the yummiest we'd had and I did not cook at all! We had onion, pumpkin and chickpea stir fry by Jaun, savoury snake beans and morning glory by Letitia, an enormous salad by Ami covered in a garlicy sauce whipped up by Lucas. All this was followed by the gooey chocolatey goodness of Kokko's banana and sticky-rice bliss balls. OMG!!

The benefits of letting go of creative control are self-evident!

Letting go of a lover

Letting go a of a lover is especially difficult if you’re in the habit of basing your self-worth on whether of not you’re loved by someone else. Being dependent on someone for this sort of reassurance is very disempowering, because it leads directly to what the Buddhists call craving and aversion. We crave the pleasant sensations of being with our lover and having them give us affection, compliments and love, while at the same time doing everything we can to avoid having to experience the pain of separation, rejection or abandonment. 

This kind of attachment only leads to suffering. On the one hand we become fixated on ensuring that things remain the way we feel they need to be, which is very hard work! In fact it’s impossible – how can one person control a situation that involves so many external variables, including the will and desires of another person? We will only exhaust ourselves trying… On the other hand, clinging to another person is the best way to push someone out of your life, creating the classic pursuer-distancer dynamic that is guaranteed to bring an early end to your relationship.

So how do you let go of a lover? You settle back into your centre and remember that you are a divine being in a human body, eternal and wise and beautiful. You are one with all that is and despite how things may seem nothing can ever be separate from you. You remind yourself that this person is in your life for a reason, but that this reason may not be what you think it is in your romantic mindset. Then you bless your lover and yourself, letting go of any desired outcome you have for the relationship, in the knowledge that to truly learn from each other the two of you must be free.

Then you take a bath, go for a walk or treat yourself to some creative time, giving yourself the love and appreciation that you would otherwise seek from a lover. And you allow your lover to be exactly who they are, a soul on a journey, learning and growing as they go. You give thanks that this beautiful soul is in your life, or that they have been in your life, and if you can you make sure they know how grateful you are. But you express this gratitude not so that your lover will give you something in return, but simply because you are an overflowing expression of unconditional love and because in the giving of love you yourself are nourished.

Still feeling a bit muddled about all this? Then check out the great article How to get over someone over at Confustulation blog. Or if this is a repetitive pattern for you and you really need to dig a little deeper I can personally recommend the following books on the topic:

• The Dance of Intimacy: A Woman's Guide to Courageous Acts of Change in Key Relationships
• Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

Letting go of ideology

An ideology is a collection of beliefs about the world and how it works. Our ideologies often go unexamined because they were picked up when we were young, and now run like programs in the background of a computer, subconsciously guiding our decisions. When deconstructed the beliefs that make up out ideologies are often false.

For example I have the belief that it's 'bad' to put toxic chemicals on the earth or ourselves. But when I look closely at this belief I find that it’s actually not true. Sure, from the perspective of our human life it matters whether the soil and water is polluted, and it matters if we harm ourselves and the other creatures on our planet. But with a wider perspective on time and space we see that it doesn't matter at all. The universe is a kaleidoscope of different atoms connecting and then separating, creating all the various forms of matter around us. That shampoo running down into the soil will eventually split into its component parts at the molecular level, one joining a tree, the next becoming part of a complex soil colloid. It does not matter what I do in my short life, the process continues unimpeded.

Yet, although I know this, I’m still attached to the ideology of sustainability and its doctrines, so my thoughts and behaviour are inconsistent. To prove my loyalty to the ideology I still find myself participating in critical discussions about 'the things that are wrong with the world', even though I don't think there is anything ‘wrong’ with the world at all! On the other hand, I increasingly rebel against the constraints I've created for myself and act in ways that are out of alignment with the ideology. Then I feel like a hypocrite and am filled with guilt and self-recrimination.

And from here flows a positive torrent of judgemental thinking! Because I judge myself I project this out onto others and feel judged by them too! Seeing through the ideology I find myself judging others who adhere to it, yet also judge those who live free of the ideology because my mind is so thoroughly programmed by it. My judgement is also motivated by jealousy at the freedom others have chosen... I want this freedom for myself!

All this unnecessary anguish! Time to let it go...

This doesn’t mean I'll now fill my cupboards with toxic chemicals and start spraying the weeds in my garden. I'm a sensible human being. I can see this is not intelligent. But neither is spending valuable time worrying about it, or feeling guilty every time we eat meat or processed food, drive a car or buy a new kettle. So much energy wasted! Easier to let go and allow things to be as they are. Allow others to believe and live as they like. And most importantly, allow myself to live as I like. So that if I want to became an old lady with rainbow streaks in her hair I can :)

Letting go of youth

One of the little contradictions in my personality is that although I find the idea of using toxic chemicals on the earth or on my body irrational and self-destructive, I continue to dye my hair. I'm not ready to let go of the pretty brown hair of my youth. In the same way I mourn the desire to attend wild all night parties, even though I know I would no longer enjoy them.

Why is this so? It is because I've invested identity in these things; things that only last such a short time. My body is slowly becoming aged. My skin is no longer taut, my rhythms have become slower. My inner world develops differently, into greater clarity and consciousness, but my body decays.

How silly then to get so attached to the colour of my hair or how many admiring glances I get from those around me? Making these things important sets me up to struggle with myself. And this is a struggle I cannot win. Better to just let go and accept gracefully that impermanence is the nature of this life we are living.

