Welcome to this practice.
Before we begin,
I want you to know that you don't need to arrive here in a particular state.
You don't need to be calm already.
You don't need to have had a good day or to have left your worries at the door.
You can bring all of it with you.
Whatever you're carrying right now,
You're allowed to carry it in here.
Find a comfortable position,
Sitting or lying down,
Wherever your body wants to be.
Let the surface beneath you take your weight completely.
Feel how it meets you,
Holds you,
Asks nothing of you in return.
And let your eyes close,
Gently,
Without effort.
Take a long,
Slow breath in through your nose.
Let it travel all the way down into your chest,
Into your belly.
And then release it fully,
All the way out,
Nothing held back.
And again,
Breathing in slowly.
And breathing out completely.
And once more,
A deep breath in,
In your own rhythm,
And a long,
Full breath out.
Let your shoulders be soft.
Let your hands rest open.
Let your face be easy.
And bring your awareness to your whole body.
Not to change anything,
Just to notice.
Start at the crown of your head.
And let your attention move downwards,
Slowly.
Slowly,
Like warm water.
Your scalp.
Your forehead.
The tiny muscles around your eyes.
Your jaw.
Probably been working hard today.
Let it be loose.
Your throat.
Your neck and shoulders.
If there is tension here,
You don't need to force it or will it away.
Just notice it.
Hello,
I see you.
No problem.
Your chest.
Feel it rise and fall with each breath.
Your ribcage expanding to make room and releasing.
Making room and releasing.
There is a wisdom in that rhythm.
Your body already knows how to let go.
It has been practicing with every single breath.
Your belly.
Your lower back.
Your hips.
All of it softening,
Just a little,
With each exhale.
The strong,
Hard working muscles of your legs.
Your joints and your feet.
All the way to the ends of your toes.
Your whole body breathing and present and here.
There are things we hold.
All of us.
Things we've been carrying so long we've forgotten they're there.
Old grief and old fear.
Expectations that were never ours to begin with.
The weight of things we can't control.
Things we can't fix.
Things that are not and never were our responsibility to solve.
We hold these things because we learned to.
Because somewhere along the way it felt safer to grip than to release.
Because letting go felt dangerous.
Or like giving up.
Or like losing something important.
But today I want to offer you a different understanding of what it means to let go.
Letting go is not abandonment.
It is not defeat.
It is not pretending things don't matter.
Letting go is the tide going out.
And the tide always,
Always comes back in.
Imagine now that you are standing at the edge of the sea.
It doesn't matter whether you've been to the ocean recently or not.
Let your mind find it anyway.
The smell of it.
The salt.
Something ancient and completely itself.
The sound of it.
Waves arriving and retreating as steady as a heartbeat.
The light is soft here.
It might be early morning.
Or late evening.
Or the long golden hour before evening.
The kind of light that makes everything feel a little more possible.
Feel the sand beneath your feet.
Cool and firm where the tide has been.
Feel it give slightly with each step.
A particular sound of tiny grains moving beneath your toes.
Stand at the edge of the water.
Let the foam just reach your feet.
Feel the cold rush of it.
And then feel it pull back.
Drawing back across the sand with a sound like a long exhale.
Stand and watch the tide for a moment.
Just watch it.
It comes in.
It goes out.
It doesn't force itself.
It doesn't grip the shore and refuse to leave.
It arrives fully.
Completely.
And then it releases.
And then it arrives again.
This is what the sea knows that sometimes we forget.
That release and return are the same motion.
That letting go is not the end of something.
It is just the tide going out.
Making space for what comes next.
I want you to think now of something you've been holding.
You don't have to name it out loud.
You don't even have to look at it directly if that feels like too much.
Just let it be present at the edges of your awareness.
A weight you've been carrying.
A worry that has become a fixture.
A feeling you've been afraid to let move.
And as the next wave draws back from the shore,
Pulling the water back out to sea with that long,
Familiar sound,
Imagine that thing going with it.
Not forced.
Not wrenched away from you.
Just gently.
Like the tide taking what it finds at the shoreline.
Rolling it back.
Back into the deep where it can dissolve.
You don't have to hold it anymore.
The ocean is large enough to take it.
The ocean has been taking things since long before you were here and releasing them and taking them again.
It knows what to do with what you give it.
Watch the wave go out.
Feel the exhale of it.
