The Law of Letting Go
The treasure of life is missed by those who hold on and gained by those who let go.
—Tao Te Ching, Verse 75
In nature, everything has a beginning and an end, a cycle of birth and death, decay, and renewal. For these cycles to continue unimpeded, nature needs to release the old to make way for the new. This principle, of course, is closely tied to the Law of Change. Yet the Law of Letting Go deserves as much attention because of how it shapes the universe and everything in it.
Let’s take a look.
In nature, plants that hold on to dead or dying flowers have less energy than those that quickly let go of flowers that have completed their life cycle. In the garden, dead-heading plants helps them last longer and produce even more flowers. If flowers that have finished blooming are not released, the plant no longer thrives. The energy of the plant is revitalized when the old has been released. This shows us that energy itself does not grow old; energy just gets blocked and stuffed down by any form of resistance to letting go.
Similarly, your life force, your love-power, is impacted each time you hang on to old grievances or even recent ones. It’s also affected when you hold on to people you were once in relationship with or those who have passed over. Your love-power turns into distorted power the moment you hang on to anyone or anything, even as our collective illusion convinces us that what was good should never go away. Or, that if you let go, then you have lost. Or, if you let go, then you must be unworthy, less than, or unlovable. Or, there must be something wrong with you. So, you hold on to what is ultimately siphoning off your energy, in spite of the truth.
Most people will do anything to avoid seeing the beliefs that control them. But by resisting the Law of Letting Go, they avoid looking at the illusions and beliefs they’ve built their life upon, the biggest of which is, “There must be something wrong with me if I have to let go of something that was once so good. I must have made a mistake that proves I’m unworthy.” Most of us hang on to our baggage only to begin a search for answers as to why we are unhappy. We may blame others; in fact, chances are good that we will point fingers to something or someone that is stopping us from moving on.
Relationships are one of the most difficult things to let go of. I’m not referring to the act of divorce or separation, although that may be an end result. I’m referring to letting go of the unhealthy energetic ties that we have built up with a person that we are or were in an intimate relationship with.
One of the most profound relationships of my life, and one I will always cherish, was with a man I met after my marriage fell apart. For the eight years we were together, he gave me emotional support when I was punishing myself over a failed marriage. He comforted me when I was sad or angry about yet another issue concerning my former husband—the man I spent almost two decades of my life with. But my optimistic view of the new relationship was flawed from the beginning—I resisted the truisms of the Law of Letting Go.
I had been carrying a lot of blame, anger, and guilt—mostly toward myself—for many years after my divorce. I refused to love myself, and I resisted letting go of my numerous negative beliefs about myself as a wife and mother. So, guess what I attracted? A rescuer! The classic archetypical pairing of the wounded bird (me) who meets the rescuer (him). For a while, I felt soothed by the resurrected belief that I was loveable, and he felt temporarily worthwhile because he could help someone in need. The dynamic played out for years. I felt trapped by my circumstances, stuck in victim mode, and only accepted help that didn’t really move me forward. Then things really went sour. I became increasingly unhappy, pointing the finger outward, and he felt resentment that he was not being acknowledged for his assistance, which then turned into passive-aggressive behavior. We both wondered, “Why can’t they be more like me?” No surprise how it ended.
By resisting the Law of Letting Go, both of us were not stepping into new opportunities to grow and live our full potential. Our energies were invested in hanging on to our unhealthy needs and our ego desires to protect ourselves from not being enough. Most people stay in this kind of resistance and hang on to old habits, behaviors, circumstances, and relationships for years, if not decades. But true influence can’t happen when we resist letting go, in any areas of our lives. Others sense that we’re not living our authentic truth, not genuinely present.
What do you need to release? What are you hanging on to that no longer serves you? What power struggle are you engaged in that drives you to stay exactly where you are as you store all your mental and emotional baggage of the past? How does the way in which you see the world distort your natural and pure love? The Buddha said that we see through the eyes of fear, and this perspective becomes so real that we forget we are living an illusion. The minute we are trapped by the illusion of fear and the needs of the ego, we buy into the illusion, and it becomes seemingly impossible to let go, surrender, and be in the flow of life that is the Tao.
The Law of the Impersonal
The Sage is like Heaven and Earth. To him, none are especially dear.
—Tao Te Ching, Verse 5
Several years ago, I had the privilege of taking human behavioral specialist Dr. John Demartini and a friend sightseeing in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, my homeland. It was a nippy spring morning, and as the hours went by, I noticed that no matter what we discussed or what we encountered that day, John was absolutely grounded in peace, stillness, and overall happiness. Even when we spoke of tragic personal events, he didn’t alter his state. I had never met anyone like him before, and I realized that he was living the Way of the Tao and embodying the Law of the Impersonal. He didn’t see any individual event as better or worse than any other. And as a result, he didn’t suffer. He put it this way, “Suffering is expecting the world to be only one way and then being surprised when it’s not.”
Nature is a great role model for us when it comes to the Law of the Impersonal. Nature does not hold anyone or anything “especially dear.” It does not give to only a few, nor does it protect just a few from tragic natural occurrences. Nature does what it does, whether it’s a fire, a flood, a tornado, or a new life. Nature simply creates and destroys. Humans are the only creatures on the planet that take every act, word, and thought personally. Most of us feel we cannot exist in an impersonal world. Even when it comes to concepts of the Divine, most of us take it personally, and that is why we suffer. Believing that if we are good, then bad things won’t happen, we are surprised to realize that no matter if our behavior is good or bad, “good” and “bad” things will happen. No one is immune. It’s not personal.
In my own life, a dear friend passed of cancer, leaving behind young children, three of my clients passed away in the past few months, and the son of a friend just died in an auto accident. It’s tempting to ask, “Why?” In our Western world, we worship our intellect as having all the answers to life. Our civilization has come up with the answers to most everything, so why not this, too? We want to know why. But it’s not personal.
Two animals died in my backyard this summer. I was shaken to see the remains of a rabbit attacked and killed by a hawk. A week later, a bird hit my front window in the early morning, and I watched it die within seconds of falling to the ground. I felt helpless. There was nothing I could do to stop it. Tears welled up in my eyes as my prayer to return this bird to life “failed.” So often, we want to control what we perceive as “not good,” even when it has to do with death, and even when we know that death is part of life. It is a natural law; all that is living will die. And yet we resist. We suffer. But it’s not personal.
Our refusal to accept the impersonal nature of life can increase our suffering and contribute to the distortion of our power. Instead of allowing ourselves to feel the emotion of sadness, we become bitter, for example. We dwell on the same unanswerable questions over and over: Why did this have to happen in my family? Why are we cursed while others are so blessed? Some give up