It is helpful to realise that where ever you are attached you will feel a fixation. This is a very good indicator that we can look out for in our daily lives. You direct a lot of energy into thinking about and trying to procure that thing you want so much. Instead of doing something creative, all your energy is being used on something pointless. Meanwhile you feel more and more upset. How silly! 

When I hang onto my youth so desperately, I also fail to realise the wonderful gifts that growing old is bringing into my life...

You see I think when we're born it's like we're waking up from a sleep. We've transitioned from another state and so it takes a while to understand who and where we are, and how to use our faculties. So you stumble around awhile, in life, but after a while the horizon levels out and you can finally make out what is going on. We begin to become conscious.

But for me consciousness is like a radio station: it goes in and out of reception. When I am aware I see: “Ah yeah! This is how reality is. Completely simple and free!” And then I lose the station and all of a sudden I am worrying about money or whether the man who is beside me is the 'right one.' If I were conscious I would know the answer to those questions without any consideration.

As I've grown older I've found these periods of clarity becoming more frequent and of longer duration. I catch myself more quickly when I become attached to something. You know, those petty little attachments we pick up like ticks everyday, usually through interaction with other humans? I may carry these attachments around for a while but I'm getting better at noticing and letting go before they become too painful or burdensome.

That is the gift of maturity. It becomes easier and easier to let go!

Letting go of youth is something we all have to do eventually. Why not do it now?

Letting go of your list

I’ve been a great believer in lists for most of my life. They help organise the mind, prioritise tasks and prevent important things from being forgotten in the mad rush of modern life. But lately I’ve been asking myself if perhaps the keeping of lists can go a little too far. 

Over the years I’ve developed the habit of writing a new daily list as I sip my morning coffee; it joins my home list, shopping list and personal list in a special notebook kept for the purpose, and it’s a very rare day that I do not consult with it. My grandmother is even worse: sometimes when she completes a task that wasn’t on her list, she adds it just so that she can have the satisfaction of crossing it off!

What is this satisfaction we feel when we accomplish a task? Well apparently when we complete something we set out to our bodies release dopamine. Dopamine is the body’s reward system: it feels great and it’s very addictive!

To make this addiction all the more compelling, we’ve been taught from a very young age that society respects people who ‘get things done’, even when the things they do are not necessarily beneficial to that society. Our need for social and familial approval adds to the dopamine craving, making our behaviour fixated and largely an unconscious reaction to stimulus.

List keeping becomes toxic when it becomes either an anchor or a shackle:

• When you feel that your list is keeping you from losing control you are using it as an anchor. It is your safety net. You are holding onto that list for dear life because you're afraid that if you let go things may become messy and chaotic.

• On the other hand your list may have become a heavy burden. You dread looking at it, knowing there are too many things on there that you either do not wish to do, feel too exhausted to do or simply do not have the time for. Your list is a chain around your neck; you are no longer free.

If either of these scenarios rings true, it may be time to look closely at your relationships to lists. Ask yourself a few pertinent questions:

• Are the things on your list actually the things you’d like to spend your time (life) doing?
• What exactly will doing these things achieve? Is it worth the time and energy invested?
• Do you experience guilt or shame when you fail to complete the tasks on your list?
• Do you project these negative emotions on to your loved ones in the form of resentment, irritability, blaming or demands?
• Do you feel a sense of panic when you get to work and realise you’ve left your list on the kitchen table?
• Do you feel you could spend a whole weekend without writing or referring to a list?
• Are your lists recycled – are there things on there that you wanted to complete a year ago but haven’t been able to? Is it time to let go of them, or face-up and make them happen?
• Do you ever miss an opportunity to act spontaneously, perhaps enjoying a moment of synchronicity, because you are too fixated on your list?
• Do you consult you list just so you can cross something off, even if you already know what your next task must be?
• Do you sometimes feel frustrated by circumstances when they interfere with the completion of tasks, even when the turn of events is a happy one, such as the arrival of guests?

Of course there are many good reasons to complete tasks: to serve others, to move towards our goals or simply because they're a part of the necessities of life. And of course a list is a valuable tool that can help us complete these tasks efficiently. But just as you wouldn’t use an axe to cut off your fingers and toes, you don’t need to use your list as a safety blanket or a shackle.

Letting go of your list can be an intensely liberating experience. Strangely enough the world doesn’t fall apart around you. Things continue to get done, your loved ones go to bed sweet smelling and well fed. In fact you may find yourself acting more spontaneously, noticing opportunities and using your intuition to guide you. By staying present and acting as the situation calls you to, rather than trying to force time and space into the format of your list, you allow life to open up in new and beautiful ways.

Letting go of regret

It's tempting to look back on one's life when you're in a slightly pensive mood and start identifying all the mistakes you feel you've made. It's a trap I fall into more than I would like to... One of the things my mind likes to fixate on is past relationships. It says “How is it that your grandmother managed to have just one relationship over her whole life and you have a string of painful, fruitless failures.” Yeah, my mind's pretty nasty like that!

It also says things like:

•    You always pick men who are wrong for you

•    You're not mature enough to have a healthy relationship

•    You're going to ruin every good thing that comes along, you know you will!

What a bitch!

Looking at my past relationships in this way makes me mistrust the one I'm in now. Even though there is nothing whatsoever wrong with this love, or the man I am with, I look for things that could be signs that things will turn bad in the future. I am mistrustful and suspicious. I expect the worst.

How can this kind of attitude ever lead to anything good!?

