keep on hanging on

"set me free why dont you babe...but you keep me hanging on"

remember this tune? it reminds me of something i experienced today, and other times in my life. things i choose to hang on to tightly for dear life....that truly dont keep me moving forward. that keep my body stagnant, or keep me STUCK in a particular place. a familiar place...i suppose.

i was at a coffee shop- writing proposals. writing about interdependence and play.....and a woman struck up a convo with me. she was in her mid 60's and seemed eager to know what i was so engrossed in with my computer. "i am writing a book" i shared. "oh, what kind of book?" she asked. " a book about life coming from the inside out. depending on our own compass to guide us and not hook into our jobs, people and things to complete us.....but to view them as expressions of our own play" i answered.

silence.

i rarely talk to people about my book, but for some reason, unbeknownst to be ...i shared.

she reminded me of me at times in my life. at first i just wanted to close my computer and say i had to go, and then i chose to sit, close my computer and listen. i have been there, and certainly GET what it feels like to want to be heard. i have listened countless times to women and men talk about pain, and anger.....and i myself have experienced those times as well.

so i listened. i told her that her stories inspire me to write about it and she said "go ahead"-

and i heard more. she had been divorced from her husband for 25 years to the day. and she still hated him. she still talked about him like it was yesterday. she blamed him for all of the wrong in her life. she blamed him for all the wrong that "might" happen in her life. she blamed him for the weather, the job she lost....you name it, it was his fault. she kept hanging on to that....

and i listened. she continued to share that she wants me to write about this because noone ever does. that its time for people to get out of their anger and live, yet she did not know HOW.

she shared that her ex husband moved on- got married, yet disliked her the same amount. their exchanges were always with an ill will tone.

and i listened.

we talked....then. we talked about hanging on. for this is not about divorce. for this is not about right or wrong. consequence and vindictiveness. it is about what we choose to hang on and what we choose to let go of.

"it is so hard to let go of this. this man did all this things to me. this man does not like me. this man......etc" she said.

and we both began to cry. an hour later, here we are in a coffee shop....crying.

i understand that there are times in our play, where we are hurt. it is a part of ourexperience and i am not going to be "rosy" about it. it sucks. its painful. its hard. it is layered withour own beliefs and our own anger..... we are not taught in our society to feel things and release them. we are taught to feel things and hang on to them. and then.....we feel if we blame others, that THEY will pay for it. but the person who ends up paying the HIGH price is ourselves. our bodies began to fester illness....our minds begin to protect our hearts. we end up walking around with a prison around us, thinking that THIS is okay.

after crying with this woman. i shared with her that it is okay to not have this story anymore.

that if she chooses to let it go, she does not "lose anything"

it does not say"what you did is okay "- what it DOES SAY is "i love myself enough to not hurt me anymore with this story about you"

it does not say "i will take abuse" what it DOES SAY is " i have my own back and set clear boundaries based on love"

we have a belief in our society that forgiveness means we have lost something. that we are not justified if we choose to let our story and all we have wrapped up around it go. that in order to win, justify or make someone else "pay" we need to hold on tight to the rope and fight. retaliate. cling. resist and say the same old story day in and day out about what we feel THEY or IT is.

my question to her was simple

"how does this feel for you to live like this?"

"horrible" she said.

it does feel horrible. and feeling horrible for so many years is not living....its dying.

what keeps us hanging on? why do so many people still "dislike" their ex's after 30 years? why do so many people dislike their bosses, etc for so many years? is this comfort? or have we gotten used to clinging to blame. shifting our focus to livelihood to victimhood.

i get it. its a part of being human. but we can create a way of being human that involves no harm to ourselves. no harm.

and understand that those who we perceive as hurting us....did it. and its done.

its what we DO with it.....

thank you my coffee house friend...for choosing to let it go, and love yourself and your life more.

that is our play, my friends.

friends WITH life

i am big fan of byron katie. i have read her work for many years, but it hasnt been until recently where i am truly GETTING it. too often we want to run away from life. maybe it feels yucky. maybe it is hard. maybe it is sad. i have found that it is in these moments in particular that i am choosing to be friends with life. what are you showing me friend? what am i going to learn from this? what does it FEEL like to just FEEL it? uncomfortable? YEP. do i want to escape it at times? YEP.

but life is our friend. its asking us to play with it, not against it. to love IT unconditionally- which means especially in the "hard" times. this is the practice of being alive. for loving life unconditionally, means we are loving ourselves. we are friends with all of life, and we are friends with all of our experiences/feelings.

i notice that when times get tough, our world either wants to point blame, take sides, or escape in some way or another. i understand why. at that time, it seems "easier"- if we blame, then we are in charge. if we escape then we are not responsible.

i am curious about what happens if we choose another way. our own way.

to step into life. to step into the unknown. to accept WHAT IS and take another step from there?

i am curious....are you?