And if you weren't quite able to let it go,
That's okay.
Another wave is coming.
Feel it coming in.
Fresh and clean.
Always returning.
You can let go of anything you want.
At any time.
You're not losing anything that was truly yours.
You're only releasing what was never yours to carry alone.
Let these words move through you now.
Repeat them silently or simply let them land.
I release what is no longer mine to carry.
I trust the tide to take what I no longer need.
I let go with gentleness,
Not force.
In releasing,
I make room for what is coming.
Breathe and let them settle.
I release what is no longer mine to carry.
I trust the tide to take what I no longer need.
I let go with gentleness,
Not force.
I let go with gentleness,
Not force.
In releasing,
I make room for what is coming.
As you stand there,
Here is something I want you to hear.
Not as a spiritual idea,
But as something your nervous system can understand.
When we hold on to things,
When we grip and brace and refuse to let go,
It is almost always because some part of us believes that if we stop holding on,
Everything will fall apart.
That we are the thing holding it all together.
That our worry is what's preventing disaster.
That our vigilance is the only thing standing between now and catastrophe.
But worry is not a safety net.
Bracing is not protection.
Holding on to what is already past does not change what happened,
And holding on to what might happen does not prevent it.
It does.
What holding on does do is keep you unavailable.
Unavailable to what is actually here,
Right now,
In front of you.
The good things that are already present.
The support that is already there.
The beauty that is happening,
Whether you notice it or not.
The tide does not worry about whether it should go out.
It simply goes,
And it simply returns,
Because that is its nature.
And returning,
Arriving fresh,
Is every bit as much a part of its nature as the leaving.
Your nature is not to hold everything.
Your nature is to breathe.
To release.
To receive.
To breathe again.
So let's practice that now.
Feel yourself back there on the shoreline.
Feel the sand.
And hear the water.
And imagine yourself walking a little closer to the edge.
Close enough that the next wave reaches your ankles.
Feel the cold rush of it.
Real and alive.
And as it pulls back,
Go with it in your imagination.
Not all the way out to sea,
Just a little.
Just enough to feel yourself in the water.
Safely.
You can anchor yourself if you want.
You can put yourself on an inflatable ring.
On an inner tube.
Allow yourself to be floating safely.
The sea taking your weight completely.
The way the ground always does.
The way support always does when we allow it.
Let the water hold you.
Feel the gentle rock of it.
The rise and fall.
Feel your body moving with it rather than against it.
This is surrender,
Not defeat.
This is not giving up.
Just the willingness to be held.
To stop fighting the current.
And trust that the water knows where it's going.
Float here for a moment.
Breathing and held.
Released from the effort of holding yourself upright.
Let these words move through you.
I surrender what I cannot control.
I am held even when I cannot feel it.
I trust the movement of my life.
I am not required to hold everything together.
Letting go is not giving up.
Letting go is making space.
I surrender what I cannot control.
I am held even when I cannot feel it.
I trust the movement of my life.
I am not required to hold everything together.
Letting go is not giving up.
Letting go is making space.
And these final words.
Slowly,
One breath for each.
The tide always returns.
Breathe.
What is meant for me cannot be washed away.
Breathe.
I release with trust and I release with confidence.
I receive with openness.
I am someone who knows how to let go.
The tide always returns.
What is meant for me cannot be washed away.
I release with trust and I receive with openness.
I am someone who knows how to let go.
Rest here for a moment.
In the water or back on the shore.
Wherever feels right.
Let the sound of the waves continue around you.
The rhythm that has been going since long before you arrived here.
And will continue long after.
Something so much larger than any single worry.
Any single weight.
Any single thing you have been carrying.
You are part of something that knows what it's doing.
Even when you don't.
Begin now to bring your awareness back into the room.
Feel the physical weight of your body again.
The surface beneath you.
Real and present.
Gently move your fingers,
Your toes.
Take a deeper breath and let it fully out.
Gently let your eyes begin to open.
And as they do,
Bring something back from the shore.
It could be just the image of the ocean.
It could be a shell you put in your pocket.
Or it could just be the memory of what it is to float and be held.
To let the water take something from you.
And trust it to bring the next wave in.
That knowledge is yours.
You can return to it any time the holding becomes too much.
Just close your eyes.
Hear the tide.
And remember release and return are the same motion.
Thank you so much for sharing your space with me today.
Have a wonderful day.
