What can I release? What is it that I am carrying around that I no longer need and can let go of?Not just the material things, but the beliefs that I have that are worn out. Just there for the sake of habit. Thoughts that I revert to because they have always been there.
I am feeling a need to lighten the load.
If I took those ideas, beliefs, possessions and put them out on the street like the ladies in Peru, who would want them? Who would place a value on them and think them worthy of having them for themselves?
Would I even want to expose them. Would I rather keep them wrapped up in the illusion of being important... or is it just that they are so familiar that I hold them sacred.
When do they become burdens? When our shoulders become heavy and slouch, feeling as if we are carrying the weight of the world.
I wish to stand straight and tall, free from heaviness and attachment, with my shoulders back and my heart open.
When we become care-takers of so much stuff, it takes a lot of our time and attention.
We dust off our possessions as well as our thoughts. Maintaining it all by washing and drying, watering the plants, change the oil, check the brakes, defragment your computer, clean out the refrigerator, wash the windows...
Are my ideas workable? What value do they hold for myself and others? How can I improve my income? my relationships? my spiritual life?
We carry it all. Sometimes we are lucky enough to share it with someone.
But how much is too much? When do we know we have reached our limit - gone past that point of having so much- that we cannot keep up with maintaining it all.
I want to appreciate what I have, not begrudge the fact that I have another thing added to my list in a long day of responsibilites and obligations.
So, what do I let go of? What do I release?
Needless worry. Clothes I will not ever wear again. (Even if I think I will recycle the fabric)
As I look around, I see things from my past that hold sentiment and I will not release those. An old wooden music toy that Jake had when he was 2 or 3. Lots of books, some of which I can let go of. Objects gathered for various reasons - these will stay. They are comforting.
More important to let go of are worn out ways of thinking. Unconscious patterns of behavior. Judgements. Old beliefs that have been inherited by our ancestors, carrying them with us even if they hold no meaning for us.
I wonder if we, humanity as a whole, let go of our excessiveness, would come to appreciate the simple things more. Walk on the earth. (leave your car at home) Have face to face conversations. (leave your cell phone home) Listen to each other with an open heart. (without television interruption.)
Could we, would we lay our wares out for all to see? What are we willing to release, to let go of? What are we willing to expose?
1 comment:
I think you and I brought this back
from Peru, because I am feeling and
thinking along the same lines. For me wanting more, buying more, doing more, learning more, more, more, more!...is a habit. A habit which keeps me enslaved to looking after all of it, enmeshed in worry about both time and money, instead of living joyously. How can we be grounded living like that?
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