Growing Pains.
Do you ever wish that growth wasn’t so painful? I do. In the times of my life where I have grown the most, it’s usually been accompanied by a fair degree of struggle and discomfort, and sometimes some fairly intense pain.
Maybe that’s because I waited to change until the consequences were so painful, that it was easier to bear the pain of growth rather than the pain of not changing. Or maybe there’s always some struggle associated with changing yourself.
But honestly, I’m starting to believe differently.
I’ve found recently that there are changes that you can make that have no pain associated with them, other than the pain you are giving up. Changes that can be so profound that your whole life can pivot in an instant, and find an alignment with your future.
The changes can seem incredibly hard, but in reality it’s a simple choice, a single decision, one solitary moment.
And you simply ‘let go’.
Letting go is one of the greatest techniques to moving forward in life, but it can be difficult to do. I was once incredibly blessed to help coach a woman with a difficult adult child. This brave woman had spent so many years trying to ‘help’ her adult child through legal problems, and behavioral issues. I began coaching her after seeing her in tears, and desperate to understand how she could ‘save’ her child.
You can image how I felt when I had to tell her that she couldn’t.
In one incredibly powerful, and very humbling coaching session, we managed to find a way for her to ‘let go’ of her need to ‘save’ her child. This came about after I helped her to see that in trying to ‘save’ her child, she was really trying to justify the years she had spent in an abusive marriage.
Once she realized, through tears of understanding, that she could never change what the past was, she was able to actually serve her child as a mother by helping her child through the process of suffering the consequences of their actions.
I’ll never forget her inspiring example of courage and true love when she let go of her own personal needs, and served her child in the right way, even though it was momentarily painful for her to do so.
Once she ‘let go’ of her own needs, you could see the pain leave her body. She changed from a desperate, crying, hurting and forlorn woman into a resolute, strong determined and powerful mother who made the correct choices for her child, knowing that it was the right thing to do.
All because she was able to let go.
Today, I invite you to look deeply into your soul and see what you can let go. Maybe it’s your need to be right all the time, or to seem like you know something when you really don’t. Or maybe it’s your need to be ‘successful so you can finally have a sense of self worth’.
Maybe it’s your need to receive an apology from someone who is never, ever, going to see it your way and apologize.
There are so many things in our lives that we can ‘let go’ of and find a greater joy, a deeper peace, a sweeter resolution. May you find your pathway to letting go today.
And may it bring you joy.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrmusings