Letting Go

"My attempts to relax on a massage table have at times been so poor that they have induced cramp..."

On a recent trip to Frankfurt I found myself in the middle of an exhibition of the sleekest and, dare I say most efficient, Germanic interior design and happened upon a Yoga/meditation themed room. Beautiful in its clinical way, mixing the esoteric with the feel of modern dentistry, the salesperson was leading a small but enthusiastic group meditation. Excuse the stereo-typing but the brutal instructional tones of the heavily accented German seemed, to my ears at least, a huge barrier to Nirvana. "YOU VILL RELAX" "YOU ARE LETTING GO OF ZIS REALITY". 

I don't know about you but someone telling me to relax and let go immediately puts me on a red alert.

I haven't done a lot of body building and certainly have never been in a body building competition, but apparently holding a pose is hugely demanding as it requires tensing muscle groups all over the body simultaneously. However, were I to enter the mysterious world of fake tans and sequined posing pouches I am certain that I could easily achieve all over muscular tension simply by getting a therapist to implore me to relax and let go.

My attempts to relax on a massage table have at times been so poor that they have induced cramp, and, although I have been guilty of it many times myself, when someone urges me in a soothing voice to let go it has a similar effect, as my subconscious reasons that if the holding on is that important it better strengthen its grip.

If any of you have shared my difficulty in letting go may I suggest colonic irrigation. That is an experience of true letting go in the face of desperate holding on, made all the more cathartic by the presence of an observer giving a blow by blow account!

Let go of the idea before the thing

When being advised to let go, as we often are, it is nearly always presented as an action involving something or someone. For example let go of that relationship or job, or move out of that house. But underlying the suggested action is always an idea. Our "problems" start when reality does not correspond to our idea of how it should be.

The real power we hold, arguably the only power, is to let go of our idea of how things should be and then choose from that perspective, as opposed to continuing to argue from the idea's point of view. The choice will often be the same but will hold greater power. It's like pulling the roots of a weed rather than just breaking the stem.

The biggest strain in so many relationships is less the two people involved and more those two peoples' ideas of how that relationship should be. The people might love each other dearly but their ideas are at war! To let go of that relationship might be the perfect thing to do, but without an awareness of the ideas about relationship and where they come from there is a good chance that the pattern repeat with another person.

Until we reach a certain degree of conscious awareness our ideas are invariably inherited from family and society, and when adhered to for long periods of time become our beliefs as to how the world should look. It is a bizarre thought that the problem in most relationships is our parent's ideas not agreeing with our partners' parent's ideas as to how the relationship should work. Too often the essential resonance which sparked a relationship is lost in an unconscious film of bad Mother-in-Law jokes!

This extends to our relationships with everything, not just people.

One which took me a long time to recognise and let go of is my realtionship with wood. Yep, wood.

My Dad was an engineer and all round handyman. He could craft all sorts of things from off-cuts and rubbish or anything really, and we would often stop the car as he spotted a "beautiful piece of mahogany" in a rubbish pile and I would guiltily "re-claim" it for him. Now I don't know one end of a hammer from the other but could I ever throw out a piece of wood? My garage was full of "it might be useful one day" pieces of wood until I saw that I was carrying my Dad's idea around. Nothing wrong with that, just useful to be aware of before I make any life changing wood based decisions. Just clearing the garage (which I did frequently) without being aware of the pattern would have been missing the point.

I have watched a friend jump from job to job. He held a belief that bosses were exploiting their workers and living off the graft of others. However much evidence was presented to contradict this belief and even when he found himself in managerial roles, he just couldn't "allow himself to be exploited" and would, in a self sabotaging pattern, leave perfectly good jobs, only to find himself back at square one with another different "self-serving" boss. The truth is that the belief isn't even his own but his Father's who, as a life long trade unionist, may (or may not) have had a point in his day. To find peace at work my friend needs to at least look at reality rather than believing his Dad's idea and draw his own conclusions.

Then relax

There is incredible power in letting go of our idea of how it should be as it allows us to look at things as they really are. This invariably results in our systems relaxing into that reality and our choices come from a very different space. Eventually as we learn to trust the intelligence which is guiding us and relax into its nurturing hand we find a space of no choice as the Truth is ever present and ever obvious.

I haven't had cramp in a while and feel no need for a colonic but have bought several German meditation CDs. We will see about the body building later.

Much love

Bill