Part 2: Lessons from a Trip Around the Sun

Day 2 of 15

Lesson 2: Liberation is letting go

This lesson actually became a full post earlier this year, Liberation is Letting Go. I suggest you go and read that before this for context and more on why it was an important lesson.

I used to think that by holding onto people and things that it would prevent them from leaving me. In this year I learned the painful flaw in that perspective and freed myself of the mental and emotional prison it was holding me in. This was a much harder lesson to learn that is why it's number two on the list. I spent a lot of my year revisiting the idea of letting go and reminding myself that it was safe to do.

The first step was to recognize that I was holding on so tight because I had a massive fear of abandonment. Most things and people I have cared for have been fleeting and do not stay. I was convinced that if I held on and convinced those individuals that they should also be holding onto me, everything would work out and they would stay. The truth is that was the exact reason they pulled away. Between my children and the man I cared for, no one was going to stay if they didn't want to for themselves.

In learning this, I started to apply it to me life and I realized in letting them go, the people that were meant to stay because it was by their choice, came back into my life. This time it was with a deeper appreciation for who I was in theirs. I no longer had to hold onto them in order for them to stay and show up. I was liberated and at peace to let go.

Liberation was the peace I gained and freedom of clarity in my mind by letting go and allowing people in my lives to do what was best for them without expectations of my own needs. I held my boundaries, but I did so while letting go.