Just Let Go

Ever heard this little piece of advice?  I’ve heard it over, and over again, and continue to hear it every time I am struggling with a problem I can’t resolve.  Just let go.  Just let go.  It’s like an echo reverberating in a canyon that repeatedly bounces off the walls of my resistance, refusing to be silenced.

 But, just because I hear It, that doesn’t mean I can apply it.  After all, like most alcoholics and addicts, I am a remedial learner. Yes, I understand the concept when I am able to look at it from a cerebral perspective.  But, if my emotions are all tangled up in whatever it is, forget it.  It’s like being strangled by the snarled, twisted roots of a giant tree, as they creep their way across the surface of my sanity. I can’t see the exit sign.  I become a  prisoner to the problem that holds me captive.

 How do I let go of someone or something that I happen to be so deeply invested in?  Would I be abandoning a loved one?  Or running from a situation whose only solution is written in the indelible ink that spells out my pseudonym; the fixer.

 And when should I do it?  Once I’m backed into a corner?   After the problem has beaten me to a pulp and I am struggling to my feet, hoping round thirteen will be the magic number;  deaf to the bell that has already announced my defeat?

 For me, letting go, always conjured up a vision of Tarzan making his way through the jungle, swinging in perfect rhythm, from vine to vine, hand over hand, safe in the knowledge that his mode of travel would never come to an abrupt end because he always had that next vine to hold on to.

 Then one day, when I was really grappling with an issue that was driving me mad, and I was reflecting on that jungle scenario, I asked myself, where is my vine?   And while I was pondering that mystery,  I happened to glance down at the latest issue of one of my favorite magazines laying on the coffee table.  It was flipped open to an article titled, Implementing your Faith. It was not an article that I would normally be drawn to as I am not exactly religious.  I do, however, have a Spiritual connection to something greater than myself.  And in the course of reading that brief article, I came to the realization that I was experiencing what some refer to as a God moment.

That was it, the lightbulb finally went off, and I was nearly blinded by its simplicity. Tarzan never truly let go without grabbing hold of his lifeline.  And we are never urged to simply let go;  but rather to let go and let God.  Difficult as that may be, today when I have given that problem my all, and I am forced to let go, like Tarzan, I instinctively reach for my lifeline and invite God in to resolve the matter.  And before I know it, I am in sync with my buddy, Tarzan, flying through life’s jungle.