Letting it all fall apart

An instructor at the Aesclepion Healing Center taught me that sometimes you just have to let it all fall apart. I needed that tool yesterday. Sometimes you have to stop fighting. There seems to be a fine line between the striving that comes with choosing to learn and grow in this life, and sitting comfortably right where I am and not striving to change a thing. It's always been a tricky balance for me.

Sometimes I take on too much. It's really easy for me to feel like I can do more, or do better. It's not nearly as easy to just sit back and let everything be just fine the way it is, and not try to exert any of my own will in having things turn out the way I'd like them to. Before I even realize what's happening, I slip back into a place where there are way too many things I'm trying to influence; all good things, but still. . . my experience of my life starts to feel like alot of effort.

Letting it all fall apart is a strange tool. On the surface it doesn't seem like a spiritual tool at all. But destroying is a part of creating; it makes space for new things in our lives. When I hold on and try to control all of the little details, really I'm limiting the possibilities of how all of it can unfold. I would definitely feel more comfortable if every detail about having enough money for retirement were figured out, if I was never confused by other people's actions, if I didn't have to think about work and laundry and grocery shopping and all of it, plus having time for myself, if all of my old childhood programming were behind me, and all of the countless other things I expend energy fussing about. That's not the way of it, though. I'm human. I believe that I can create every moment in my own way, but doing it through brute force clogs the pipes of creation, and gets downright tiring.

Yesterday, I was burned out. I got to the point of saying enough, I give. I can't care about this anymore, even the stuff that's really important to me. The thing is, I forget that trying hard doesn't make stuff happen. Letting go does. Effort just makes us feel invalidated, and gets in the way of all of the help that is available to us when we surrender to that higher part of ourselves that doesn't need to try, but just is.

So yesterday I let it all fall apart, in my head, and it was a relief. And today, I let it all fall apart some more, and nothing bad happened. I realized that all of the striving to make things happen really is wasted effort; it's alot easier when I just let things be messed up, or not, in their own perfect way.

I don't know for how long I'll remember this, maybe five minutes. But for those five minutes I am grateful.