Considering my past in a more positive light leads to a very different result. If I let go of the idea that I made mistakes, and instead accept that each and every person who has come into my life has taught me important lessons, made me stronger and led me to circumstances that helped to heal my woundedness, then I can see my present situation as the opportunity that it is. Then, instead of looking for faults and expecting things to go wrong in my relationship, I can relax and enjoy it :)

Letting go of regret allows us to trust our ability to make wise decisions in the present moment. And besides, those mistakes we think we made, they're in the past and there ain't nothing we can do to change them now! Regret make us heavy and like any burden it slows us down, makes everything more of a challenge. Letting go of regret sets us free; we become light. We move with ease and grace, even in the most challenging of situations.

What do you regret most in your life? What would it mean to let go of that regret right now?

Letting go of needs in relationship

There’s many a pop-psychology and self-help book that advocates making sure your needs are met in relationship. Many don’t go so far as to say we should expect this directly from our lover; but they do set up the expectation that the relationship itself should meet our needs.

Expectations ruin relationships. This is how it works in a so-called ‘romance’. You meet someone and because you’re both open, and there’s some resonance between you, you connect. But very soon instead of simply enjoying the other person’s company you’re asking yourself if you have a future with them. From that point on you’re constantly checking to see if the person you’re with is living up to your internal image of the person you want to ‘spend the rest of your life with.’ (Isn’t that an awful expression? Spending the rest of your life!) Many couples are still checking their internal image decades into a so-called happy-ever-after.

It’s all pretty narcissistic isn’t it? Especially when you ask yourself a few hard questions: Are you meeting all of their needs? Do you have all the qualities you assign to the perfect lover? Maybe we should become perfect ourselves before we demand it from another.

All day long we tell ourselves and others all about our needs. But are they real?

• I need a coffee
• I need to get this done
• I need him to be more affectionate

Do we really need any of these things? What about these?

• I need to change my reaction to anger
• I need to get out of this relationship
• I need to tell my mother how I feel

These latter could indeed be said to be needs. But when we use the powerful word ‘need’ we create a bond that inhibits growth; better to say the same thing in the affirmative:

• I can change my reaction to anger 
• I would like to make some changes in this relationship
• I will tell my mother how I feel

So really we can probably get rid of most so-called ‘needs’ in relationship, being careful not to throw out the real ones: safety of body, mind and soul, respect, honesty, learning and growth, connection and communication.

When you let go of pseudo needs in relationship you can enjoy a person for the qualities they have, rather than focusing on the aspects they lack. When you allow a relationship to be what it is, you free it to fulfil it’s highest purpose in your life. And when you allow your lover to be just exactly who they are, you can go on enjoying what it was that attracted you to them in the first place!

It’s a perfect system really :)

Letting go of 'rights'

Many people believe that human 'rights' are something we are born with. But have you ever stopped to think that maybe 'rights' is just another concept someone made up?

Years ago at university I took a course in Chinese history and philosophy. One of the things that stuck with me was an article that compared eastern and western views of rights and responsibility. In the west, the idea of individual rights is sacred; we believe that everyone is equal and we should all have access to certain things that are considered necessary to our well-being.

However in the east they look at things differently. Instead of seeing things in terms of rights they instead focus on responsibility. From this perspective, when each person fulfills their responsibility to others everyone's needs are met. The Chinese philosopher Confucius established the basis for this worldview. Even today if you ask a modern Asian young person about their ambitions many will talk about getting a job that will allow them to support their family, while in the west many young people are more interested in their own individual success.

Now I'm not saying that one or the other of these views is the right one. But I am suggesting that just like so many of the things we hold onto, the concept of rights is just that: a concept. More than this I'd like to suggest that this concept of individual rights may actually hold us back from being free and prevent us from evolving as a culture.

Take for example a woman who deeply desires to have a child but because she does not have a partner, or is not in a stable financial situation, this option is not available to her. In this instance her belief in her 'right' to have a child might cause her to see herself as a victim, to feel that in some way she has been cheated by life. This view of herself can only lead to unhappiness.

And while we all go around demanding our 'rights' we forget that as a human species we are actually denying these rights to the majority of people. In fact, your 'right' to own an iPhone or to have four children may be denying others access to more basic necessities such as clean water or food. Not to mention the needs of other species on our planet.

Human rights and social justice are often considered to be synonymous, but perhaps it is this very idea of 'rights' that gets in the way of developing a truly socially just society. Perhaps this separation of ourselves into individual units is promoting a competitive, grasping culture that divides the world into winners and losers.

Instead, we could see through this illusion of separation and understand the world and ourselves as they really are: a interdependent whole in which every element is indivisible from the rest. From this perspective it might be possible to create a culture where the needs of all beings are met, for as Joanna Macy points out in her beautiful book World as Lover, World as Self: Courage for Global Justice and Ecological Renewal, ‘to truly perceive all life as interconnected challenges many of our most automatic assumptions about what we are and what we need’ (Macy 2007).

What are your thoughts on this?

Letting go of style as identity

I'm not a particularly artistic person, but I've always really relished the creativity of fashion. Although I buy all my clothes second-hand, over the years I've developed a style that is uniquely mine and most of my close friends can tell straight away when an outfit is 'me'.

But actually it's not me. The clothes I wear and the way I create myself with colour and pattern and style is nothing to do with who I am at all. So why do I find it so hard to let go of this style? Why do I feel less when the clothes I'm wearing are in my opinion too feminine, too butch or just too plain daggy? Why am I so attached to these pieces of fabric, these buttons, zips and elastic?

