As I logged on to write this post, I realized that I never hit the ‘Publish’ button for the post I wrote yesterday. I wrote the post after a long, grueling day at the ballpark (Cubs 10, Pirates 1), followed by an actually long (though not really that grueling) evening cooking food for our grab-and-go weekday lunches. I was tired.

Today, it seems fitting that I forgot to publish the post. As I fell asleep last night and when I woke up this morning, I was thinking about Letting Go.

Letting Go of …

As in letting go of perfectionism. Letting go of self-doubt. Letting go of caring about other people’s opinions. Letting go of our expectations of what “should” happen in our lives and relaxing into what is.

How would life feel if we didn’t hold onto these things? What new things would we try? How much more quickly would we jump up after we fall down? How much more often would we laugh?

Have you ever seen a small child trying something new, like walking? They don’t judge themselves for falling. They may cry for a moment if there’s pain - but it doesn’t last. They try, they fall, they get up, they try again.

And mostly they smile. They laugh.

Choosing Again

While I believe our environments do matter, I also believe that, in the end, we are the only ones who can choose our responses to our environments.

Buddhists have a saying, “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” How often do our problems (or perceived problems) come down to taking our pain and turning it into suffering?

It’s easy and sometimes convenient to say “I can’t feel better unless you change.” But that disempowers us, leaves us stuck as victims. If you could choose again - if you could choose joy and peace instead of suffering - would you?

That doesn’t require denying pain. But it does require a refusal to use our pain as a reason for suffering.

The Choice of Suffering

As this idea of Letting Go was rolling around in my head last night, I fell asleep. As I slept, I had a disturbing dream. In this dream, I came across a woman who had been folded upon herself, limb by limb, until she was crushed into a tiny compartment screwed on to the back of a vehicle. The plexiglass box she had been stuffed into by her tormenters was no bigger than two feet by two feet.

Fortunately, I was able to intervene. I rushed forward and released the woman from her tiny prison. I offered her a kayak in which she could paddle safely away from danger.

But then she did something astonishing. Examining the situation, she calmly but sadly declined the kayak. I don’t think I can get away, she said. I’m going to have to stay here.

I was dumbfounded. I could see that there was nothing preventing her from paddling swiftly away. I could see no reason for her to continue to suffer. Only she saw the reasons.

Cutting Ourselves Some Slack

At least when it comes to dealing with anxiety, the first step may be what I was contemplating last night and this morning - being willing to Let Go.

And the first step of Letting Go may be to cut ourselves some slack. We’re not supposed to be perfect. And by the way - the people around us aren’t either.

If we start by having compassion for ourselves, maybe we can try, and strive, and fail, and get back up, and try again - laughing the whole way.

From this place of compassion, there’s far less to complain about. We are in control - if not of our pain, then at least of our suffering. And from this place, there’s so much more room to have compassion for others. Unlimited room. Unlimited compassion.

Looking around these days, couldn’t we all use more compassion?

Why not start with ourselves?