The Grace of Letting Go - Heather Fraser

[Sowelu]

 
 

The Grace of Letting Go
By Heather Fraser

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Ma'at Magazines
THE "REALM OF POSSIBILITIES" ISSUE
May 2011

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… and we all thought March was challenging? How hilarious.

If I were to write about all that has transpired for me since the end of March and for the entire month of April, this would be a novel instead of an article.

Let's just say, as I sit in this "now" space, I have survived a month long "undertow" and have lived to tell about it.

Without going into all the details of the simultaneous triggers that intersected like the Bermuda Triangle, what I gleaned from this month long state of emotional and physical depletion and exhaustion, is that when the chips are down…the only thing you can do is let go.

And I did let go…right into my blissful bed, where I spent as much time as possible — by choice — to be still and feel the grace.

From an unexpected, total act of forgiveness on my part with my mother, to a stubborn viral infection that kept me down and out, to moving through my pride and righteous indignation (aka: massive ego!) with the man that I love, to the emotional reality of my daughter becoming a teenager, to the ten year marker of having left my marriage — one could say I had a major meltdown…and this is a very good thing.

Jammed packed in that little paragraph of goo was the death of the past, the old, the baggage, the cement block chained to my leg.

At some point during one of my many, many, many, hours in my bed, I was able to make the connection between the dark emotions I was feeling during this time (abandoned, angry, ignored, disrespected, resentful, isolated, desperate, deprived, terrified, and broken-hearted) — to the very same emotional vibration I took on as a kid from the wound of being separated from my family when I was sent to boarding school while we were living in Africa.

I realized I had been living in a state of emotional impoverishment since then, and had simply learned to cope, to survive.

Making that connection was imperative, as it showed me how and why I was recycling and repeating patterns again and again; and please believe me when I say, that that kind of crystal clear clarity equals freedom.

When I saw what was happening, what I was doing, how this Bermuda Triangle of events was taking place for my benefit — the love that I felt for all these people/triggers/situations was so overwhelming, that my heart spontaneously opened up. And then the tears flowed and flowed…for days.

Now I know what Grace is.

Not intellectually. I have experienced Grace. And it came from letting go.

As I was hiking today, I was reflecting on this walk we call Life. What's it all for? Why are we here? Certainly my own personal journey of always wanting to know the answers to these questions has lead me to this exact moment in time, sitting here writing this article about my experience.

What I've come to know is that life is about experiencing the reality of who we really are, and it takes as long as it takes, and what it mostly takes is courage; the courage to trust in a deeper reality than what we've been externally shown or taught — the courage to live deeply from within and let go to that which aligns the stars.

We may intellectually know this, from books we've read, gurus we've followed, endless workshops we've taken etc…but it takes courage to really let go and lose our grip on the external reality we've become so used to clinging to for survival.

All those dark and stagnant emotions had taught me that my survival depended on someone else's love, approval, admiration, acknowledgement, acceptance, control, perfection, and an absolute dependence on an external sense of security.

What is so shockingly ironic to me, is that no matter how desperately I've held on to needing to feel secure from all things external, in truth, all that the holding on has done is kept me "down" and kept me creating an external reality from my inner impoverishment that looks something like over the years: bankrupt, divorced, single mom, living in fear off a system that barely keeps a roof over my head. All these situations were created by me, out of a sheer sense of desperation and inner impoverishment — but if anyone had tried to tell me that about myself before now, I would have drop-kicked 'em!

While I've been able to write about freedom over the years — maybe convincingly, maybe not — what I've mostly been writing about is my unshakeable longing for a freedom that I remember in my cells from lifetimes ago, for I had certainly not attained the remotest ounce of any real, authentic, freedom until now. We do indeed teach what we need to learn.

It feels like now, at this juncture of our evolutionary journey, that no matter how hard we try to "see the light" or "live in oneness" or "merge spirit and body" that it simply can never happen as long as we are carrying our "cement blocks" chained to our legs. With that heavy weight, it's impossible to rise up and transcend, and that's all letting go really is I think — it's an act of transcendence fuelled by grace and initiated by our courage to choose freedom over and above anything else.

It is only in transcendence that we get to experience the real essence of our Spirit — the silent, unchanging, eternal, benevolent power of Love. Once we have experienced this at the core as a result of choosing to let go of the illusion of love's opposite — then we know what freedom really feels like. Both our mind and heart have become fully aligned with Spirit while remaining in our physical bodies.

As Ram Dass wrote in his book, Be Love Now, "your mind has to stop for your heart to open."

Sounds like Grace to me.



Found here

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About Heather Fraser

About Heather: Heather Fraser has given up all professional titles, labels, definitions, and any illusions of specialness of who she thinks she is. She now lives in a state of what she likes to call The Beauty of Being, where she is transforming and empowering lives through the art and practice of simply being one with life.

You can contact Heather through her website at www.sacredscribe.com

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Copyright 2011 Heather Fraser — www.sacredscribe.com You may make
copies of these articles and distribute in any media as long as you change nothing,
credit the author, and include this copyright notice and website address.

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