If I were naked and you did not know my name I would be just another human animal, and until we had been introduced there would be nothing to distinguish me apart from the slight peculiarities of my hair, my skin, my body shape. I am nothing special. I am nothing that you would write home about.

But with clothes I can pretend I am special, that I am different. I can look at others and sub-consciously make a judgement about how much more or less stylish I am than they are. I can present myself in such a way that I invite compassion or illicit lust. I can make people afraid of me, or I can put them at their ease. In other words, through my style I can manipulate others to see me the way I wish to be seen.

As I travel my small collection of clothes grows more and more faded, stretched and worn. I am bored by them and I crave the stimulation and excitement of something new, of seeing admiration in someone else's eyes. So I ask myself why my self-worth and identity is so tied up with style and I see that here is yet another burdensome attachment that does not serve me.

But as I let it go I remember something I once read somewhere: "Enjoy everything, need nothing." And when it comes to style I think this applies very well!

Letting go of the need for money

After reading The Moneyless Manifesto by Mark Boyle (aka the Moneyless Man) I've become more and more convinced that learning to live free of the burden of money is a goal worth pursuing. My goal is not to do without money altogether but to become less reliant on it, and less stressed about getting more of it! I'm far from actually achieving this but here are my thoughts so far.

Firstly, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who think money is bad. To the contrary, money is an excellent invention that allows us to trade more freely and efficiently. However I've found that the more I have to rely on money as my only means of trade the more tied I am to an economic system that I take serious issue with.

Without getting too carried away on my bandwagon my main concerns with our society's current reliance on money are:

• The monetary system is no longer based on anything real. In fact it's based on debt. (If this sounds absurd you should take a look at the very informative animated film Money as Debt which explains this concept in simple terms). This means that in order for the system to keep working the majority of us need to owe money to the banks and pay interest on this debt. All too many of us have willingly taken up this yoke and in fact it is considered a fact of life in this day and age. 
• The monetary system is controlled by an elite group of bankers and politicians who invest our life savings into all kinds of morally corrupt activities such as resource extraction, weapons manufacture and polluting industries. This unjust and environmentally irresponsible behaviour goes on in our name, even though we may disagree with it. If you have money in the bank you are contributing.
• Reliance on money, and especially my obligation to repay any debt owed by me, keeps me chained to a 9 to 5 lifestyle that allows little freedom of movement. Instead of spontaneously moving through my life and taking up opportunities as they present themselves I am forced to maintain a rigid schedule dictated to me by my employer, or if I am lucky my clients.

Letting go of money is a frightening prospect for me. But the more I think about it the more I realise that the security we look for in money is really actually located in community. When we live in a supportive network of good folk who care about us we will always be ok. And when we put energy into these people, loving and supporting them through their trials, then we are investing in something real. This investment will pay off big time when we ourselves are in need.

Plus, we seem to have forgotten that there are other things we can trade besides money. Our time, skills and the products of our labour are all things we can share and trade with others.

Learning to let go of money is something I'm learning slowly. I know it requires a strong community as well as the willingness to live my life without many of the consumer 'essentials' that are marketed so strongly by the media, such as fashionable clothes, the latest technologies, books and music. Luckily our society is so wasteful that many of these items become available second-hand very quickly after they are released!

Have you tried becoming less reliant on money? Please let us know how you're faring...

Letting go of gender equality

I know what I'm about to write isn't going to go down too well with some people, but hear me out. Feminism has done a lot to provide freedom of choice for women and that's something, as a woman, that I'm very grateful for. However in the process we seem to have got stuck in the mindset that women and men are equal and to me this is a great shame.

In both eastern and western philosophical traditions we encounter metaphors for masculine and feminine energies in their most elemental form. In the east we have the receptive and inward going Yin balanced by the active, forceful Yang. In the west the nurturing, life-giving elements of Earth and Water are representative of the feminine, while the more active elements of Fire and Air represent the outward going force of masculinity. In both traditions we see depictions of gender balance, rather than gender equality.

For me, gender balance creates a harmonious way of relating where both parties are supported by the other. It does not mean that the woman no longer expresses the creative and active elements of her personality or the man his inner feminine qualities. Remember the Yin-Yang symbol: each element contains a little of the other. However, in our culture women are no longer Yin with a little Yang; instead, most of us are full on Yang, pushed by financial circumstances or our own drive to prove ourselves into a manic, stressful busyness that leaves us depleted and irritable. Too often we no longer have time to nurture and support our loved ones.

In a partnership based on gender balance the man's natural inclination to be assertive, decisive and goal-oriented can manifest more productively with the gentle encouragement, faith and trust of his partner, while the woman's gifts of inner knowing, intuition and nurturing are able to come to the fore when she is not so caught up in the outer world of action and accomplishment.

Now some will no doubt feel ill-at-ease about the words I'm using here. Am I advocating a return to a co-dependent state where the woman is reliant on the man to protect and provide for her? Well my answer to that is 'hell no!' There is no point, or even possibility, in going backwards here. What I'm talking about is a natural transition. We women were unhappy and oppressed being dependent and so we've worked hard to become independent. However as an ecologist I know that independence is an illusion. In nature interdependence is the natural way, and as we too are a part of nature this is also a healthy state for us.

