Pre-New Year Postie
It's She again! I just wanted to let everyone know how much I've enjoyed hosting JBC this week! It's been a real pleasure. I wanted to leave you all with a valuable lesson I've learned over the past 2 days.
While the holiday season is a great joy to me, it also is a time of sadness in my life due to past memories. I think a lot of us feel this way. Although we enjoy celebrating the holiday season, memories of lost family and friends or memories of sad times can creep in through the festivities. I was having one such day yesterday, and this morning, I was in for a big surprise! My boyfriend stopped by my house this morning bearing flowers, a teddy bear, coffee, breakfast, and a note he'd printed online. Everything was wonderful, but the message inside the note was what I really needed to hear. I thought I'd share it with all of you as the new year approaches. It's all about letting go of the past and looking onward to a bright future. So, as we look forward to what's the come in 2008, let's leave some of our sad memories behind and start anew. Let's create positivity in our art next year!
"There is tremendous freedom in letting go. It is liberation to free ourselves of things that clutter our lives; too many possessions, useless emotions, unhealthy habits, old beliefs, even people that drain our energy. All of these things and more can weigh us down. Every once in awhile it's good to "clean out our closets" literally and figuratively.
Like pruning dead branches or like a snake shedding an old skin, we need to let go of the what no longer serves or what no longer fits, so that there is room for something new, alive, and what is needed at this time in our lives. Yet, we are a possessive society. We often hold on to things, feelings, and relationships out of habit or, many times, out of fear of being without. For so much of learning to let go is about learning to trust. We have to be able to trust that, indeed, new branches will grow, that there is a new skin under the old one. And yet, to the degree that we are willing to let go, we are able to receive. When we stop holding on and clinging to anything, we realize we have everything.
For in reality, we really own nothing. Certainly, we don't own people. Our spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, children are not really "ours." Even if we own the title to our house or car, such possessions can be gone in a moment, taken by a natural disaster, an accident, or financial circumstances. Native Americans could not grasp the European concept of "owning" land, anymore than one can own the sky. For everything belongs to the universe, as even we do. When we allow ourselves to rethink our sense of "ownership," it is easier to let go. We no longer need to feel burdened by the responsibility of having to hold on to something. Rethink the value of a prized book collection, a coveted job, and feelings for an old flame. Perhaps it isn't necessary to physically get rid of something, but letting go of the power that a person, ideology, or material object possesses is truly freeing."
