Welcome,
And I hope that each one of you will come to find peace within yourself.
Today,
I'd like to talk a little bit about letting go.
It's such a hard thing for most of us to do,
And yet doing so will change your life.
In order to find peace within yourself,
You need to make your life more tranquil and more joyful.
Our lives are filled with too much stuff,
And we are constantly hurrying from one thing to the next.
That causes us to have too much stress,
Because our lives are overloaded and overwhelmed with things to do and places to be.
We all need to learn how to tone it down.
On top of all that,
We do everything in a rush,
Hustling and bustling no matter what we're doing,
And then we fuel ourselves with a flood of caffeine in our coffee,
Tea,
Soda,
And energy drinks.
We have too much anxiety because we're constantly rushing,
Constantly moving,
Constantly stressed.
And adding to the confusion,
We have a plethora of machines vying for our attention.
Our smartphones beep and tweak and blink,
As do our computers,
Printers,
And fax machines.
And even when you're trying to calmly sit and do something,
You're interrupted by things popping up to remind you of something else you need to do.
What we need to do,
Just for a moment,
Is ignore all of it and just sit quietly.
Silence all your devices.
Put your phone on do not disturb and just notice the silence.
In this moment,
You don't need to do anything.
There is nothing you have to do and nowhere you need to go.
No place to be other than here.
This,
Here,
Now,
This moment is for you.
Thoughts may bounce around in your head in a never-ending stream,
But those thoughts are nothing but a distraction.
Let them go.
Just let them pass away.
For now,
Put the world on pause and you'll resume it soon enough,
But this moment is yours.
Silence your phone and your computer or tablet.
Find a place where you can just be.
Close your eyes now and let's get in touch with our breath.
It doesn't matter if you're sitting,
Lying down or standing.
Remember this present moment is all there is and this moment is yours.
Let's scan our body as we begin to relax.
Relax your neck and your shoulders.
Relax your jaw.
Stretch out your arms and your hands.
Let them relax.
Let go of any tension in your chest or your belly.
Let go of any tension in your legs or feet.
And as you begin to relax,
Let's start to focus even more on our breath.
Inhale slowly and then gently exhale and notice where you feel the breath and the movement of your chest and belly as it moves in through your nostrils.
Don't force anything.
Just breathe at your normal pace,
Your breath moving in and moving out.
Thoughts are a part of us.
They're part of our world,
But you needn't concern yourself with them in this moment.
We'll get back to the real world in a moment.
But for now,
It's just you and your breath.
If you hear sounds in the room,
Just let them go as well.
Your breath moving slowly in and slowly out is all you need to hear.
Getting in touch with your breath on a regular basis can have a powerful effect on your life.
Now while you continue to breathe,
I want to share with you a poem by Nelson Mandela called Letting Go.
He says,
To let go doesn't mean to stop caring.
It means I can't do it for someone else.
To let go is not to cut myself off.
It is the realization that I can't control another.
To let go is not to enable,
But to allow learning from natural consequences.
To let go is to admit powerlessness,
Which means the outcome is not in my hands.
To let go is not to try to change or blame another.
I can only change myself.
To let go is not to care for,
But to care about.
To let go is not to fix,
But to be supportive.
To let go is not to judge,
But to allow another to be a human being.
To let go is not to be in the middle arranging outcomes,
But to allow others to affect their own outcomes.
To let go is not to be protective,
It is to permit another to face reality.
To let go is not to deny,
But to accept.
To let go is not to nag,
Scold,
Or argue,
But to search out my own shortcomings and to correct them.
To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires,
But to take each day as it comes and to cherish the moment.
To let go is not to criticize and regulate anyone,
But to try to become what I dream I can be.
To let go is not to regret the past,
But to grow and live for the future.
To let go is to fear less and love more.
I think he described letting go so beautifully.
When we truly let go,
We learn to accept what is and what we are,
Without judgment.
To let go is to make the most of each and every day,
To see ourselves as we are and to see everyone else as they are.
Each time you let go,
The next time gets a little easier,
Just breathing in and breathing out.
When we're able to let go and start accepting things as they are instead of how we'd like them to be,
We find that we'll suffer less stress.
We have to let go of things from our past.
We have to let go of our attachment to things.
By letting go,
You set yourself free.
When I had my third stroke,
I was in a very bad place mentally.
While I was in the hospital,
I asked if I could see a psychiatrist.
This doctor came to my room and we talked.
And I talked about my upset at my left side being paralyzed,
By my upset with how that affected my guitar playing.
I talked about how I was embarrassed to have to drag myself around with a cane in front of my young daughters.
I went on and on about how this illness had taken so much for me.
And then this doctor looked at me and he said the words that I have never forgotten.
He said,
I think you're spending too much time thinking about all the things you've lost and not spending near enough time thinking about all the things you still have.
Your life,
Your mind,
Your daughters,
Your family,
Your friends.
And in that moment,
I realized that he was right.
I had to let go of all those things because I could not change any of it.
What I could change was how I looked at my life and all that I had.
Too often,
I think we hold on to things that do not serve us.
We cling to things.
We cling to the past.
We cling to a memory when all we really need to do is let go.
Now,
As we come to a close,
Take in a breath through your nose and blow it out through your mouth,
Letting out a sigh.
Each one of us has the power to let go.
Just get in touch with your breath and live in this moment.
I hope this has been a beneficial and calming session.
Till next time.