Nature also teaches that the greater the diversity within a system the more stable and resilient it will be. When women strive to become like men we lose diversity and that means less stability and resilience in relationships, families and communities. This is because two beings of the same kind must compete to survive, and this creates power struggle and conflict.

The concept of gender equality is a hard one to let go of, particularly for women but for many men too. This is because it feels like we are going to lose our power, however I believe this is an illusion. Our culture has forgotten the true strength of the divine feminine, a strength so different from the masculine power we are taught to strive for. While the masculine pushes, climbs, acts, fights, the feminine supports, contains, gives sustenance. The Yin is the source of intuitive knowing, of wisdom and of the true strength which arises from gentleness and humility.

My journey toward this way of thinking began with the books of David Deida. He's written many books but one of my favourites is Intimate Communion: Awakening Your Sexual Essence. It's good one to start with if you're interested.

I suggest one caveat here: some women are born very Yang and some men very Yin. This can usually be seen very clearly in their natal astrology chart where there will be a predominance of planets placed in Masculine or Feminine signs. However even in these cases I believe the principles I am discussing here remain the same. 

I for one am enjoying rediscovering the power of the feminine. Perhaps you are too... If so please share your experiences.

Letting go of your career

Simply because I do not like the word, letting go of my career was less challenging than you might imagine. All that 'careering' gave me a pretty serious case of burn-out and I was all too ready to let the whole sorry burden fall from my shoulders.

Of course it hasn't come without its anxieties, money of course being the biggest one. But the funny thing is, once I set myself afloat at the whim of universal benevolence somehow I've always had more than enough.

Traveling to South East Asia was a good example of this. Within an hour of arriving in the town where I was to stay for the coming month, I had seen a poster advertising for someone to work in a guesthouse for room and board. And after this situation became untenable I sowed the seed to do astrology and tarot readings and this became the seed of a new enterprise that is now bearing fruit.

I do not see this newest venture as a new career however. The difference is that it is done in a spirit of playfulness. I like to earn money from it, but I will not stress myself unduly or turn on the hard sell to do so. This is a world away from the ten page proposals I would routinely submit to potential clients and funding bodies. Phew! What a bore...

And then the stress! Deadlines, regulations, bureaucracy. All tethers I can well do without!

Debt can be an especially strong tie to your career and one I have determinedly refused to accept. It's funny how all these bonds are self chosen - we literally sign our life away with the simple everyday choices we make, from enrolling our child in school to signing that mortgage paper. Every day we enslave ourselves a little more!

Many people pursue a career thinking that it will increase their status and influence within a community or network. Well weirdly enough my networks has grown markedly since abandoning this silly illusion and I find myself continually meeting people with whom I can collaborate in exciting, effective ways.

Letting go of your career is especially challenging when you have come to identify it with who you are. To find out if this is true of you, ask yourself whether you think of yourself as your job title, for example as 'a teacher' or 'an artist'. In such cases you are pretty strongly attached to your career and letting it go might cause you some discomfort.

Note that I do not suggest that you stop doing what it is their vocation to do. A vocation is very different to a career. One's vocation is the gift they give to the world, their niche within the social ecology. But unlike a career it is not something one has to strive for. It just happens naturally as we move with purpose through the world.

Letting go of my career was one of the most freeing things I ever did. It's been over three years now and I've never once regretted it :)

Letting go of being in charge

Until recently I held a job where a lot of the time I got to be the boss. I led teams of people in the garden and although we worked collaboratively I had a lot of control over the process because I was the one with the knowledge and experience. In the end, if there was a decision to be made I generally got the final say.

Just after I left this job I worked in a little guest house called Shanti Shanti on the Cambodian coast. Set on the beach with the waves lapping gently up to the little cane deck chairs, it's a place that should have been very peaceful. But actually it was often anything but! This is because the manager, an eccentric French gentleman, was very stressed indeed! And because he was so stressed his most common mode of communication was growling.

'Spoon, spoon, spoon!' he would shout at me in the kitchen, and then when I handed him a desert spoon: 'No! Spoon spoon!' The interpretation of this for those who are wondering is 'No I want a tea spoon.'

Once day the two of us, the only English speaking staff in this very small establishment, set out to mend a banner who's eyelets had been torn off. My initial idea, which I respectfully proposed, was to make new holes by cutting a small strip from the side, sewing a strong patch onto the corner and then reinforcing a new hole as one would a button hole. This way it would last for a good few years even in strong winds.

But my plan was not acceptable at all! 'Don't complicate things,' was the reply, and I was told to attach the banner to crooked bamboo poles with sticky tape. Of course this did not work! The result looked terrible unprofessional and would have lasted a week at the most, so we scrapped that idea after half an hour of mucking around. A series of new and increasingly wacky ideas ensued til I had spent the best part of my two hour shift on the project, but eventually the banner was up and looking fine.

This was a difficult lesson for me to learn. Of course I thought my plan was best but I had no say in the matter. Instead I had to bite my tongue and do what I was told. I'm sure many similar experiences lie ahead for me and each time I will need to swallow my pride and accept that I am not in charge.

But there is a blessing in all this. For the first time in a long time I was not the one responsible. I could relax and allow someone else to lead. This gave me the space to cultivate a calm and quiet spirit, and encourage the yin qualities of receptivity, gentleness and nurturing. Very soon my boss was confiding in me his fears and frustrations, and in this mode of openness I was able to listen and provide support.

Eventually we got along just fine, he and I. And I learned very quickly how to let go of being in charge!

