This message is oft repeated.
Let go of what?
Normally, our thoughts, feelings, emotions and sensations.
But then again, you might believe you can be deprogrammed and reprogrammed all within the space of a few weeks, months or, even, instantaneously.
I’ve been there.
In the early days of my exploration with positive thinking — see “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill and other books of the same ilk — I tried like mad to reprogramme myself to think every situation an opportunity to be conquered, viewed only through the prism of an ego-deluded, positive lens. It worked up until the point that my business fell off a cliff. Or, to be more precise, my business partner lost his nerve and put our business into voluntary liquidation. At the time, it was the worst day of my life and was my first brush with suicidal thoughts.
Never mind, the good ship Summerhayes righted itself and I was back again on the success treadmill, first as a career lawyer and then, when I finally woke up to what was really going on, a legal consultant and CEO of a law firm — I only lasted two years.
Somewhere in the middle of all that thrashing and trying to reconcile the life I had with the life I thought was mine, I woke up.
You must know the drill:
“…emptiness is form
form is emptiness.” — The Heart Sutra
No, I agree. So what indeed. I still used the same name, I wore the same clothes and my language wasn’t much different.
But I felt very different. As best now as I can describe things, I felt deeply connected with life.
Yes, I read widely, employed the services of a Zen-leaning coach and attended innumerable talks but that ah-ha moment couldn’t be improved or divested of me. Looking back, this further self-enquiry was my way of challenging myself to see if my newfound sense of aliveness was another personal development hallucination or something more permanent.
And never could be.
That’s the beauty of true Self: there’s nothing to do, nowhere to go and nothing to become.
However, if, on occasion, I find myself sliding into the abyss of arguing with the present moment, something always lights the torch paper to the aliveness of now. But much like my Heart Sutra message, there’s no-thing to grasp, no matter how anxious I feel.
I realise this sounds slighly kookoo and out of kilter with real world talk, but please remember it’s my experience, not yours. I say that simply because I’m not asking you to do anything more than be you.
Sorry, that sounds so sophomoric.
You can’t be anything other than the way you are — a changing, moving, shifting, energetic expression of the Universe.
What, you mean you’re not selling anything? No, not really other than an expression of my direct experience.
Perhaps that’s where you might like to start: what’s your direct experience of letting go or whatever message you’re currently trying to understand?
If you’re able to support my work through patronage then you can either do so via Patreon or buying me a virtual coffee ☕.
If you’re interested, I offer a limited number of places for coaching clients where I ask you to consider your direct experience of life and what it means to awaken to true self.