I know I’ve mentioned this before, in fact, I’m possibly repeating myself almost verbatim here. I have a hard time letting go.
“Holding anger is a poison…It eats you from inside…We think that by hating someone we hurt them…But hatred is a curved blade…and the harm we do to others…we also do to ourselves.”
~ Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Okay, that’s an understatement, it is exceedingly difficult for me to back up and see the bigger picture, to let go of unhealthy attachments, to stop dwelling on things, to stop feeding myself on negative energy. Why? I don’t know. Maybe I was dropped too many times as a baby. Maybe I smoked too much in school. Maybe there is a voodoo doll somewhere that looks like me. At this point it doesn’t matter why, it just is. The same way the grass is green and sky is blue. It doesn’t matter why the grass is green, it already is, might as well just accept it and move on.
Accept it and move on.
Every day I struggle with this. Some days it is easier. Sometimes I feel like I have made huge strides, only to then realize that my fists are clenched about something totally outside my control; something that is over and done with or something that was said long ago. This is a pointless waste of energy and a huge amount of negative emotion polluting me, and so I try to “wake up” and take steps to stop it.
Letting go of attachments is good for me. I am learning to not be the glass. Reducing the negative thoughts, the clutter and waste in my daily life is like a breath of fresh air, like swimming from the depths of a murky lake to the surface, those last couple of seconds before my face breaks through and meets the sun.
This morning I was running and, as is frequently the case, my thoughts turned to some of the things that keep me up at night. It’s fairly predictable, my brain at 5 in the morning. 😛 But after a minute or two I said to myself “why the fuck are you doing this? What the hell will it ever solve?” (I use rather coarse language when I talk to myself, in case you can’t tell). It’s true – I get nowhere. The same old stories, the same old patterns, the same old lies, the same old bitterness about things that were lost, running over the same old ground. So after my WTF? moment, I shook my head and just let it go, like breadcrumbs on the trail. I was then able to enjoy the morning, and my run, much more.
Footsteps, one after another. Breathe. Breathe some more. Keep moving. Push myself. These are good things. Not all that other shit.