Letting go of Prince Charming

It's incredible how strongly mythology can affect us at the subconscious level.

I'm an intelligent, independent woman. I've worked hard to become self-aware and I consider myself relatively emotionally balanced. And yet still I find myself caught up in what my friend calls the 'romance narrative trap', the mythology that when we find our Prince Charming (or our Beautiful Princess) we will then go on to live happily ever after.

One of the most dangerous aspects of this myth is that it gives us the idea that unless our partner is perfect there must be someone else out there who is a better match for us. We expect things of our lovers that we would never expect from any other person and we're terribly disappointed when they fail to live up to these expectations.

As a result, instead of loving our partner, we attack them with a barrage of criticisms. We focus on their faults and weaknesses, instead of their many beautiful qualities. They are not Prince Charming, and therefore they are not good enough.

The reality is that relationships were never designed to make us happy. If you really think about it, being 'in love' is generally more of a painful experience than a happy one! The beauty of relationships is that they confront us with our own darkness, they push us to work through our woundedness and they insist upon us being the best version of ourselves that we can possibly be.

Relationships exist to support the ongoing evolution of two people by providing a mirror in which we can see ourselves more clearly.

My lover is full of faults and weakness, just like every other human being on this planet. And just like me. By letting go of the need to find Prince Charming I am freed to love him for who he really is, and to see the unique beauty that is within him.

Letting go of trauma

Being raped is a terrifying experience for a seven year old child. I know because I've experienced it.

The mind is clever at dealing with such things. In order to avoid the intense rush of adrenaline and cortisol that such an experience induces, the mind disassociates. That is, it turns its attention elsewhere. In my case I focused on the sky and the forest around me, on the feeling of the hard ground underneath me. These are the things that I remember. The pain and confusion didn't really register, at least not consciously.

Letting go of traumatic experiences like this is not easy because with no memory of the incident it's hard to see which behaviours stem from the trauma. No doubt the observer self holds a full record of the experience, which could be accessible by hypnosis or meditation, but in the absence of the logical connection between cause and affect it's difficult to discern whether a pattern of behaviour is unhealthy or not.

Trauma also stays embedded in the body at an energetic level, mainly in the auric body. The result can be energy blockages, over or under activity of the chakras and other disorders. These can be resolved through meditation, energy healing techniques such as reiki, kinesiology and acupuncture. Yoga, aromatherapy, sound and colour healing can also help.

 
Practice conscious presence in your everyday life so that you become aware of whether your behaviours impact your energy body in a positive or negative way. This may feel like areas of tension, pain or tightness in the body. Let go of behaviours that do not serve you.

Letting go of trauma can be the catalyst for healing of chronic disease and mental illness, and the key to success, abundance and inner peace.

Letting go of identity

Recently, I’ve been reading this book called ‘Multiplicity: The new science of personality’ by Rita Carter, fascinating stuff for a psychology nerd like me! The premise of the book is that instead of having one steady personality most of us have several, developed in response to the dynamic and unstable contexts we encounter in modern life.

Consider how it must have been for people even just 300 years ago: with no means of getting anywhere other than by their own steam, or with the aid of an animal if they were lucky enough to have one, most people in the lower classes spent their entire lives in one locality with the same group of people, encountering the same situations day-after-day. They thus developed a very simple, stable personality that could be relied upon by the people around them.

Today things are different. We exist within multiple contexts simultaneous, with different groups of people and with complex social dynamics and expectations. Thus it is not surprising to find that most of us have a suite of personalities, just as we have a wardrobe of clothes for different occasions, one for work, one that comes out when we are at home with our family, and one that we share only with our lover.

How do these personalities arise? Just as personalities have always arisen: in response to the pressures of our environment and the needs of the people around us, and through the lens of our natural tendencies, we develop habitual behaviours that we then begin to associate with who we are.

For example a child grows up with a deaf mother and a violent alcoholic father. In her childhood she does her best to help her mother whom she loves but who also makes her feel guilty, not intentionally but in the subtle unintentional way of people who have learned to play the martyr. She also learns to fear male aggression and avoids openness with her father because it makes her physically and emotionally vulnerable.

Based on these early experiences, we could make a very simple prediction that this child is likely grow up to be a people-pleaser, working in one of the helping professions and never feeling she is good enough to be truly worthy of love, respect or status. In intimate relationships she may well struggle to be open and will likely take on either a submissive role or a strident nothing-can-hurt-me aggression that prevents her from really connecting with the other.

But because modern life is not simple, the development of personality is not simple either. Perhaps this child, so powerless in the home, learned to exert her power over children at school. Thus we may find that the woman who evolves is submissive and a pleaser at home, but an assertive, power-hungry bully in the workplace.

Carter defines personality as ‘a coherent and characteristic way of seeing, thinking, feeling, and behaving’ and this seems a good enough working definition to me. This clearly indicates that personality is not just a role we play, it’s something we identify with, we consider it to be who we are.

In my life I can clearly see three different personalities: there’s the studious responsible me who works in a leadership role within an organisation dedicated to personal and social change. Right now this is the me that’s writing this blog! Then there’s the rebellious, outrageous me, who does things my work colleagues would find very surprising indeed. And finally there’s the me that comes out when I’m with my lover and that is a very different person again.

There are also roles that I play but do not identify with: for example I used to work in a big corporation. I played the games and wore the uniform because I thought I could get things done that way, but it never suited me and I never felt comfortable in the role. So at some point in our lives we begin to identify with some of the roles we play but not others, and these became our personalities, our identities.

