A MEDITATION ON LETTING GO
My eldest daughter is growing up. And I’m not ready for it. No longer are there cuddles and kisses, but pimples and mood swings. And the more I try to hold on to our connection; to show her how much I love her, the more she pulls away. But I realise I’m clinging to who she was and not embracing who she is becoming and who she is right now.
So I need to do some letting go.
I need to release my expectations of who she is. Release her from being my baby to being her own person.
And this meditation is the one to do it.
This meditation is a practice of letting go. Of releasing thoughts and feelings. Not trying to change them, or prevent them from arising, but recognising them, and freeing them up to pass on by as they naturally would.
Let’s first begin with our day.
Releasing the breath, slowly and mindfully.
Releasing the belly. And any tension we’re holding in our body.
Releasing the notion of time – at least for the next little while anyway.
Releasing expectations of what kind of meditation this is going to be.
Releasing judgements of people and things we’ve held throughout this day.
Releasing thoughts before they dance their way into daydreams.
And as we let go of all these things, layer by layer, we might feel a weight lift and a lightness to our being… which we can also detect by the quality of our breath. That free-flowing, refined breath that requires no effort and signals that we are no longer grasping or resisting, but accepting all of reality; all of who we are and of who others are in this very moment.
So take a few more moments to practice this release. Thinking about specific things or people you’re holding onto. About circumstances you wish could be different but aren’t. Let them go. However that presents for you. A mental image. A phrase. Or a combination of both. Let them go. Release them.
And as this moment, too, passes and our attention gets diverted elsewhere; to thoughts, to sounds, to body aches and pains, once again we can return to our breath and to the practice of letting go.
Acknowledging and releasing; accepting and freeing, with every inhalation and every exhalation.
We’ll now head into silent meditation. Continue with this practice if it feels good for you; and use the breath as your anchor to the present.
Enjoy.
