In today's Joy Work lesson we will reflect on the creative protection that comes from letting go.
Especially when we are writing about very personal things we can have a tendency to cling to the past,
To old wounds,
To our stories about what happened.
But if we can reframe how we see the past we can be granted the creative gift of letting go.
I once had a client whose husband had died over a year before and she still had his cigars in the freezer.
She still had his belts in the closet.
She still saw his books on the bookshelves.
I spoke to her about the need to let go.
I told her as gently as I could that every time she saw his possessions in the house she was allowing her energy to be dragged back into the past.
She was avoiding the necessary grief that needed to take place if she was to claim her life in a new way.
Yes there are lovely mementos we want to keep when someone is gone but I'm not talking about those.
I mean the objects that you know deep down inside are ways of tricking yourself into not facing the loss.
This woman came to me for writing coaching and you wouldn't automatically think that writing has anything to do with cigars and belts but it does.
Writing brings meaning to our lives so does love.
Sometimes we cling to the past because we fear the meaninglessness that comes with letting go but in order to birth anything in this world there must be a separation a cutting of the cord the empty place where life once grew.
The good news in all of this is that letting go is a creative act.
In the tender vulnerability of loss we touch the bruises within our spirits that allow us to express the fragility and beauty of life and this is your gift to others.
The expressions of our lives are not just for us alone they are meant to be shared.
They teach and guide and comfort and enlighten others on their own paths of loss and recovery and in this way we continue the cycle of regeneration and meaning-making in the world.
What can you let go of today?
Let's journal about this now.
I'll set a timer so that we can dive in knowing that I'll be with you as we write together.
What can you let go in order to protect your present self from the ghosts of the past and allow yourself to be fully creative in the present?
Begin.
You you you you you you Good.
Finish the phrase you're writing now.
Very nice.
Put your journal to the side.
This week try reflecting on what you've written about today.
Try letting go.
When the impulse to cling to an old way comes up let yourself dive into it.
Feel it fully.
Like a newborn baby let yourself cry as loud as you want in the shock of this separation from what has been holding you back.
Let it speak to you and speak back to it.
Let your voice help create a new life for yourself.
Put words on it.
Put those words on paper.
Your grief about what is over or the time that won't return is a sign that you are no longer clinging to the past but allowing your creative gifts to be of service in this fragile and lovely world.
We will end today with a song that sings about letting go of the grip of paralysis that the past can have over us.
You might want to move or dance to bring movement and flow to your body as you listen to this song or simply sit and let yourself feel.
Oh Allow me to get up here in the morning This isiggly moves Raise your hands and I turned my anger against myself,
Cause somehow I survived I'll rule free from your shackles,
When I finally realize That you were twice as broken and much more paralyzed Yeah,
You were twice as broken and much more paralyzed Yeah,
You were twice as broken and much more paralyzed
