To Allow the Space to Open

One has to let go in order to leave the vacuum, the space to be open so it can be filled by what is coming next.

That is not an exact quote, but close. I heard it on Minnesota Public Radio yesterday morning where Keri Miller was interviewing a former concert flutist (or is it flautist?) who had to leave her performance career behind when she developed a major physical problem. The discussion at that point was centered on dealing with such major change in life. Dreams are gone that had been held for years. Hopes are dimmed. Successes become memories. The future becomes unknown.

What do you do? How do you cope? In this particular case she started all over again in her late 30s with a whole new career. The point was that she didn’t sit around and feel sorry for herself or spend all her time worrying about what would happen. She had to let go, she was saying, or else she would have been too filled and preoccupied with the past and what she lost for anything to happen.

Great advice. Life changes. Life happens. Life goes on. It becomes our choice whether to go with it or stay where we were. To let go and turn our face to the future instead of fixating on the past is the best way to go.

In doing so we begin to accept change and loss and grief. If we don’t, we will forever wallow in the “what could have beens” or “I wish this hadn’t happened” or just “poor me.” What a waste of our time and talents to get stuck there. Only in life today can we make a difference in ourselves and to those around us.