Learning the Lesson of Letting Go, Again.

I can't tell you how many times I have learned that I just got to let things go. Sometimes I want something so darn bad that it becomes a real burden, an obsessive mind-screw. Its true, especially, the more "it" (some sort of thing or person) fights against my desire. I know this. And I know I can find some sort of peace in my mind if I just let it go. But yet, still find myself struggling at times, grasping at thin air.

How many times have a heard that when you finally let "it" go, and finally stop struggling, and drop all that stress on your mind and spirit that you have created for yourself, then and only then, will "it" magically turn around and come easily to you.

I read about couples who have tried everything to conceive. And I mean everything. For years. The minute they stop wanting and stop struggling, "it" happened for them.

I know this, yet I keep relearning it. Just this week, in fact, it was almost laugh-able how clear it was, and how fast it came back at me.

For weeks now, I have been wanting to go so this special yoga class, Bouyancy Control: Bandhas and Arm Balancing with Guest Instructors Brock & Krista Cahill. Due to various circumstance, I haven't had the luxury to go to any special classes with visiting teachers in, hmmm, years. The class seemed perfect to challenge me, and the teachers so fascinating. I wanted it, and wanted it, and I wanted it.

The problem was that my husband was going to be out of town that weekend for a ceremony, and so I would have to get a babysitter to watch my kids for my yoga class before, and then the special workshop at another location after. Seeing as the workshop was already crazy expensive, I couldn't afford a babysitter for all of that. Not to mention me not liking to leave my 10 month old for a total of  6 hrs.

None the less, I wanted to go so bad. My mind thought and thought over all the ways I could possibly go. All the favors I could call in for free babysitting, or getting a sub for my class. But then suddenly, I grew tired of figuring out a way to make it happen. I even grew tired of my burning desire to want to go. So on the way home from yoga the other day, I just said out loud, I give up. I am just going to let it go. I finally found peace of that drive home with not going. There will be more workshops, and more wonderful yoga classes, I thought.

Upon arriving home, I mentioned to my husband that I was disappointed that I would have to miss the special workshop. "Oh," he said. And we started looking at family calendar and all the commitments. My husband causally mentioned, that by the way, that ceremony next weekend has been moved to October.

"No way," I said. "That means I can go to that yoga workshop after all!"

And I did a big leap thrusting my fist in the air and smiled like a silly doll.

Thank you, I got that lesson in letting go...again.

It is okay to want things. I remember a teacher saying, "the Dali Lama still enjoys a nice meal". But in the process of wanting, you find yourself grasping and clinging at it desperately, and find it is causing yourself a lot of extra mental chatter, or even stress, then it sounds unhealthy for you and like it is time to let it go.

In my case, I caused all the stress on myself because I wanted to make it happen. Yet, it happened anyways, whether I caused that stress to myself or not.

I ask you, dear reader, what are you wanting so bad that it is weighing down your mind and clogging spirit? What lessons lately have you learned about letting go?