Sometimes Letting Go Is The Best Thing You Can Do

People come into our lives in all sorts of ways. Some are born into our lives. We are born into the lives of others, thus they become part of our lives. And some walk into our lives due to the places we go and and the experiences we have. In all cases, we have to learn not only to hold on to those people we love tightly but to loosen our grip and to let go … to let them go, if necessary.

There's that old saying: "If you love something let it go ... "

I learned this lesson three weeks ago as I let my son go off to New York City. It was not his time to leave home in the traditional sense. He was entering his senior year of high school. He should have been home with me for another year attending and then graduating with the rest of his friends this June. Yet, it was his time to go … He received a wonderful opportunity to pursue his dance education that he could not pass up, nor would I want him to pass it up. (To read more about this, go to my other blog, My Son Can Dance.)

And so, he went off to The School of American Ballet and to take his last few credits of high school classes there as part of the graduating class of the Professional Performing Arts School.

And so, even though it was hard, I just had to let go. I had to let him go.

Was it easy? No. In fact, I spent the two days at home alone crying on and off. I will miss him … and his senior year. But I’ll survive and he will likely thrive. Maybe I’ll thrive, too.

I also had to let go of what I thougth his senior year should look like—and I'm sure he had to let go of that as well—as it turned out that he wouldn't even be taking classes at the high school there. We both had to let go.

Often we have relationships that aren’t good for us, yet we cling to them. Or we have relationships that aren’t growing and we know we should allow the other person (or ourselves) to grow. We just have to let go.

When our children go off to college, we have to just let go. That’s hard, too. I’ve done it. (I cried then also.) We have to allow our children to grow and become adults.

Sometimes our jobs don’t fit or make us unhappy. Or we don’t like where we live. Just let go!

Move on. Move forward. Or just let go and see what happens. See how the energy changes, the situation changes on its own when you stop clinging to it, stop hanging on to it and trying to make it work, trying to keep it the same, trying to stop someone from leaving.

How do you do this? With a great deal of faith. Have faith that if you let go it will all work out.

I have to have faith that my son will be alright in New York without me, and that he will enjoy his time, grow and learn and enjoy his new situation even if it doesn't look like a typical senior year in Los Gatos—and even if it isn't at home with his parents. I have to have faith that I will adjust to not having him home—that I will find ways to share in his last year of high school despite the fact that we live on different coasts. And I have to have faith that I will actually do well—find the extra time to myself serves me—without having any children at home one year earlier than expected.

Where in your life do you need to just let go? Try doing so now. Let me know how it goes.