The trouble is that identifying too strongly with these roles can become very limiting, and in some cases can cause serious cognitive dissonance in our lives.

For example, because I’ve come to believe so fully in my most prominent personality, the responsible, good one, I sometimes feel that I need to hide the other two, both from others and from myself. In the past I even tried to deny that they existed: these weren’t really me, they were some kind of aberration, a dark-side that I needed to resolve or work to integrate or grow out of, or at the very least keep well and truly to myself. I worked to make the dominant ‘good’ aspects of myself stronger in an effort to assuage my guilty feelings about these other aspects of myself that did not fit into my self-defined identity.

It’s very freeing to recognise that none of these personalities are actually who we are at all. As all the mystic traditions teach us, these layers of identity are nothing more than self-constructed facades behind which the true self resides, the silent observer.

When you let go of identity, accepting that none of your personalities are really who you are, you bring a playfulness back into your life. You’re free to try on different roles, as you would try on different clothes, selecting the ones you enjoy wearing and discarding the ones that don’t serve you. Life becomes a big game of dress ups where anything is possible

So now I hear you say ‘that’s all very well but if I suddenly start cross-dressing or play the smart-arse with my boss it’s not going to go down very well,’ and you’re absolutely right. But that doesn’t make cross-dressing or sassing your boss the problem. If you’re a man and you really want to wear woman clothes and the people around you can’t handle that then you have to decide what is most important thing to you. Like anything this will depends entirely on the context.

The point is not to cling onto something new, that is the need to try out different roles, but to recognise how by identifying with the roles you do play you hold yourself back from experiencing life to its fullest.

Letting go of our need for 'roots'

One thing that’s always been distinguishable about me is my lack of roots. It’s not that I’m in any particular way a rootless person; it’s just that my life’s circumstances have been such that I haven’t really had the opportunity to settle down, or become attached to any place or person. I have no hometown, no childhood friends that I catch up with every year or so, no place to go back to. My mother and father both live many miles away from the area where I grew up and my brothers and sisters are scattered all over the country. I live a nomadic life, staying in a place for a year or two before moving on. At this point I’ve lived in more houses than there are years to my life!

But throughout my life there have always been a few things that remained stable, anchors in what was sometimes a tumultuous sea of experience, and one of these anchors has been my grandmother. On many occasions I’ve returned to live with her after some adventure in my life ended or went a little more pear-shaped than I could handle. Because we share many of the same values and perspectives on life we have a wonderful relationship that is very enriching and her support and unconditional love has nourished me and made me the person I am today.

Now she is 1000's of kilometers away from where I live. Letting go of her is perhaps the hardest lesson in surrender yet.

Roots are different for everyone: they include family, childhood friends, cultural traditions and customs, a piece of land where one feels at home, learned ways of looking at the world. Many would argue that letting go of these things is not desirable, that roots are essential and beneficial to our wellbeing. I agree that roots provide stability, a firm foundation. They are nourishing and grounding. But here we need to distinguish between enjoying and benefiting from our roots and needing them, which is where attachment comes in. If we ask ourselves ‘what would happen if I didn’t have that person/place/idea/thing in my life?’ the answer should be ‘I’d be okay.’ You can be happy and creative, free to go with the flow of life, either with or without that connection. 

Two situations illustrate an unhealthy attachment to roots:

1. Your roots feel inhibiting. They hold you back from following the natural flow of synchronicity in your life, from taking up the opportunities that come your way and from using your gifts. You are like a pot-bound plant that needs more space in order to grow.
2. You feel great about your roots. They provide the foundation on which you’re able to be creative, to explore and to grow. However when those roots aren’t there you fall down. You can’t seem to be happy and at peace without them.

The first situation is not so relevant to me, as my family is supportive and encouraging of my choices, never judgemental or clingy or manipulative. But for many people family roots equate to disapproval, guilt, secrets, game playing and other unhealthy attachment-based behaviour. In these cases letting go of one’s roots can be very freeing.

In my case I have learned very well to do without roots and the freedom this has allowed me has enhanced my creativity, my courage and my growth as a human being. But still I feel a great fear in my heart when I think of my grandmother’s passing. It’s as if the constancy of her presence has allowed me to explore so boldly, knowing that if anything were to go wrong I could return to her, that if I became lost she would always be the reference point by which I could reorientate myself.

I suppose that letting go of my dependence on her for this sense of security will push me to find my own inner anchor point, my inner roots. So that in dark times I may find light within, in times of tumult, peace, in times of confusion, clarity. To do I must remain aware of the petty day-to-day attachments that divert my attention, pull me away from my centre and stifle my freedom of expression. Meditation remains the best tool I know of to achieve this clarity: as I sit, allowing my thoughts to pass by without my mind grasping onto them, I learn to let go of the frustrations, the fixations, the passions that occur in my daily life.

Once you’ve found your inner roots you can begin to nurture them, tending them with care and attention, watering them with love, so that they grow deeper and stronger, providing a stability that is far more real than any security you might find in the outside world. Such outer security is subject to change: the lover dies, the house burns down, the business fails and where are you left? Letting go of our need for roots allows us to become strong, to act with freedom and to grow into the highest expression of ourselves.

