When you think of the idea of letting something go, do you feel empowered or disempowered? As a spiritual concept, release is a natural part of the cycle of life – all things come into being, are and then fall away. This is the overarching cycle of each of our lives and it is a cycle we move through many times in ways big and small throughout our lifetime – every single breath we take is a miniature exploration of the power of release.
A Look at Release
Recently, when thinking about release, the image of a toddler came to mind. Anyone who has had the pleasure of spending time with a toddler will be familiar with this scenario – there she sits with her fists clenched tightly around one toy or snack as she tries desperately to figure out how to grasp the next thing without letting go of the handfuls that she already has – wanting to take the clean apple slice but unwilling to let go of the dirty one she just picked up off the ground. Wanting to cling to what she has (even if it isn’t truly serving her) at the risk of having no space for what is also available to her (which might truly nourish her).
In many ways, we are all that toddler.
Living into Release
Another way of looking at this is offered by author Anais Nin –
“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live. “
How many times have you clung to a situation, relationship, idea, belief, identity or story while wishing desperately that things would change? How many times have you remained static and feeling stuck while unwilling to entertain a shift in perspective?
It is the power of release that invites us to let go – to open our grasping fists, set down the crumbled crackers and make space for what truly serves and nourishes us.
To live fully open to the unfolding of life as it presents itself is to be intimately (and necessarily) acquainted with release. And to ultimately know it as a source of deep and true personal power.
Nature as a Guide
That does not mean that practicing release is easy: simple yes; easy not necessarily. When I find myself struggling to fully embrace a spiritual concept, I often turn to Mother Nature and she generously provides me with just the template I need in order to embrace the very natural processes that I find challenging.
An example of release in nature that we are all familiar with is the metamorphosis of the butterfly. The simple truth is that in order to become the butterfly, the caterpillar has to be released. As Anais Nin said above – “Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death. “ – to remain in the caterpillar state is to choose a kind of death in which the butterfly state can never be realized.
Another example of release can be found in the breath – we receive with every inhale and release with every exhale. It does not occur to us to hold in the inhale or to have any fear of the exhale. We intuitively know that every exhale makes the necessary space available for the next inhale – nothing is lost, or mourned in the letting go.
Making Space with Release
And this brings me to the final point I’d like to share – to embrace release as the source of personal and divine power that it truly is may require us to reframe our perspective on it: the power in release comes not from what is set down or removed in the process but in what we are making room for or moving toward in the setting down.
When choosing to move forward on the monkey bars of life, it is necessary to release the previous bar, to embrace the risk of the fraction of time that we are suspended in midair, and to be willing to grab hold of the next bar – this is how we embrace the “becoming” and allow ourselves to unfold as life unfolds around us.
This is the power of release.
Sending You Love,
Tawnia