Letting go of jealousy

Jealousy is a common emotion for most people and indeed is thought by some to be a healthy expression of love in a monogamous relationship. This is because it seems to demonstrate care, that one feels strongly enough about the lover to care whether they connect strongly with others or not. To me jealousy does not signify care but merely attachment, and all attachment is based on insecurity, never on love.

Those who identify as poly-amorous use the term compersion to express the opposite of jealousy. To experience compersion is to be full of joy when you see your lover discovering a beautiful connection with another. Isn't it incredible that in order to express this sentiment, which seems to be a far more positive way of dealing with this common scenario, a whole new word needed to be invented so late in the history of human relatedness and connection!

Some people don't experience jealousy. I'm not one of those people! For a long time I struggled with this. I wanted my lover to claim me, to create a boundary and demand that I not cross it, to show me through his jealousy of other men that he cared. On the other hand I wanted him to want me so much that no other woman would make him look twice, or if they did and he enjoyed that connection that it would be no comparison to the connection we share.   

In other words I wanted to be special, and to believe that our relationship was special.

Letting go of jealousy is about recognising that our worthiness and value as human beings does not stem from our relationships with others. It's about realising that deep connectedness need not be synonymous with attachment and that despite what the media and other fairy tales tell us, true love always means freedom: freedom to create, freedom to explore and freedom to grow as human beings.

Letting go of certainty

It's a curious thing that the illusion of certainty gives us a sense of security. Even though we really have no idea what will happen in the future we feel much better if we have our plan firmed up, pinned down and signed in triplicate.

I've been experiencing a lot of uncertainty lately because I've just let go of a place I called home and a community I called family. Now, as I set out on a new journey with new companions and only a few vague ideas of what the future may hold I am yet again confronted with all my fears.

What is it I am actually afraid of? Well it's hard to even say... I'm told that physicians call this phenomenon 'generalised anxiety', a sweeping sense of panic that has no particular focal point, no particular reason. The experience is visceral: the stomach churns, the heart pounds and the palms sweat. It's as though you've just come round the corner and encountered a great wild beast, but actually you're just sitting in a pub drinking a beer!

What causes this great avalanche of fear to descend upon us? We fear because we cannot accept uncertainty. We cannot come to terms with the fact that we do not control our circumstances, or the people whom we feel strongly attached to. But the fact is that even when we think we are in control we most certainly are not!

Take marriage as an example: many people feel more at peace in their relationships when they have secured the solemn vow of their loved one that their partner is committed to them for the rest of their lives. But the reality is that no greater certainty has really been created. The world remains an unstable place; its manifestations emerge and dissolve continuously. Our reality is one of impermanence. At any point our loved one may encounter a magnetic pull to an enigmatic stranger, die unexpectedly or simply detach from us emotionally.

As I begin this journey my intention is to explore those aspects of my being that have so far been in a state of dormancy. These are the yin parts of me, the receptive, yielding, in-going aspects of who I am. To do this I must not only let go of the need for certainty, I must embrace uncertainty. I must surrender to the benevolence of the universe with faith and trust, allowing things to be as they are from moment to moment.

Letting go of addiction

Since my late teens I had a mild addiction to tobacco which I managed to hold at bay for eighteen years. I'd go for periods without smoking and generally didn't smoke more than one or two per day, but when alcohol was involved, or if I was with a friend who smoked, I'd often find myself smoking way more than I liked to.

What is it that's so appealing about smoking? I mean it's not a very nice idea is it: pulling hot, drying smoke into our tender pink lungs! So how does it attach itself to us, or perhaps more accurately, why and how do we attach ourselves to it?

I think part of it is that having a little of something we enjoy at regular intervals provides a pleasant, predictable rhythm to our lives that lulls us into a sense of security, makes us feel some level of control over a chaotic universe. And of course there's the sheer pleasantness of the sensations that the substance catalyses in our bodies. Coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, as well as sugars and simple carbohydrates, all give us a rush of brain chemicals, including dopamine, which are highly stimulating. And addictive!

So of course we feel attached! In many cases attachment feels really good! At least until it comes time to let go...

Wow! Letting go of addiction... where was I to start? My instinct was to break the association between alcohol, which I occasionally enjoy, and cigarettes which I no longer wished to partake in. So I think part of the answer for me was to let go of alcohol at the same time.

The other factor with addiction is that the people we are with strongly influence our addictive behaviour, and we theirs. It's not always possible or wise to break associations with everyone in our lives who makes it harder for us to let go of our addictions, but we can be very honest with them and ask them to help us by not offering these substances or partaking of them when we are together.

However if you're in an environment where smoking or drinking is a big part of the culture you will probably find letting go of addiction quite challenging! In this case perhaps you need to seriously consider whether the culture you are participating in is life affirming or self-destructive.

The most important factor for me in letting go of my addiction to smoking was becoming very conscious of my motivations for smoking. Every time I felt a craving to smoke a cigarette I'd ask myself why I wanted it. Was it because I felt bored or socially anxious? Was I actually hungry or thirsty? I then thought about how that cigarette would actually make me feel, both during and after I smoked it. I also considered the many powerful things that repel me about tobacco, such as it's impact on my health, communities and the environment.

Sometimes after this I did smoke the cigarette, but more and more often I got up, walked to the sink and drank a glass of water instead. This new ritual temporarily replaced the one I'd been using as a security blanket! While drinking the water I'd affirm, "this water cleanses me of my attachment to tobacco. I now let go of my addiction."

It's been 7 weeks now since my last cigarette and I'm happy to say that I no longer experience any cravings :)